Shia scholars demand new C4 film on their faith

A group of leading Shia Muslim scholars are threatening to take their grievances about a Channel 4 documentary on the Qur'an to Ofcom, unless the broadcaster apologises to viewers and commissions a second programme on their faith.

In the Channel 4 documentary, broadcast this month, film-maker Antony Thomas explored the history of the Qur'an to launch a week of coverage about Islam.

A group of Shia Muslim scholars wrote to Channel 4 criticising the programme for making "seriously inaccurate statements" about their branch of the faith.

Yousif al-Khoei, one of the signatories of the first letter and grandson of Grand Ayatollah Sayyid Abul-Qassim al-Khoei, said that a second letter detailing the complaint was being drafted.

"We are going to handle the issue with Channel 4 directly to highlight how it managed to get such imbalances in prime-time TV," al-Khoei said. "If we don't get any joy we will point out [in a second letter] all the technical faults, mistranslations and editorialising opinion as fact."

He said that Channel 4 owed its viewers an apology and that the goal was to try and get the broadcaster to commission another programme on the subject to put across a "balanced view".

"If this doesn't happen we are going to go to Ofcom. We are pretty confident we have a case," al-Khoei added.

He said the complaint to Ofcom would be on the grounds that the documentary was "systematically misleading", "inflammatory" and "the programme promoted hatred of a minority within a minority".

Aaqil Ahmed, commissioning editor for religion and multicultural at Channel 4, defended the documentary.

"Your article is unfair to Channel 4," Ahmed said in a letter in today's Guardian. "Antony Thomas's acclaimed film was clearly labelled as a documentary about the Qur'an, not about Islamic belief. He naturally focused on the big issues of the day and assembled an unrivalled cast of experts, academics and theologians to debate the points raised, including one of the world's highest Shia authorities, Grand Ayatollah Saanei in Iran.

"[The programme] was an enormous undertaking by Antony and he rightly deserves the critical acclaim the documentary has received," Ahmed added.