Director Avoids Islamic Icon in '2012' Movie

The upcoming disaster movie "2012" lays waste to many political, cultural and religious buildings and landmarks. But one Islamic icon was too sensitive to touch: the Kaaba, the cube-shaped building in the heart of Mecca, one of the holiest sites in Islam.

Director Roland Emmerich told SCI FI Wire that he wanted to include the religious site in the film, but was talked out of it. "My co-writer Harald [Kloser] said I will not have a fatwa on my head because of a movie. And he was right," he explained.

A fatwa in the Islamic faith is a religious opinion by scholar on a legal, civil, or religious matter. The term gained meaning in the Western world in 1989 when Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa calling for the death of author Salman Rushdie, whom he accused of blasphemy.

Another well-known and deadly fatwa was issued by Osama bin Laden in 1998 and called for Muslims to execute Americans and their allies, according to the Columbia Encyclopedia .

Emmerich went on to say, "We have to all in the Western world think about this. You can actually let Christian symbols fall apart, but if you would do this with [an] Arab symbol, you would have a fatwa, and that sounds a little bit like what the state of this world is.

"So it's just something which I kind of didn't [think] was [an] important element, anyway, in the film, so I kind of left it out."

Emmerich has made other popular disaster movies, including "Independence Day" (1996), "Godzilla" (1998) and "The Day After Tomorrow" (2004). These films were also filled with familiar landmarks being destroyed.

[Spoiler Alert.]

In "2012" the destruction includes the White House being overwhelmed by a huge tidal wave carrying an aircraft carrier; the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican splitting between Adam and God touching fingers; St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican falling on worshiper's heads; and the Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro toppling off its peak.

A Himalayan Buddhist temple is also destroyed.

In a recent interview, Yahoo! Movies asked the director, "Why do you like killing the world?" Emmerich responded, "It makes for a good story."

The movie blog Cinematical asked readers if they thought it was "hypocritical of Emmerich to stomp all over other religions, but give Islam a pass?" The comments were mostly on his side, noting that it was not worth the risk to offend Islam. "Man's just afraid he'd be painting a bullseye on his forehead and he's probably right. Remember what happened in Denmark over some stupid cartoons." 

In 2006 a Pakistani cleric announced a $1 million bounty for killing a cartoonist who drew the Prophet Muhammad caricatures in a Danish newspaper.