“I guess my overriding objective was just to do something good and positive for Islam,” he told Grazia’s International Beauty Editor, Kaniz Ali. “These films represent our history and our shared legacy. It just seemed so very logical to produce all three.”
There are places that seem to glow even before you arrive. Cities whose very names stir the air with something ancient and beloved. Madina is one of those places — not because of grandeur, not because of opulence, but because of presence. Of peace. Of history carried gently, reverently, like a lantern passed from one generation to the next.
So when the lights dimmed inside a Leicester Square cinema on a Tuesday evening in May, and the first sweeping aerial shots of Madina: The Enlightened City appeared onscreen, there was a hush in the room that didn’t feel performative — it felt instinctive. As if everyone knew this wasn’t just another premiere. It was, in a quiet but insistent way, a moment.
The man behind the film, British-Muslim director Abrar Hussain, doesn’t speak like a disruptor, though his work has done just that. With Madina, Hussain concludes an ambitious trilogy capturing Islam’s three holiest sites — beginning with One Day in the Haram, then One Night in Al Aqsa, and now this: Madina, the city of the Prophet, filmed for the first time in feature-length, cinematic scopeThere are places that seem to glow even before you arrive. Cities whose very names stir the air with something ancient and beloved. Madina is one of those places — not because of grandeur, not because of opulence, but because of presence. Of peace. Of history carried gently, reverently, like a lantern passed from one generation to the next.
So when the lights dimmed inside a Leicester Square cinema on a Tuesday evening in May, and the first sweeping aerial shots of Madina: The Enlightened City appeared onscreen, there was a hush in the room that didn’t feel performative — it felt instinctive. As if everyone knew this wasn’t just another premiere. It was, in a quiet but insistent way, a moment.
The man behind the film, British-Muslim director Abrar Hussain, doesn’t speak like a disruptor, though his work has done just that. With Madina, Hussain concludes an ambitious trilogy capturing Islam’s three holiest sites — beginning with One Day in the Haram, then One Night in Al Aqsa, and now this: Madina, the city of the Prophet, filmed for the first time in feature-length, cinematic scope.
“I guess my overriding objective was just to do something good and positive for Islam,” he told Grazia’s international beauty editor, Kaniz Ali. “These films represent our history and our shared legacy. It just seemed so very logical to produce all three.”
Logic may have started it. But Madina feels powered by something more — a kind of radical care. The care to tell a story not yet told. The care to craft a film for Muslim audiences that doesn’t explain itself to the West, nor flatten its beauty into digestibility. The care to show reverence, not just through subject matter, but through lens and light and sound.
Kaniz, who has visited Madina numerous times over the years, sat in the audience that night and found herself very impressed with the whole outcome.
“I’ve visited Madina countless times, but watching Madina: The Enlightened City moved me in a way I didn’t expect,” she later shared. “It captured not just the beauty but the serenity, the stillness, the connection I’ve always felt there. As an international beauty editor, I admired the production value, but as a Muslim woman, I was moved by the detailing of the blessed city of our Prophet Mohammed ( Peace Be Upon Him). A film very well executed and highly recommended to everyone who would like to understand Madinah and gage what it’s like. It was captured perfectly.”
It’s that duality — beauty and stillness, production value and prayer — that makes Madina feel less like a documentary and more like a whispered prayer. Through a careful blend of rare archival footage and crisp, modern cinematography, the film does something rare: it invites without instructing, reveals without spectacle.
There’s something deeply subversive — and deeply necessary — in that.
“Madina is more than a film about a holy city,” said Rooful Ali, CEO of the Emerald Network and one of the evening’s hosts. “Personally, I feel that it’s like a window into the heart of the global faith of Islam — a chance to see and learn like we’ve never been able to, irrespective of your faith. Films like this are essential because they foster understanding, break down perceptions, and invite us to appreciate the spiritual and cultural depth of Muslims and Islam.”
These are lofty aims, but Hussain’s execution is strikingly grounded. For years, he quietly worked behind the camera — producing faith-focused television for Islam Channel, creating content that bridged cultural divides (Faith Off, once dubbed Britain’s first interfaith game show by The Gaurdian, had the earnest optimism of a different media era). Later, he crisscrossed over 30 countries producing documentaries for humanitarian charities. His lens has always been trained on the sacred — but never from a distance.
What makes Madina resonate isn’t just its access to holy sites or its rarity as a cinematic subject. It’s the spiritual clarity behind the lens. “I didn’t really have a motto,” Hussain said, “but I did have a really good intention. To make something Muslims could be proud of — something that could hold its own in the mainstream.”
When obstacles mounted — financial, logistical, bureaucratic — he leaned on an Islamic saying he holds dear: If something is written for you, it will reach you, even if it’s beneath a mountain. If it’s not, it won’t come, even if it’s between your lips.
Faith and film are rarely spoken of in the same breath — perhaps because one is expected to entertain, and the other to transcend. But Madina shows us what happens when both are allowed to do what they do best: illuminate. Not with loudness, but with grace. Not with persuasion, but with presence.
The film ends, and the credits roll slowly. The theatre remains quiet for a beat longer than usual — people gathering their coats, blinking the softness back into their eyes. Outside, Leicester Square continues as it always does: neon, loud, unbothered. But inside, something lingers. The sense that we’ve seen something rare. A city held in light. A film made not to be consumed, but contemplated.
And that is its power.
