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Muslims in Middle Eastern countries have been flocking to theaters to view Mel Gibson’s movie The Passion of the Christ since its Ash Wednesday release. In Qatar, Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, the United Arab Emirates and other predominantly Muslim nations, Arab newspapers report the film’s surprise box office success–success that’s thrilling Christian workers there and Christians around the world.

What’s amazing is how the movie has brought the gospel to the forefront in a region long closed to the Christian message. “Until now we have only been able to show the Jesus film in Arabic to a handful of [Muslims] in the secret of a home setting,” wrote one missionary.

“Any attempt to share the biblical message of Christ’s death and resurrection is usually considered an attempt to proselytize and is greatly discouraged by governments,” wrote a missionary in Jordan.

Missionaries in the United Arab Emirates call the opening “a miracle.” While they say they could be arrested there for handing out the Jesus film, now The Passion of the Christ is depicting the suffering, death and resurrection of Jesus openly in the nation’s theaters.

In Syria, moviegoers from all religions and backgrounds have filled theaters in Damascas and Aleppo, breaking box office records.

Although Saudi Arabia does not have public movie theaters, pirated DVD versions of the film have been “selling like hotcakes,” reported the English daily Arab News. DVDs have also appeared on the black market in Yemen and Oman, according to Operation Mobilization’s news and information services. Bootlegged DVDs are also readily available in Afghanistan and Iraq, Christians there report.

Publicity about the film’s purported anti-Semitism has attracted many Arabs who oppose Jews. In Qatar, the first Gulf nation to show the film, it opened the morning after the assassination of Hamas leader Sheikh Ahmad Yassin in Palestine at the hands of Israeli forces. Angry Arab Muslims were drawn to the movie expecting to see a strong anti-Jewish message.

Because of this intense hatred, missionaries in the Middle East say the film hit Muslim moviegoers powerfully with Christ’s message of love for his enemies. A flurry of e-mail reports from Christian workers in a closed Islamic country in the Gulf describe increased interest in the gospel.

“Today after class two of my girl students came up to me and asked, ‘Do you have the New Testament in Arabic? My friends and I all want to read it.’ Another asked where to get an Arabic Bible on the Internet,” wrote one missionary.

Another wrote, “In two short hours, more [locals] heard the gospel than I have been able to reach in nearly five years of living here. The Muslims sitting around us were being moved-gasping, crying and reacting with disgust to the brutality that Jesus faced.”

According to Christians from Iraq and Palestine, an Arabic speaker can comprehend at least 10 percent of the Aramaic spoken in the movie. Among the understandable words are key points that Muslims challenge–Jesus’ response that he is God and the Jews’ outcry to crucify him. The Qur’an teaches that Jesus wasn’t actually crucified, but that someone else was in his place.

As word spreads about the film, missionaries believe that it has the potential to reach tens of thousands of Muslims. In Lebanon, the film opened March 18 and had a record-breaking 58,337 admissions its first weekend. In Qatar, a multi-theater complex cancelled other films to show The Passion in more than one theater to keep up with demand.

The movie may have a life longer than the box office as printed transcripts make their way across the region. In Egypt, a weekly magazine printed the film’s transcript. In Syria and Jordan transcripts have also been released.

Christopher LePage is a psychology doctoral student at Wheaton College and editorial assistant for EMIS.

Dawn Herzog Jewell is editor of World Pulse.

The photos in this article were provided courtesy Tyndale. The Passion, a hardcover book with photos taken from the film and biblical narratives in the New Living Translation, is available at www.tyndale.com.