Dir.: Youssef Chahine; Script: Youssef Chahine, Khaled Youssef; Phot.: Mohsen Nasr; Ed.: Rachida Abdel Salam; Mus.: Kamal El Tawil, Yehia El Mougui; Cast: Nour El Cherif, Leila Eloui, Hani Salama, Khaled El Nabaoui, Mohammed Mounir, Safia El Emary, Mahmoud Hemeida, Magdi Idris; Prod.: Ognon Pictures, 14, rue Montmartre, 75001 Paris (France), tél.: 40 26 56 08, fax: 40 26 02 09; Sales: F.P.I., 5, rue Richepanse, 75008 Paris (France), tél.: 42 96 02 20, fax: 40 20 05 51 .

A Christian youth leaves 12th century France after watching his father burn at the stake during the Inquisition. Arriving in Muslim-ruled Andalusia, he seeks out the famed philosopher Averroès (Abu al-Walid Muhammad ibn Rushd) a beacon of humanistic thought and the most prominent Islamic interpreter of Aristotle. Also gathered in Averroès' school in Cordoba are the Caliph's two sons, Nasser and Abdallah. Averroès himself enjoys the favour of the Caliph, who has appointed him Grand Judge, even though the philosopher's liberal judgements in court often put the two men at odds. In his liberal interpretation of the Koran, reason and revelation come together in morality. But, partly because of the Caliph's political rivals, intolerance wins the day. Allying themselves with the leader of a fanatical Islamic sect, they induce the people into blindly obeying "God's orders", which are clearly their own. To demonstrate his own orthodoxy, the Caliph orders a fatwa against Averroès, his are burned and he is forced into exile. But it is too late to destroy his ideas. Averroès' books have been copied and taken to Egypt for safekeeping. "It's forty-seven years that I've been making movies, and by calling my latest film DESTINY I wasn't only thinking of Averroès but of myself: this is a natural resolution of my work. The Andalusia where Muslims, Christians and Jews lived together reminds me of the Alexandria of my childhood. That was the highest form of civilization because it was the most welcoming." -- Youssef Chahine "Chahine has sketched a flesh-and-blood portrait of a revolutionary figure that doesn't get mired down in larger-than-life historical spectacle." -- Ron Holloway (Moving Pictures)