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The Charlatan Priest is one of the main antagonists of the 2015 United Arab Emirates-English movie Bilal: A New Breed of Hero. A seemingly enigmatic yet eccentric religious leader that leads the religion of idolatry worship in Mecca, the Charlatan Priest is heavily implied to be the Devil itself disguising as a human or a personification of Mecca's rotten aspects that accentuate the citizen's worst traits such as greediness, wrath, pride, oppression and so on. This is due to the fact that thanks to his off-putting mannerisms and behavior and how he is able to approach important figures in Mecca such as Umayyah while also disappearing into thin air. It is also possible that despite his ambiguous nature as a religious leader, he is simply a con artist that tries to take advantage of innocent people that worshiped the idols of Mecca by abusing the system as he began to manipulate them to give all their fortunes to the idol in order to take them all for himself.
The Charlatan Priest was portrayed by Fred Tatasciore, who is best known as Juggernaut from Wolverine and the X-Men, 8 from 9, Graviton and Red Hulk from Avengers: Earth Mightiest Heroes, Poseidon from God of War and Kakuzu from Naruto.
Personality[]
Throughout the movie, the Charlatan Priest himself is shown to be an enigmatic yet charismatic figure albeit with some eccentric mannerisms. Eventually, he uses his charisma that he had towards other people for vile purposes. This can be shown where he manipulated the people to give them all they had to the idol they worship in order to gain more fortune and appease the idols of Mecca. In reality, the people who gave their fortunes towards the priest have all been duped with the priest taking all of their fortunes for himself and some of them ended up reaching a miserable end as shown with one terminally ill person that he manipulated. In addition, he also uses his charisma to encourage several people to commit their worst acts. This can be shown where he attempts to whisper and encourage Umayyah and Safwan to kill all Prophet Muhammad's followers either through genocide or through war.
Much like vile religious zealots in other media, the Priest himself is shown to be a fanatic of his own religion and has no hesitations to punish the people who defy his own religion. This can be shown where he attempts to punish Bilal while telling him that he committed a grave sin for defying against the rulers of Mecca. In addition, the Priest himself also showed his ruthless personality after seeing a starved kid trying to take the money from the idols as he attempted to attack said kid only to be saved by Bilal in the end. In the end, thanks to his creepy and eccentric mannerisms such as him appearing out of thin air on several occasions, his ability to corrupt people to commit even more depraved acts or his dying moment where he show no face at all, it is possible that the priest himself is either a demon disguising as a human or a representation of the rot and decadence that has been plagued Mecca and bring the worst traits of Mecca citizens such as pride, wrath, greediness and oppression towards innocent slaves. In spite of this, his true nature is somewhat ambiguous if he's either a regular human or something else.
Biography[]
An enigmatic and nameless religious leader who wears a rather eccentric outfit and a mask, the Charlatan Priest is a fanatical zealot that leads the main religion of Mecca by having the people worship the idols located there. Introducing himself by manipulating the people of Mecca to donate all of their wealth to appease the idols of Mecca, he then saw Bilal who experienced several hardships. As a result, he then decided to manipulate Bilal to give the coin that his sister, Ghufairah, gave him as a memento to the idols so that he could get some salvation. However, knowing what would happen, Bilal refuses to do so. It was then revealed that what the Charlatan Priest had done was not an isolated incident. This is due to the fact that he is heavily implied to be a con artist that had abused the horrific system that was implemented in Mecca by manipulating several people, including an extremely terminally ill person, to donate to his cause, only for him to take all the money and getting away with all of it while the people continue to be duped by him and suffered in the long run.
During the first moments of the movie, after Bilal refuses to give the coin that Ghufairah gave to him, the Charlatan Priest was first seen observing the slave trade committed by Umayyah and the other merchant had committed before mysteriously disappearing into thin air. After Bilal reaches his adulthood years, it was still revealed that the priest had continued to abuse the system trying to lure people to donate their fortune to appease the idols of Mecca. This resulted in a lot of Mecca citizens ignoring a poor, starving boy that Bilal had encountered who asked for alms and money to other people in order to fulfill his needs. As the boy was constantly being ignored by the people around him and unable to get the help that he wanted, the boy decided to steal some coins from the idols which would incur the wrath of the priest as he attempted to attack the boy. However, before the priest reacted to the situation, Bilal then stopped the boy from stealing the coin by giving him some decent amount of food that Bilal had bought in the end, sparing them from trouble. At the same time, during the Priest's reign of terror, a new movement created by Prophet Muhammad was brewing upon the horizon and this movement in question could shake the Arabian Peninsula and its culture to its core and change it for the better evidenced by the uprisings that happened across Mecca.
When Bilal was mercilessly tortured after Safwan's congratulatory party due to the fact he was not only incriminated by Safwan, but also refuses to bow down to Umayyah's whims, Bilal was then visited by Umayyah and the Charlatan Priest that attempted to see him. When Bilal rejects the offer to become a spy for Umayyah and instead begs Umayyah to kill him, Umayyah decides to give Bilal a more horrific punishment. It was revealed that said punishment is that Umayyah brought him to the streets of Mecca and was then tied to the ground with a lot of people watching his punishment. The priest then began to execute the punishment by putting a giant boulder on Bilal's body which would potentially crush him, killing him in a slow and painful manner. During Bilal's punishment, the priest also tells him and other people that watched the punishment that Bilal had committed a horrific atrocity due to the fact that Bilal had defied the idols of Mecca and its religious teachings that was brought upon the world. Fortunately, Bilal was saved by one of the famous merchant of Prophet Muhammad side, Abu Bakar, who became appalled after seeing Bilal's horrific torture.
After becoming a free man, Bilal then decided to follow Prophet Muhammad and his other followers so that they could migrate to the city known as Yatsrib (known as Medina/Madinah-al Munawwarah in the present day) in order to escape the persecution committed by the citizens of Mecca. In the city of Yatsrib, Bilal seemingly lives a good life to the point he becomes the first person who echoed the call to the prayer known as Adzan in order to persuade people to pray at the first mosque Prophet Muhammad and his companions had built. As Prophet Muhammad's followers began to grow and his teachings began to spread like a rabbit, the Charlatan Priest joined Umayyah's side and encourages him to commit genocide against the citizens of Mecca who were suspected for following Prophet Muhammad and his teachings. Afterwards, Umayyah's soldiers then proceeded to kill everyone, stabbing them with swords and torching their homes. One year after the horrific genocide, Umayyah and his cohorts then began to kickstart another war known as Battle of Badr in order to stop Prophet Muhammad once and for all. However, during the battle, Umayyah happens to be one of the people that were killed, ending the slave owner's horrific reign once and for all.
In spite of Umayyah's death, the priest's horror doesn't end there. After the Battle of Badr, the news of Umayyah's death spread fast in every city located in the Arabian Peninsula including Mecca. After hearing what happened, the Charlatan Priest then began to corrupt Safwan by urging him to go to war against Prophet Muhammad and his followers. Eventually, this leads to the battle known as Uhud where Prophet Muhammad's army lost the battle. In spite of the devastating loss, the story ends with a bittersweet note, as not only does Islam began to envelop the Arabian Peninsula, but it also brought a new age of dawn for those who are oppressed. Initially, the movement was met with resistance as the Priest attempted to fast in front of the idol in order to quell said movement. However, the Priest's attempts were in vain as he died during his attempt at quelling the movement, revealing himself to have no face once his mask fell off when he died. In the end, Bilal lived happily and ushered the new age by echoing the Adzan as a sign of victory.