A big-budget Iranian film about Muhammad’s childhood has courted controversy by including shots of the prophet’s back, among them a low-angle shot of a teenage Muhammad against the sky.

Physical depictions of Muhammad are taboo in many Muslim communities – particularly those adhering to the dominant Sunni tradition – but Shia Islam, practiced by 90-95% of Iranians, has a more liberal approach to the issue. However, mindful of religious sensibilities, the film-makers – led by director Majid Majidi – have not attempted to show Muhammad’s face.

Muhammad, Messenger of God was due to receive its world premiere at the Fajr international film festival in Iran in January, shortly after the Charlie Hebdo attack, but the screening was cancelled due to “technical problems”. It was instead shown on 12 February to an audience of critics and film-makers. It is now aiming to receive wide release both at home and internationally, hence the current concern as to how the film will be viewed abroad, both in other Muslim and non-Muslim countries.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Majid Majidi, director of Muhammad, Messenger of God. Photograph: Vahid Salemi/AP

Majidi, the director of internationally acclaimed films Children of Heaven (which was nominated for best foreign language Oscar in 1998) and The Colour of Paradise, is seen as a pro-establishment figure of committed religious beliefs. In 2006, Majidi boycotted a Danish film festival during the ongoing row over cartoons of Muhammad, writing: “I believe in God and live with my beliefs in every single moment of my life.”

Majidi has been working on Muhammad, Messenger of God – the first part of a projected trilogy – since 2007, reportedly spending some $30m, and has employed big-name non-Muslims to work behind the camera, including cinematographer Vittorio Storaro and costume designer Michael O’Connor. Majidi defended his film by saying: “How should we introduce our prophet? ... Many relay their messages to the world through cinema and pictures.” Earlier in the year, he told a press conference: “We chose a period of his life about which there is no difference between different Shia and Sunni scholars and groups. We made this film with the view of bringing unity [to] the Muslim world.”

However, despite the support of Iran’s ministry of culture and Islamic guidance, which called the film “exemplary”, Muhammad, Messenger of God triggered early opposition from outside the country – notably from the powerful Islamic Research Academy associated with Egypt’s al-Azhar mosque and university, considered Sunni Islam’s premier authority. In 2012, it issued a statement calling for the film to remain unreleased, “so that an undistorted image of the Prophet can be preserved in the minds of Muslims”.