Didn’t Liam Neeson say that Aslan was Muslim?
That’s somewhat inaccurate.
(Declaration of interest: my late father-in-laws went to school with him, and we’ve spoken a few times - so as a family we’ve known him since before he was famous.)
Neeson’s from Ballymena and he’s always had a lifelong, restless fascination with various religious perspectives and questions of faith. Nothing unusual about that - a lot of folks who grew up in sectarianism get very curious once they move away, and some “dabble” in different faiths and denominations.
I get that. I grew up in the Methodist tradition. There are also Quakers, although one of my uncles is an Anglican priest. I don’t really subscribe to any one denomination, and have never been interested in converting; I feel most at home around Quaker and Methodists. However, I’ve been to Pentecostal churches and found the experience profoundly uplifting.
At university, my social circle was quite diverse - and our student dorm was probably the only place in town that’d regularly invite door-knocking Jehovah’s Witnesses, Seventh Day Adventists, and other groups, in - and we’d talk with them for hours!
In 2010 Liam Neeson suggested that Aslan could symbolise “all the great spiritual leaders and prophets over the centuries” - and I read that as, while a Christian reader would see Jesus in Aslan, Muslims would see Muhammad, Buddhists would see Buddha, and Sikhs would see Guru Nanak Dev Ji.
What Liam Neeson said is NOT the same as saying “Aslan is Muhammad”.
What people have done, unfairly I think, is combine two different things he said at different times. Liam Neeson spent some time in Turkey and he talked about how the noise of the Muslim call to prayer at 5am drove him batty for the first week- but he got used to the sound, then he started actively listening to it. He said it “got into his spirit” and described it as “the most beautiful, beautiful thing”.
But he’s had many spells in his life where he’s experienced a religion or denomination that is different to the Catholic tradition he grew up in. Instead of him avoiding those experiences, he embraces them and he learns from them.
I wouldn’t read too much into it. Liam Neeson is just a deeply spiritual man; he is not a Muslim convert.