0:23 [Music]
0:27 in Ciro muzin calls faithful Muslims to prayer
0:37 it's the same call that sounds five
0:40 times a day every day in cities across the
0:49 world nearly a quarter of the people on
0:52 Earth respond to it bound together by
1:14 calls I testify there is no other God but
1:14 but [Music]
1:17 [Music]
1:21 God I testify Muhammad is the messenger of
1:21 of [Music]
1:28 God come and
1:36 flourish God is most
1:52 God in the unfolding of History Islamic
1:55 civilization has been one of Humanity's
1:58 grandest achievements [Music]
2:00 [Music]
2:04 a worldwide power founded simply on
2:07 faith a spiritual Revolution that would
2:09 shape the nations of three
2:13 continents and launch an [Music]
2:15 [Music]
2:19 empire for the West much of the history
2:21 of Islam has been obscured behind a veil
2:23 of fear and
2:25 misunderstanding yet Islam's hidden
2:28 history is deeply and surprisingly
2:35 civilization it was Muslim scholar who
2:37 reclaimed the ancient wisdom of the
2:39 Greeks while Europe languished in the Dark
2:39 Dark [Music]
2:41 [Music]
2:44 Ages it was they who SED the seeds of
2:47 the Renaissance 600 years before the
2:57 Vinci from the way we heal the
3:04 counting cultures across the globe have
3:13 civilization but all this began with the
3:16 life of a single ordinary man and the
3:19 profound message he proclaimed would
3:22 change the world
3:39 h [Applause]
3:43 [Applause] [Music]
4:04 [Music]
4:07 to Muslims the life of Muhammad is a
4:10 story revered in its Mysteries as much
4:13 as its certainties that are beliefs held
4:16 sacred whatever we can tell about the
4:17 prophet of course is Screen through the
4:19 filter of what has been preserved over
4:21 the centuries and what people have
4:23 wanted to preserve and it's very
4:25 difficult to pull out from all of these
4:28 different sources that are very adoring
4:32 and the ordinary human being that uh the
4:34 the the person that he [Music]
4:39 [Music]
4:42 was we do know that Muhammad was born in
4:47 or around 570 ad in the sun blasted Arabian
4:55 Peninsula a land of savage scarcity
4:56 whose bedin tribes were locked in a
4:59 constant state of tribal War [Music]
5:07 while still an infant Muhammad's parents
5:10 gave him his first taste of life in the
5:14 desert Muhammad was from a town in Mecca
5:16 but he was sent off to live with the
5:18 bedwin because the people even in the
5:20 town of Mecca felt that the bedin were
5:23 the holders of the the deeper cultural Arab
5:28 values and the better one view the
5:30 town's people is having lost their
5:33 really authentic roots in Arab culture
5:35 and the poetry and and uh animal
5:38 husbandry and all the things that uh
5:45 well by the time Muhammad was six both
5:49 of his parents had died and he was taken
5:51 under the protection of his uncle chief
5:52 of his
5:55 clan being an outsider gave him a singular
5:56 singular
6:00 perspective he'd been orphaned early and
6:02 developed very early on a passionate
6:06 sense of concern for those who are left
6:09 out of society uh to be orphaned in a
6:11 tribal Society where Clan and family
6:13 relationships are your keys to
6:17 everything success status honor dignity
6:20 um is is to face what it really feels
6:22 like to be marginalized and that
6:25 obviously had a a a very deep impression
6:31 Man in some ways it was detrimental of
6:34 course to grow up without parents but in
6:37 other ways he was so adaptable he had
6:39 many parents he had many fathers he had
6:49 everybody Muhammad's Clan like Arabs all
6:52 across the Arabian Peninsula would share
6:53 the stories that had been told and
7:00 Generations Islamic Ian civilization was
7:03 largely an oral culture and uh it was
7:06 tremendous respect for and admiration
7:08 for people who could express themselves
7:10 orally and especially those who could
7:12 recite poetry almost at the drop of a
7:14 hat some of the most important people in
7:17 a tribe were the poets as they sang of
7:20 the glory of the tribe they they told
7:26 tribe to the beduin the word had a
7:32 poets linked the tribe to its ancestors
7:36 and celebrated values older than
7:39 memory poetry was the senu that bound
7:42 the bedin together celebrating their
7:44 victories lamenting their
7:47 defeats the poems themselves like the
7:50 poems of Homer both celebrate this great
7:54 heroic ethos and yet intimate in the
7:59 deepest way the tragedy that um this war
8:02 this e ethos of constant tribal Warfare
8:09 people Warfare and conflict were the
8:12 Grim realities of a dangerous
8:14 time Muhammad's Uncle taught him the
8:17 skills he'd need to survive in a world
8:19 where even a prophet would wield a bow and
8:29 arrow in a Wilderness punished by by the
8:32 elements and bereft of water rivalry
8:35 over a single well could provoke a blood
8:41 Generations a real rivalry real battles
8:44 and sometimes quite bloody so the
8:46 allegiance of individuals was to the
8:49 family immediately and at a larger
8:56 tribe without the trib's protection no
8:59 one could endure scattered across the
9:01 penin Peninsula were countless factions
9:04 all embroiled in bitter struggles each
9:06 defending its precious grazing lands
9:14 Wells well you have to understand and
9:16 most of the lands are dry and so water
9:19 is is something that's everyone always considers
9:27 precious for those of us in climates
9:30 that are more heavily watered it's
9:32 difficult to understand the depth and
9:36 the centrality of the symbol of water in
9:39 societies that uh are desert and in
9:42 which uh it only rains once or twice a
9:45 year and in which a little water makes
9:54 death each Clan had its own separate
9:59 gods and totems to water and wind fire and
10:00 and
10:03 night they were kept in the Caravan town
10:07 of Mecca in a shrine of wood Stone and
10:11 cloth it was called the cabba the Arabic
10:12 word for
10:15 cube pre-islamic Arabs worshiped a
10:16 number of spirits and they were
10:19 generally nature oriented Spirits
10:20 sometimes associated with natural
10:24 natural features like trees or rocks or
10:27 Springs and uh the cabba in Mecca was
10:29 one of a number of these
10:32 sanctuaries centered around a particular
10:34 cluster of
10:37 deities it was said the Hebrew patriarch
10:39 Abraham himself built the cabba centuries
10:41 centuries
10:43 before and that a sacred Black Stone it
10:47 held within had fallen from the
10:52 sky in these turbulent times the cabba
10:54 provided a rare place of
10:57 Peace only here would the beduin submit
11:00 to a temporary truce for returning to
11:03 their conflicts of the Open
11:06 Sands there was this one place in the
11:10 middle around the cabba which was from
11:13 even pre-islamic times was a place of a
11:16 a sacred enclosure where all people had
11:18 to put down their arms and this of
11:19 course facilitated
11:22 trading uh because it meant that you
11:24 couldn't carry on your feuds when you
11:31 the spiritual and economic importance of
11:33 the cabba in Mecca are pretty hard to
11:35 separate in as far as the pre-islamic
11:36 Arabs are [Music]
11:38 [Music]
11:41 concerned the cabba made Mecca a vibrant
11:43 Center for
11:47 trade here were found Arabian incense
11:50 exotic perfumes and Indian spices
11:57 Linens but perhaps the greatest treasure
11:59 to be found at Mecca was the rich
12:04 [Applause]
12:06 cultures there were people who came
12:08 through town who had all kinds of
12:10 interesting experiences to related to
12:13 farway places the local religion was
12:15 mixed there were Christians there were
12:17 Jews and there were also the Arabs of
12:19 the desert who followed an animous type of
12:21 of [Music]
12:22 [Music]
12:25 religion Muhammad's world was a Center
12:28 of Trade connecting the Mediterranean
12:30 Sea to the Indian ocean linking the
12:33 Aging empires of Byzantium and Persia to
12:47 [Music]
12:54 merchant in fact he had a great flare for
12:56 for
13:00 trade at the age of 25 while leading a
13:03 caravan northward to Syria his talents
13:06 caught the eye of the Shipman's owner a
13:09 wealthy Widow named
13:12 Khadijah she was so taken with Muhammad
13:14 she proposed
13:17 marriage ah well I think she was a
13:20 mentor as well as a wife a very strong
13:24 lady who had her own business and
13:26 Mohammad was helping her out so it was a
13:28 wonderful partnership and I'm sure he
13:31 learned learned a lot from
13:34 her he had a tremendous amount of
13:36 contact with Merchants coming from
13:39 different parts of the world passing
13:45 Peninsula I think he was a very
13:48 intelligent man very open-minded and he
13:51 was able to communicate with a great
13:53 variety of peoples he must have had
13:56 great Charisma as
13:59 well Muhammad had a way with people and
14:05 disputes once when the cabba fell into
14:08 disrepair the clan Chieftain quarreled
14:10 over who would have the honor of putting
14:18 belonged before violence could erupt
14:22 Muhammad proposed an equitable solution [Music]
14:31 United in the effort the four leaders
14:40 honor in gratitude they invited Muhammad
14:44 himself to replace the sacred
14:48 stone he became known as Al Amin The Trusted
14:49 Trusted
14:51 one there are all kinds of indications
14:54 that he was tremendously interested in
14:56 in religious questions this is obviously
14:58 not something that an ordinary person
15:01 probably was interested in in those days
15:06 he talked to uh sages Arab sages he
15:09 talked to Jewish and Christian sages who
15:10 lived in the
15:13 area he used to go up into the Rock
15:15 Hills around Mecca and meditate think about
15:17 about
15:20 things and at some point had this
15:22 extraordinary Vision which is spoken
15:34 in a cave above Mecca Muhammad had an
15:36 experience that would be the defining
15:38 moment of his [Music]
15:41 [Music]
15:44 life an angel was said to appear before
15:46 him in the form of a
15:48 man instructing him to recite in the
15:51 name of God the
15:54 almighty for Muhammad it was an
15:57 encounter as profound as it was deeply
16:01 disturbing you get a sense of what it
16:05 would be like to be a normal person in
16:08 society perhaps unusual in the sense of
16:10 your intensity for things like social
16:13 justice and finding out what the meaning
16:16 of life is but not being uh endowed with
16:19 anything that would see seem miraculous
16:20 by your
16:23 friends and all of a sudden having this
16:27 voice come to you and then come out of
16:29 you as you speak it and recite it to other
16:37 people and that is the beginning of the
16:38 prophetic career of [Music]
16:47 Muhammad the months to come would bring more
16:50 more
16:53 Revelations powerful words of a lcal
16:55 quality more beautiful than the most
17:04 above all Muhammad was to Bear one
17:07 message to his people a simple yet radical
17:09 radical
17:13 Proclamation that there is only one
17:16 God the central Tenant of Islam is the
17:20 Oneness the indivisible Unity of God uh
17:23 not something that is simply uh that one
17:25 pays lip service to but something that
17:29 is absolutely the most important concept
17:31 Divine Unity is more than saying God is
17:33 there's only one God and there aren't
17:36 other deities it's only thinking about
17:39 one thing so to be thinking about
17:41 possessions to be thinking about status
17:44 to be thinking about power are all intellectual
17:50 [Music]
17:53 Idols the implications were
17:57 staggering one God meant one
18:00 people no more Tri trible
18:03 divisions to the poor and unprotected
18:09 revolutionary seems to me that one of
18:10 the most important things of in his
18:12 early teaching that isn't isn't often
18:15 talked about is the strong social
18:18 justice message that he
18:21 delivered in Mecca of the time there was
18:23 an increasing separation between the
18:25 Hales and the Have Nots he insisted that
18:27 this was not to be and that we should
18:29 share the wealth and it was social
18:31 justice message that I think that really
18:33 got him a hearing among many of the
18:35 folks so coming with Islam it was a new
18:38 order a new way of life and it was a
18:40 beautiful way of life because everybody
18:44 was equal black white men women children
18:47 so it had that type of uh Universal
18:49 appeal which I think was the reason why
18:52 Islam spread so
18:55 rapidly many were moved by Muhammad's
18:57 message as he began to speak out in the community
18:59 community
19:04 it had the suppleness and symbolic depth
19:08 of the great pre-islamic poems that had
19:10 been created by this people and that had
19:14 given this people in Arabia such an
19:17 extraordinary ear for verbal expression
19:20 where verbal expression was the
19:22 commanding cultural
19:25 Force some people called him a poet and
19:28 there's a quranic uh Surah basically saying
19:29 saying
19:33 saying um Muhammad is not a poet poets
19:35 speak through
19:38 desire uh this is not the voice of
19:47 God Muhammad's following began to
19:51 grow they called themselves Muslims for
19:53 those who surrender to [Music]
19:55 [Music]
19:57 God they set out to preserve the message
20:00 Muhammad had brought
20:07 Quran the Quran was revealed orally but
20:09 very soon people realized that it had to
20:11 be written down in order to make sure
20:13 that it wasn't corrupted and that the
20:17 original message was
20:19 maintained and from a very early date
20:22 and it's it's very unclear when that
20:24 date was because no early manuscripts of
20:27 the Quran survive people began copying
20:36 the Quran is a revelation of spiritual
20:39 teaching of both ethical and social
20:48 Arabic and what's so extraordinary about
20:51 the Quran is its naturalness so that it
20:54 can say the most powerful Cosmic things
20:57 with a sense of of intimacy so that
21:00 power and tenderness come together
21:03 constantly in the quranic
21:06 language with words alone the Quran
21:09 delivers its Vision to the
21:11 faithful its imagery conjures a picture
21:14 of the afterlife that resonates with all
21:23 poetry imagine yourself in the
21:26 desert surrounded by dust by the glare
21:28 of the Sun
21:30 you wear cloaks to cover your body
21:32 because the wind will just sear your
21:35 skin right off your
21:44 oasis the temperature drops
21:46 dramatically there's a quiet there the
21:49 wind is no longer
21:51 howling everywhere you look you see
21:53 green and
21:57 color the uh World of Water and Paradise
22:00 are symbolic Ally tied to one
22:03 another and the Quran can conjure that
22:07 up with just a few briefly chosen [Music]
22:15 [Music]
22:17 words yet for all the imagery of
22:20 Paradise in the Quran there was no easy
22:25 description of God the mystery would
22:28 remain it's very difficult to talk about
22:32 god without reifying God reifying to
22:34 make God into a thing or
22:36 anthropomorphizing God to make God into
22:40 a projection of our own human self and
22:42 that's why Muslims don't uh like
22:44 sculpture for example traditionally
22:46 because they believe that there's that
22:49 danger and the Quran avoids that by
22:51 constantly shifting the pronouns so we
22:54 can't really reify God and get an image
22:58 a physical image of God [Music]
22:59 [Music]
23:02 rather than a physical image of God or
23:04 of Muhammad it is the beauty of the
23:08 Quran itself that is celebrated in
23:12 Islam Islam developed in this context
23:15 where pictures were not
23:19 favored the Quran as it was revealed was
23:21 God's representation on Earth and
23:24 Muslims felt from a very early time that
23:27 the only just representation of God
23:30 God's word was the Quran itself not any
23:33 picture of of of God certainly not
23:35 because you couldn't represent God and
23:37 certainly not a picture of Muhammad
23:38 because he wasn't [Music]
23:48 Divine at certain times and places
23:50 people did make images of the Prophet
23:52 Muhammad but these are not religious
23:55 images these are not images meant to be
23:58 worshiped they're not images of a saint
24:00 or of God there are images of Muhammad
24:06 figure he's sort of given Honor by
24:09 having a very bright blue background or
24:12 a white cloud near him um but he's he's
24:13 not otherwise distinguished from the
24:16 other characters in the story at other
24:19 times people did represent the prophet
24:20 but he was always represented with a
24:22 white cloth over his face to hide his
24:23 face so that there were different
24:30 but in all of these this these are not
24:32 devotional images you're not supposed to
24:34 look at them and pray towards them
24:36 you're to learn more about the history
24:38 of your religion with the emphasis on
24:39 history from [Music]
24:41 [Music]
24:44 them as Muhammad's Community
24:48 grew so did the
24:50 opposition people of course were
24:54 skeptical and said look if you're a
24:56 prophet where's your miracle and the
24:59 prophets in the Quran uh Moses had
25:01 Miracles Jesus had
25:03 Miracles where's your where's your
25:06 Miracle the chonic answer to that challenge
25:08 challenge
25:18 Quran but that wasn't Miracle enough for
25:19 the people who defined themselves by the
25:22 gods of their ancestors and the totems
25:23 of their
25:26 tribe their doubts
25:29 increased the idea of life after death appalled
25:31 appalled
25:34 them so the Quran presents people as
25:38 really being skeptical you mean to tell
25:42 me that after I die and my body has has
25:44 gone back to the elements and I've been
25:47 putrified that I'm going to be put back
25:50 together again and brought back to life
25:53 that of any of the messages in the Quran
25:55 that struck the people of Arabia as
25:58 being the most hard to believe [Music]
25:59 [Music]
26:02 Muhammad also spoke of Eternal damnation
26:03 for the
26:05 unjust he used the language of
26:08 apocalyptic imagery talking
26:11 about the signs of the ends of time when
26:13 the mountains crumble when the skies are
26:17 rolled up like Scrolls then you will
26:19 know what responsibility you bear for
26:22 your actions there are references uh to
26:28 those who are unjust going to the fire
26:30 to the
26:32 non-believers the Divine Reckoning
26:35 Muhammad invoked was an
26:37 outrage his dismantling of their
26:44 unsettling it was a threat a threat in
26:47 several ways to their social order to
26:49 their age-old traditions and an economic
26:51 threat because of the importance of the
26:55 pilgrimage Shrine of the cabba in [Music]
26:56 [Music]
26:59 Mecca as mohammed's following increased
27:02 the social fabric of the Caravan City
27:04 began to
27:06 unravel business suffered as pilgrims
27:09 and Traders worried for their safety left
27:11 left
27:15 town the tribal leaders decided Muhammad
27:18 and his message must be removed
27:20 removed
27:23 permanently they didn't want him taking
27:24 over they didn't want him horning in on
27:27 their control of the city they made
27:29 things very difficult ult for him
27:31 perhaps even plotted his assassination
27:32 they tried to keep him away from the
27:34 cabba they did everything they could to
27:40 town they demanded that Muhammad's Uncle
27:43 remove his Clan's protection from the
27:45 prophet which would clear the way for
27:51 [Music]
27:54 Retribution but his uncle
27:58 refused the battle lines were drawn
28:01 nothing short of tribal War would settle
28:07 now Muhammad is clearly asked to do
28:11 extraordinary things to tell the bwin to
28:13 give up U many of their Notions of
28:16 multiple gods um to give up their
28:18 attachment to their ancestors and their
28:21 tribal Warfare in the way they had uh
28:25 things that would could and did make him
28:28 the object of scorn persecution
28:38 attack Muhammad's followers were forced
28:45 starved those without Clan protection
28:56 killed in 619 ad Muhammad's wife
29:00 Khadijah died and his uncle as
29:04 well gone were his first great love and
29:07 his only
29:09 protector here at last was the
29:18 for but in the Lush Oasis town of
29:22 yathrib north of Mecca a refuge opened
29:24 to Muhammad and his
29:28 people Clan rivalries had become deadly
29:30 in the town and they desperately needed a
29:32 a
29:34 peacemaker they had heard that Muhammad
29:35 was a very trustworthy man they heard
29:38 that he had great arbitration skills and
29:40 they thought let's see if we can't get
29:41 him up here and help us out so they invited
29:49 [Music]
29:52 him Muhammad agreed to travel to yathrib
29:54 and settled their disputes in exchange
30:04 for Muhammad's followers leaving the
30:06 place of their ancestors their families
30:10 and tribes was the ultimate test of [Music]
30:19 devotion in doing so they began a new
30:21 community a new [Applause]
30:23 [Applause]
30:26 tribe for the first time they were bound
30:37 faith in the course of a single Caravan
30:48 Beginnings their journey is known as the
30:52 Hijra 622 in the Christian calendar
31:03 Muhammad's goal among the people of
31:06 yatrib was the same as his larger
31:09 mission to bring unity and peace with his
31:10 his
31:14 message he was asked to be a solomonic
31:17 figure to mediate tensions between
31:23 intractable as his work succeeded the
31:25 town would become known as the city of the
31:26 the prophet
31:29 prophet
31:31 Medina Muhammad's great task in Medina
31:33 was to try and bring together these
31:37 various groups and to try and Forge uh a
31:38 community of
31:41 Believers in a way that would uh bring
31:43 people together in a sort of [Music]
31:50 Harmony to The Divided clans of Medina
31:53 Muhammad offered a vision of
31:55 solidarity but even as he spread the
31:58 word of Islam he didn't challenge the
31:59 beliefs of other [Music]
32:01 [Music]
32:04 faiths Islam sees itself in relationship
32:07 to the earlier revealed religions of
32:10 Judaism and Christianity and treats them
32:17 book it believes that God had revealed
32:21 himself his word to mankind many times
32:25 to Moses to Jesus for example and but
32:31 throughout the Quran we have a sense of
32:34 the humanity of Muhammad his humbleness
32:37 as a person and the
32:40 extraordinary challenge of the mission
32:51 revelation as the Muslim Community grew
32:54 in Medina a life of simple devotion and ritual
32:56 ritual
33:01 developed a freed abian slave named Bal
33:03 was the first to call Believers to
33:08 prayer at Muhammad's house Allah
33:10 Allah
33:22 [Music]
33:27 Allah the call to prayer has within it
33:29 the firstest isamic pillar which is the
33:33 affirmation of God's
33:36 Unity that beautiful phrase which many
33:38 Muslims chant over and over in their
33:41 mind or vocally to constantly remind
33:44 themselves of the unity of God and unity
33:47 of what we should focus on in our life [Music]
34:00 [Music]
34:03 praying together is a good
34:05 thing it cements the idea of belonging
34:07 to a movement to a religion to an
34:16 community the result is something very
34:19 very powerful even to watch even for a
34:21 non-believer or someone from another
34:23 religion We Carry Out physical gestures
34:28 of Prayer in worship that unify our body
34:31 and our mind and our soul all at the
34:35 same moment of of uh bowing and touching
34:37 our head to the ground toward that exact
34:40 center uh what could be a more powerful
34:46 unity it said that while he was in
34:49 Medina Muhammad received a
34:52 revelation instructing those in prayer
34:55 to face in the direction of the cabba in Mecca
35:00 though filled with Pagan Idols it was
35:03 still the shrine of Abraham the first
35:05 believer in the one true [Music]
35:09 [Music]
35:12 God but even as the Muslims were praying
35:14 toward Mecca their enemies there were
35:19 rallying in force their goal to wipe out
35:39 arms though the Muslims prepared as best
35:47 outmatched they mastered a force of only
35:56 weapons while the approaching meccans
35:58 were heavily armed
35:59 and a thousand [Music]
36:06 strong for years Muhammad had tried to
36:09 bring Islam to the people of Mecca
36:33 the Muslims faced their own tribes
36:44 father yet they came armed with a powerful
36:45 powerful
36:49 weapon a passionate belief in their
36:52 faith Muhammad's troops fought with
36:54 every confidence that God's will was
37:04 they fought three very very bloody
37:08 battles um at one point the entire young
37:09 Muslim Community was right on the edge of
37:20 annihilation for 3 years the Muslim Army
37:36 as word of the fighting spread other
37:38 bedwin tribes saw God's hand in Muhammad's
37:44 victories One By One The Peoples of the
37:46 desert began to join in his
37:50 struggle the Muslim Army grew and the
38:03 the Muslim forces Advanced to the
38:09 Mecca it was a furious siege that lasted
38:27 Muhammad in 630 ad the terrified the
38:35 onslaught Muhammad's Army was returning
38:49 strong the vanquished knew the terrible
38:52 fate that awaited
38:55 them according to the BS of tribal
39:00 Warfare the mechanis could expect a big
39:03 Revenge the men are usually killed uh
39:11 slavery there's little pity for the
39:26 world but Muhammad had a surprise in
39:29 store for the Fallen
39:32 City when Muhammad came into Mecca and
39:34 not only did not carry out a bloody
39:38 Revenge but actually embrace the very
39:40 meccans who had fought him for three
39:43 years and attempted to annihilate him it
39:47 was very shocking to uh the people in his
39:49 his
39:53 mure so um within the very founding of a
39:56 religion one finds episodes of great generosity
39:58 generosity
40:02 um uh often extraordinary acts of of
40:08 mercy but not all of Mecca escaped Muhammad's
40:15 wrath flush with Victory his troops
40:22 cabba seven times they circled the
40:24 shrine as those who' come to seek its
40:31 but it was not the pagan people Muhammad
40:32 had come to
40:34 destroy it was their [Music]
40:36 [Music]
40:40 gods he raised his staff and the tribal
40:44 gods of his ancestors smashed into
40:48 dust when Muhammad entered Mecca and
40:51 entered the shrine and destroyed the
40:54 idols in the shrine this is of great
40:59 cultural and symbolic importance in his
41:02 all by breaking the
41:07 idols he was breaking apart the tribal
41:09 system in which each tribe really had
41:11 its own independent
41:14 independent
41:17 deity this was shocking to the better
41:19 one this was saying the gods of our
41:22 fathers are being destroyed in some
41:24 sense you're saying that our fathers
41:27 themselves were deluded how can you say
41:29 this in a tradition in which
41:31 relationships to one's father and tribe
41:35 were primary so this act of iconic clasm
41:40 then um is seen um as a as an act of um
41:43 prophetic violence that has just as much
41:47 importance in Islamic tradition as um
41:50 Moses's breaking of the tablets when he
41:54 saw the idolatry at Mount Si or Jesus's
41:58 um casting the money seller out of the [Music]
42:05 temple the destruction of the idols was
42:09 a new beginning a breaking from the past
42:16 Force Mecca was just the
42:19 beginning one after another the tribes
42:22 of a Nation were summoned to the fold
42:27 and United under the banner of Islam
42:30 a worldwide Community of Faith was begun
42:33 born in an extraordinary alignment of History
42:34 History
42:40 conviction what Muhammad did was to
42:44 bring a sense of solidarity a sense of
42:47 mission and he United all these separate
42:50 segments within the peninsula from then
42:52 on moved Eastward Westward northward Southward
43:02 the Muslims turned to the north swept
43:13 Syria they continued West into Egypt and
43:16 quickly across North Africa fortifying
43:23 Mediterranean only the Seas stopped
43:28 them its growth was so explosive uh from
43:32 uh 622 the year one of the Islamic
43:37 calendar um within 50 years people whose
43:41 father had had been camel herders were
43:43 now governing one of the major empires
43:44 in world
43:48 history within 200 years it extended
43:50 from Spain to [Music]
43:53 [Music]
43:56 China the Muslims absorbed the sassanian
43:57 Empire of Iran
44:07 Empire by now the empire was larger than
44:09 Rome it stretched from Morocco in the
44:13 west to the Indus River in the East
44:24 today how had it happened that so small
44:27 an army could conquer an area so large
44:29 so fast so [Music]
44:33 [Music]
44:36 easily Islam's success in expanding into
44:39 the Central Middle East and across North
44:42 Africa was due in in large part because
44:45 people were fed up with previous regimes
44:48 so the idea that Muslims were going
44:51 across the world saying convert or die
44:54 is is really not accurate not at
44:56 all that it didn't have a heavy hand
44:59 they didn't rule with a heavy hand they
45:01 they allowed the the conquered peoples
45:04 to maintain their their administrative
45:06 uh structures they allowed the
45:08 Christians and the Jews to maintain
45:09 their religious law and to be governed
45:12 by them and so in many cases the
45:14 conquered peoples did not feel the
45:17 presence of the the new regime very
45:20 heavily certainly for individuals who
45:22 felt themselves uh exploited or
45:25 downtrodden by an oppressive and even
45:27 sometimes parasitic priesthood
45:30 the idea of Islam being a religion
45:32 essentially free from clergy must have
45:38 attractive it's the times that creates
45:41 the movement and sometimes the men the
45:44 Roman Empire had collapsed the Byzantine
45:46 Empire wasn't strong enough there was a
45:50 need for a new vision a new uh way of
45:53 looking to life and I think what
45:56 happened at that time Muhammad's Mission
45:57 filled the void
46:00 that the societies wanted they really
46:08 lives the lessons of the Quran so
46:10 successful for the Muslims in Medina and
46:14 Mecca were playing out on a global [Music]
46:17 [Music]
46:19 scale as the conquest swept through
46:22 Syria the Muslims held their Friday
46:24 prayers in the Church of St John the
46:30 allowing its Christian congregation to
46:39 Sunday side by side the two faiths
46:41 shared the same
46:43 building in [Music]
46:49 [Music]
46:52 peace as the Muslim Community grew they
46:54 bought the old church from the Christian
46:56 congregation and built a huge mosque on
47:09 with Byzantine Artisans they decorated
47:20 Paradise the great Mosque of Damascus
47:22 would become a model for new mosques to
47:25 come all across the empire [Music]
47:32 [Music]
47:34 the Arabs transformed their conquered
47:37 lands maintaining improving or expanding the
47:38 the [Music]
47:42 [Music]
47:44 infrastructure in Tunisia building on
47:47 Roman ruins they devised an ingenious
47:50 system of water purification using
47:57 sediments part of this system were these
48:00 two enormous basins that they built
48:03 outside the city
48:07 walls the clean freshwat would flow over
48:09 the into the larger
48:12 Basin where it would then be distributed
48:15 by pipes to the city um this is you know
48:17 hundreds of years before anyone in
48:19 Europe ever thought of having running water
48:34 all over you find schemes for bringing
48:36 water from the mountains where there was
48:38 more water to the plains where there
48:44 water they resurrected elaborate
48:47 irrigation systems filling the Old Stone
48:57 water agriculture flourished as life
48:59 Staples like wheat were introduced to
49:00 the Mediterranean [Music]
49:09 region but Muslims saved their most
49:17 Jerusalem Islam's first great work of
49:19 art is the Dome of the
49:21 Rock it was built in a city that was
49:25 holy to Christians and Jews and it's spectacular
49:32 like Mecca and the cabba the
49:34 significance of this holy sight goes
49:37 back to Abraham for the rock within is
49:39 said to be the place he nearly
49:41 sacrificed his [Music]
49:43 [Music]
49:46 son it was built to rival the nearby
49:49 Church of the Holy Seiler where Jesus
49:52 was said to have been
49:54 bed what's extraordinary about the Dome
50:02 people revered this site as some place
50:04 that was holy to Abraham and to [Music]
50:08 [Music]
50:11 Isaac imagine if you will these new guys
50:13 coming in and taking over this piece of
50:20 estate and building a new building for a new
50:21 new
50:23 religion that sits on top of a mountain
50:26 and sparkles and Glitters in the
50:29 sunlight for everyone to
50:32 see this is not something that a fly by
50:37 night this is something big and
50:41 important Islam has come to
50:44 stay in just a 100 years Muhammad's
50:47 Vision had transformed the spiritual and
50:50 political map of the world and his
50:52 followers had established an Empire
51:05 it in the 11th year of the Islamic
51:11 calendar 632 ad only 2 years after the
51:19 [Music]
51:27 despair for days the city was consumed
51:29 with sorrow and
51:32 ceremony he's known to have said that he
51:34 wanted to be buried very simply with no
51:36 marker over his grave he didn't want
51:39 people to worship His Grave that would
51:41 interfere with their worship of
51:45 God God had spoken to them only through
51:47 Muhammad now that the prophet had left
51:51 them perhaps God would as
51:54 well Muhammad's death set up a crisis in
51:57 the young Islamic community the question
51:59 of succession was the first thing that
52:01 really occupied people's concerns at
52:03 this point there was a Divergence of
52:04 opinion as to how the community should
52:07 go about choosing a new leader according
52:10 to the Shiites the faction the Shia of
52:14 Ali Muhammad had indeed designated Ali
52:17 his son-in-law and cousin as his
52:19 successor the opinion that came to be
52:21 the majority opinion or the Sunni
52:24 opinion held that Muhammad had not
52:26 appointed a successor during his life
52:28 but had said said after I'm gone choose
52:32 one from among your peers from among the
52:35 elders and from the house there came out
52:38 a man who would be his successor Abu
52:41 Bakr and he addressed the people and
52:45 said if you worship Muhammad know that
52:47 he is dead if you worship God know that
52:53 forever here was the secret to Islam's
52:56 strength and profound influence
53:00 the unifying power of one God merciful
53:03 and compassionate The Power of One
53:06 People Bound by a common [Music]
53:07 [Music]
53:11 Faith Muhammad did not lead the conquest
53:15 or create the Empire to come the
53:18 transforming power of his message [Music]
53:20 [Music]
53:24 did out of that message would spring a
53:27 font of knowledge that would trans form
53:30 Humanity as Islam continued to spread
53:38 wide awaiting the Muslims would be a new
53:40 age they would be destined for
53:42 enlightenment for New
53:46 Horizons and a clash of great Powers the
53:50 like of which the world had never seen [Music]
