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- 1,400 years ago, armies of nomads
- swept out of the Arabian desert
- and conquered half the world.
- Today, their descendants tell
- an extraordinary story.
- They say that God sent them
- a prophet - Mohammed -
- and that God
- then gave them an empire.
- But is it really true?
- Not everyone is so sure.
- The Muslim conquests were one of
- the most decisive events in history.
- But were the Arabs in
- the 7th century even Muslims at all?
- My name's Tom Holland.
- I'm a historian.
- I write about ancient empires so,
- Persian, Greek, Roman empires.
- Now I want to write about the most
- influential of all these empires -
- the empire founded by the Arabs
- in the 7th century -
- the empire that gave us Islam.
- I thought that it would be
- a relatively simple matter.
- It's been said that Islam was born
- in the full light of history.
- But when I began on the project,
- I discovered that wasn't
- actually the case at all.
- When it comes to Islam's beginnings,
- there is no full light of history.
- Only a kind of darkness.
- And when you start looking,
- everything seems up for grabs.
- From the beginning, I felt like I
- was being sucked into a black hole.
- The problem of authorising
- the history of the rise of Islam
- is that we have absence of evidence.
- We have nothing
- on which to tell a story.
- I had expected Muslim testimony
- from the 7th century.
- But there's nothing there.
- I can't find anything.
- There's a problem here.
- You're delving into the origins
- of Muslims' deepest beliefs
- but where is
- the historical evidence?
- Sometimes the belief of the
- believer,
- and the understanding of the
- scholar, cannot be squared.
- It's a choice between doing history
- and not doing history.
- So I do the history,
- even though it may hurt people.
- You have to say things
- that believers don't say.
- Things that sometimes
- shock believers.
- Things that sometimes
- make them very angry.
- There's a sense
- of the detective story about it.
- Why do most of the clues
- seem to be missing?
- When the Romans conquered
- the Middle East, they left behind
- all kinds of evidence -
- histories, inscriptions, coins.
- But with the
- Muslim conquest, silence.
- What can we actually say
- about Mohammed?
- What do we really know
- about the origins of Islam?
- Where to begin?
- Well, maybe we should start
- at the beginning of the 7th century.
- It is five minutes to midnight
- and the ancient world
- is about to change for ever.
- This is Istanbul.
- In 632, it was Constantinople.
- For 300 years, the capital city
- of the Roman Empire.
- A Christian city
- at the heart of a Christian world.
- A universal religion
- for a universal empire.
- That was the Roman recipe for power.
- An idea fully appreciated
- by the Muslims
- when almost 1,000 years later,
- they conquered the city
- and turned the largest cathedral
- in Christendom into a mosque.
- We know how and when
- the Romans became Christian
- because contemporaries
- tell us all about it.
- But what we don't know
- is how the Arabs became Muslim.
- Take a journey into the past
- and you can't be certain
- where it's going to end.
- History is like a labyrinth.
- Once you're inside,
- who knows where it may lead?
- So, here we are - the Great Palace
- of the Roman emperors
- of Christian Constantinople.
- Odd to think that, at the start
- of the 7th century,
- when Mohammed was still alive,
- this was pretty much
- the centre of the world.
- There's one awful poetry about
- the fact that all you've got here
- is splintered firewood.
- Because what this is is something
- that's been smashed to smithereens.
- What it preserves
- just the faintest trace of is, um,
- what was, at the time,
- the hub of the greatest power
- on the face of the earth.
- This is the White House -
- it's where the Emperor lives.
- It's the Pentagon. It's the heart
- of the defence establishment.
- It's the Supreme Court - where laws
- are drawn up and made and issued.
- All in this one place
- that dominates Constantinople,
- the city of Constantine,
- the first Christian Empire -
- the greatest city in the world.
- And now it's all gone.
- And it's in some bloke's garden.
- You've got the road on one side,
- you've got the train on the other.
- And the only thing
- to be seen is a cat.
- By 630, the Roman Empire
- had just overcome
- the worst crisis in its history.
- Its old enemies, the Persians,
- had overrun its fairest provinces.
- Persian troops had reached the very
- walls of Constantinople itself.
- Then, after 25 years of war,
- the Persians were defeated.
- The Roman emperor was,
- once again, master of the universe.
- At such a moment, how could
- he have had any conceivable idea
- of the ruin that the heavens
- had in store for him?
- Professor, can someone like myself,
- who is not a Muslim
- and who does not believe
- that God spoke to Mohammed,
- ever hope to fathom
- the truth of the origins of Islam?
- No.
- Bedouin,
- the face of the Arab Conquest.
- The shock troops, who in the
- 7th century swept out of Arabia
- and forged a colossal empire,
- spanning half the world.
- And here in the desert,
- no-one doubts that the conquerors
- were indeed Muslim.
- Everything was for Islam,
- that's what they say today,
- the victories, the conquest,
- the empire.
- But how do we know Islam
- even existed back then?
- To the ancients,
- the Arabs were notorious savages.
- Of all the peoples of the earth,
- the most despised and insignificant.
- Yet after ten years in
- the first half of the 7th century,
- they'd deprived the Roman Empire
- of her richest provinces,
- crushed the Persian Empire,
- and taken possession of
- most of the Middle East.
- A staggering achievement.
- For most Muslims, a miracle.
- Only God could have made it happen.
- Bedouin Arabs,
- they were the margin of history
- during the Roman Empire,
- that through such a people
- the whole of North Africa and Spain
- should be transformed
- in just a few decades,
- and a whole new civilisation
- created within a century
- from China to France.
- This is historical fact.
- And it all began, the story goes,
- when a merchant named
- Mohammed in a mountain cave,
- heard something as terrifying as it
- was awesome, the voice of an angel.
- "Oh, Mohammed,
- thou art the apostle of God."
- God had spoken to the Arabs.
- HE PRAYS
- THEY PRAY
- The message was as clear
- as it was elemental.
- There is only one God.
- Mohammed is the prophet of God.
- Islam is submission to God.
- And it was this message
- that gave them an empire.
- Or was it?
- No-one doubts the conquests
- really took place,
- but the question is,
- was it because of Islam?
- If you were a Christian or a Jew
- or a follower of another religion
- for whom a similar reality exists,
- it would be easier to make a jump.
- There is a very famous
- Arabic proverb which says,
- "Not being able to know something
- is no proof that it doesn't exist."
- But making that jump,
- taking a leap of faith,
- isn't as easy as it sounds.
- In Western universities, historical
- research is all about scepticism
- and doubt.
- And just as earlier generations
- of scholars
- turned a penetrating spotlight
- on the life of Jesus,
- so now some are taking a radical
- new look at the life of Mohammed.
- Patricia Crone is
- a professor at Princeton,
- she was one of a number of
- historians
- whose research into
- the roots of Islam
- has sharply divided the world
- of early Islamic studies.
- "You cannot reject
- the Muslim story", she wrote,
- "but you cannot accept it, either.
- "The only solution is to step
- outside of the Islamic tradition,
- "and start again."
- There is a curtain, as regards
- Mohammed, that you can't get behind.
- What do we know about him
- and his life?
- Ah, well, we know that he existed,
- we know that he was active
- somewhere in Arabia,
- we know that he is associated
- with the book the Koran,
- he was the one who uttered it,
- but it doesn't get us
- to what actually happened,
- which is what, of course, a
- historian would like to reconstruct.
- We have absence of evidence.
- We have the Koran,
- and you can't tell
- the story of the basis of the Koran.
- We have various early
- non-Muslim sources.
- They don't add up to a story.
- We have nothing, we have this one
- book out of...and nothing.
- There is complete darkness.
- But here,
- that's not the way they see things.
- The Bedouin think they know
- everything about Mohammed,
- his character, his wives,
- even his favourite food.
- This is a whole world
- founded on stories of Mohammed.
- But the problem is, how do we know
- this was what it was like?
- How can we separate what really
- happened from hearsay and myths?
- Do we know, did the
- Prophet Mohammed come here?
- Was there a tree?
- Was Mohammed even a
- travelling merchant?
- The evidence is almost non-existent.
- The earliest biographies we have
- were written nearly 200 years
- after Mohammed's lifetime.
- In most religions,
- the tradition was handed down
- through oral history,
- for millennia.
- This was put aside,
- now it's called positive history.
- The oral tradition
- is completely negated.
- Well, oral tradition means that
- you remember what you want.
- Some of it must be history, but most
- of it is clearly not history.
- It's just that they had been
- reshaped, rethought,
- they had been taken
- out of their original context,
- serving new functions,
- they'd been cleaned up by...
- Cleaned up, or messed up
- if you like,
- by all kinds of interests
- that people have in the memory.
- Supposing there is no written
- text of the time of the Prophet
- mentioning his name, the same is true
- of Christ, the same is true of Moses,
- that doesn't mean anything because
- there is always the oral tradition.
- Sometimes if you have other
- sources from other points of view,
- you can suddenly see what it is
- that's been changed, and then
- when you can see that, you can
- also see why it has changed,
- but because Islam arose
- in a relatively remote
- corner of the world,
- we don't have these checks,
- we don't yet have the key
- that can unlock the tradition.
- I came here to get close
- to the tradition,
- and when you're here
- you can feel its weight.
- It's in the air.
- It's palpable.
- It can't just be brushed aside.
- Millions upon millions
- of people believe it -
- this is their history.
- An entire moral universe
- has been built around
- the stories told of Mohammed.
- Listening to all these stories,
- part of me is very moved,
- the other part of me is wondering,
- "Well, how do you know this?
- "Where do these stories come from?
- "Are they really true?"
- Gradually in the West,
- for the intellectual elite,
- the sense of the sacred was lost.
- A tribal person in Africa
- or in the Amazon
- has a natural sense of the sacred,
- whereas a graduate student
- at Oxford probably doesn't.
- THEY PRAY
- THEY PRAY
- In some places, you have to be
- careful where to tread.
- Muslims believe
- that from the very beginning,
- the great Arab conquests
- were all about Islam.
- But in the 7th century,
- you can barely find
- a new religion called Islam
- anywhere in the historical records.
- And that's why I've come here.
- This is Jerusalem.
- They've been building walls
- here for a long time.
- But they've never built a wall yet
- that could keep people
- safe for ever.
- Historically,
- the capital city of God
- has always been one of the world's
- most conquerable places.
- Here, if anywhere,
- in the one-time world
- of the Roman Empire,
- the 6th and 7th centuries live on.
- The same intensities,
- the same anxieties.
- For thousands of years,
- Jerusalem had been shaped and mapped
- by the religions of its rulers.
- When the Jews ruled,
- they built a gigantic temple
- which dominated the city.
- Later, when the Roman Empire
- became Christian,
- Jerusalem was transformed
- into the world centre
- of Christian pilgrimage.
- Look at the street plan now and
- you saw a map of a Christian world.
- The Jews were gone,
- airbrushed out of the picture.
- The Romans constructed
- a new holy of holies.
- The Holy Sepulcher,
- A vast cathedral, raised over
- the traditionally accepted site
- of Jesus' crucifixion.
- That was how God and Empire worked.
- The Roman Empire believed in God...
- ..and God believed
- in the Roman Empire.
- But then,
- in the year 636,
- God changed his mind.
- Arab marauders
- appear outside the walls.
- Sophronius, the city's Bishop,
- writes that it is too
- dangerous to leave.
- The Arabs were closing in.
- And there was nothing
- people of Christian Jerusalem
- could do about it,
- except to stay where they were
- look out from their walls
- and await the arrival of the Arabs.
- And out of the desert they came.
- And they had become irresistible.
- In 636,
- they beat a Roman army at Yarmouk.
- Soon after, they beat
- a Persian army at Qadisiya.
- Both empires too weak after their
- own long wars to resist the Arabs.
- They marched into the richest
- provinces of the defeated empires.
- And less than five years
- after the death of Mohammed,
- they set their eyes
- upon the Promised Land.
- The land flowing
- with milk and honey.
- The land that God
- had promised to the Jews.
- Now the Arabs had come to claim
- that birthright for themselves.
- The Children of Israel
- had made it a Jewish land.
- The Romans had made it
- a Christian holy land.
- If the Arabs did arrive
- with a new religion,
- then we should be able
- to find its imprint here.
- Contemporary Christian sources
- confirmed that, late in the 630s,
- the Arabs took over Jerusalem
- by peaceful negotiation.
- What they don't say
- is what the conquerors'
- religion was.
- The truth of the matter
- is we don't know
- what was the true religion
- of the first Arab conquerors.
- We have a problem because this
- group of people from Arabia is tiny.
- They are ruling over
- much larger populations,
- who are very well versed
- theologically,
- of Christians and Jews
- and Zoroastrians,
- very sophisticated religious ideas.
- Why would these populations
- not have risen up in rebellion
- against their Muslim rulers if these
- Muslim rulers are trying to impose
- something totally different that was
- hostile to their own beliefs?
- What were the Arabs up to?
- What were their motives?
- We know they called themselves
- believers, but believers in what?
- Certain Christian contemporaries
- tell us that the Arabs believed
- in a single god and that
- they followed a guide or instructor.
- But, in general, their understanding
- of what the Arabs believed
- was deeply confused.
- Was it a form of Judaism
- or some kind of Christianity?
- Did they have a whole new religion
- of their own?
- For the Jews,
- as well as for the Christians,
- these are people
- coming from the desert.
- They don't know who these people are.
- They don't really know what
- they believe. They hear things.
- But perhaps there was a clue.
- At first, the new Arab rulers
- seemed closer to the Jews.
- They weren't interested
- in the Christian holy places.
- Instead, they began praying on
- the ruins of the old Jewish Temple.
- All this only added
- to the Christian sense of paranoia.
- Behind the invasion of the Arabs,
- they began to suspect
- a Jewish conspiracy.
- The moment the Arabs
- took over Jerusalem,
- they headed straight up here
- to what then, as now,
- is a broad, open,
- man-made esplanade.
- The holiest place for Jews
- anywhere in the world.
- The fact the Arab conquerors
- came up here
- and started building a prayer hall
- on such a sensitive spot,
- inevitably served
- to raise quite a few eyebrows.
- The Jews hope that these Arabs
- from the desert come as liberators.
- They permitted the Jews to come back
- to the Temple Mount and pray there.
- And the Jews started
- believing that, maybe,
- there is something Messianic
- in these people,
- and maybe their leader
- is the Messiah,
- who will permit them
- to rebuild the temple.
- Christian theologians,
- who speak about the Arab conquerors
- find it very hard to understand
- that they are dealing
- with a new religion.
- Who are they?
- One thing is absolutely clear.
- Nobody had any notion that the Arabs
- were doing what they were doing
- in the name of a freshly minted
- and coherent new religion.
- Still less that what they were doing
- was in the name of something
- called Islam.
- So, did Islam even exist
- in those early years after Mohammed?
- In Jerusalem, 30 years after the
- conquest, it was business as usual.
- There were Christian pilgrims
- in the streets.
- The churches were full.
- Ancient religions were practising
- their ancient rites.
- But where was the prophet
- in all this?
- 30 years after the death
- of Mohammed, here in Jerusalem,
- an Arab warlord called Muawiyah
- was hailed as leader
- of the new Arab empire.
- But if Muawiyah was a Muslim, he
- showed precious little sign of it.
- The astonishing thing is
- that nowhere,
- not on his inscriptions,
- not on his coins,
- not on any of his documents,
- is there so much as
- a single mention of Mohammed.
- 'I've been trying to trace
- the origins of Islam.
- 'But it's a bigger mystery
- than I'd every imagined.
- 'This is the holy book of Islam.
- 'And it's the earliest source
- for Islam that we have.
- 'Find out where the Qur'an
- was composed
- 'and you find out
- where Mohammed was operating
- 'and then you get a picture
- of where Islam might have begun.
- 'In the Qur'an,
- 'it tells Mohammed
- to follow the path trod by Abraham.
- 'Maybe that's the place
- to start looking.'
- I'm in Hebron which is a town
- on the West Bank
- and I'm currently
- in a Jewish settlement.
- But Hebron is also
- very much a Palestinian city,
- and so the atmosphere here is
- probably as tense as it is anywhere
- between Israelis and Palestinians.
- There are Israeli soldiers here
- with very large guns.
- And what they're guarding is this,
- the burial place of Abraham.
- (SINGS PRAYER)
- 'Abraham, through the line
- of his son Isaac
- 'was the father of the Jews.
- 'When everyone else was still pagan,
- 'Abraham worshipped
- the one true God.
- 'And, for this, God rewarded him
- 'and his descendants
- with the Promised Land,
- 'part of which, today,
- goes by the name of Israel.
- 'This is the tomb of Abraham.
- 'And the reason
- that the soldiers are here
- 'is that these are not
- the only people
- 'who regard him as their ancestor.
- 'And they're not the only people
- who believe that God gave them
- 'the Promised Land.
- 'On the other side of the grill
- are Muslims.
- 'And they tell a different story.
- 'This is the Muslim side
- and the reason they revere Abraham
- 'is because, as well as Isaac,
- he had another son.
- 'Ishmael, the father of the Arabs.'
- < This is the tomb of Abraham that
- we saw earlier from the Jewish side.
- < But we're now looking at it
- from the Muslim side.
- < The significance of Abraham
- and this association that was made
- between Arabs and Ishmaelites,
- the children of Ishmael, is actually
- much older than Islam itself.
- It remains central to Islam
- to this day.
- According to Muslims,
- Abraham is their prophet
- and the religion he founded
- was not the religion of the Jews,
- but Islam.
- And in the Qur'an, we read
- that Ishmael helped Abraham
- to build a house of God
- at a place called Bakkah.
- 'Neither the Qur'an
- nor any contemporary source
- 'actually specifies
- where Bakkah was,
- 'but Muslims, now, would have
- absolutely no doubt
- 'that Bakkah is another name for
- a place deep in the Arabian deserts.
- 'Mecca.
- 'The holiest city in Islam.
- 'The birthplace of Mohammed .
- 'This is the largest mosque
- in the world.
- 'At its centre,
- 'the Kaaba, the House of God.
- 'First built by Abraham
- and his son Ishmael
- 'on foundations laid
- by the first man, Adam.
- 'It is older and holier
- 'than anywhere else in the world.
- 'It was in the hills above the city
- 'that Mohammed received the first
- of his revelations from God.
- 'These revelations would form
- the holy book of Islam,
- 'the Qur'an,
- 'the very word of God.
- 'Mecca...
- 'is where Muslims believe
- everything began.
- 'The crossroads of faith
- 'and history.
- 'Surely here then, you would think,
- 'we could find solid evidence
- for Islam's beginnings.
- 'But there is a problem.
- 'Aside from a single, ambiguous
- mention in the Qur'an itself,
- 'there is no mention of Mecca,
- 'not one,
- 'in any datable text for over
- 100 years after Mohammed 's death.'
- How can we know that Mohammed
- does come from Mecca?
- We can't.
- But, on the other hand,
- if he doesn't come from there,
- you'd have to come up
- with a plausible alternative
- for where he might have come from and
- why would you want to take that on?
- 'Why do they go on?
- 'Well, you know,
- it's what historians do.
- If things don't fit, you try
- something else that might fit.
- Here we go.
- So this is it?
- Yeah, here we are.
- 'In the Qur'an, the
- faithful are instructed to prayer
- 'in the direction
- of a holy sanctuary.
- 'But what it doesn't ever say is
- that this sanctuary stood at Mecca.
- 'And, to some archaeologists,
- 'a few early mosques
- suggest something different.'
- We're talking about
- one of the earliest examples
- of a mosque.
- And you date it
- 100 years after Mohammed ?
- Somewhere within 100 years or so.
- Because here, as we go into it,
- you can see.
- This is it?
- This is it?
- This is it, yeah.
- This is the mosque?
- This is the mosque.
- And what you can...
- And what you can...
- It's...
- What you can see here.
- What you can see here.
- (LAUGHS)
- We have an apse which is not facing
- Mecca, it's not facing the south.
- It's actually facing
- towards the east. >
- Towards the sun rising. >
- This is an example of the time
- before the direction had
- actually been preferred
- towards Mecca. >
- So the implication of that is that,
- at this early stage of Islam,
- < the focus of prayer has not yet
- been absolutely fixed?
- The direction of prayer had not been
- well-established yet. >
- So it's bit like
- the concrete hasn't yet set.
- So it's bit like
- the concrete hasn't yet set.
- Yeah. >
- You can still play with it,
- you can still fiddle around with it,
- you can experiment with it.
- you can experiment with it.
- Very much so. >
- Yeah. Wow.
- 'Not a decisive clue perhaps.
- 'But it is suggestive that,
- 'even though there are
- no Muslim sources,
- 'there are reports
- from Christian writers of the time
- 'that the Arab conquerors bowed
- their heads in prayer
- 'not in the direction of Mecca,
- 'but in a quite different direction,
- 'somewhere further north.
- 'In the Qur'an...
- 'it never actually states
- that Mohammed lived in Mecca.
- 'Nor that Mecca was where
- the first revelations took place.'
- < Does the material in the Qur'an
- point to Mecca being the setting
- for God's revelations
- to Mohammed ?
- No, it doesn't.
- 'I mean,
- there is mention of a sanctuary,
- 'there is a sanctuary, for sure.'
- Where is that sanctuary,
- that's, of course, we can't tell.
- It's devilishly difficult to,
- sort of, extract what the context
- might have been from the text itself.
- 'In Muslim tradition,
- the people of Mecca are pagans,
- 'worshippers of idols.
- 'But, in fact...
- 'the people the Qur'an describes
- 'have a deep
- and sophisticated knowledge
- 'of the biblical tradition.'
- The Qur'an retells biblical stories
- and alludes to biblical stories,
- not just biblical,
- but also post-biblical developments.
- 'All this is clearly known
- to the audience.'
- It suggests that what we have is
- a kind of response, on a part of,
- let us say, Mohammed to the debates
- that were going on
- in Christian
- and Jewish communities. >
- Where they were debating
- theological issues and questions
- that come out of the Hebrew Bible
- and come out of the New Testament.
- And the Qur'an seems to be
- an effort to engage in the discussion
- and so there's a strong connection >
- with Late Antique
- religious discourses
- that were alive
- throughout the Near East.
- 'So it's obviously not a pagan world
- we're looking for.
- 'The people in the Qur'an worship
- a single god.
- 'But it then accuses them
- of praying to beings other than God.
- 'And there's something else.
- 'The people the Prophet addresses
- in the Qur'an are farmers,
- 'agriculturalists, but there was
- no agriculture in Mecca.'
- 'Mecca does not have
- an agrarian base.'
- In Mecca, it seems to have been
- quite an arid valley.
- If Mecca is this barren,
- infertile place,
- how is it that, in the Qur'an,
- the opponents of the Prophet
- are described as keeping cattle
- and growing olives and vines?
- 'Hm, good question.
- 'This is one of the reasons
- why some scholars feel
- 'that the text of the Qur'an is
- really plugged in to, say, Syria.'
- 'Because that's where vines
- and olives grow.'
- 'Because that's where vines
- and olives grow.'
- 'Yeah.'
- 'Much further north.'
- Geographical, Syria. You don't find
- olive trees in Mecca.
- 'So if Mecca wasn't
- the starting point of Islam,
- 'what was?
- 'If you're following the clues
- in the Qur'an itself...
- 'then you're looking for a landscape
- inhabited by olive-growing Arabs,
- 'who have a deep knowledge
- of the biblical tradition,
- 'but whose worship of a single god
- 'might seem, to some,
- a little shop-soiled.
- 'This is the city of Avdat,
- 'in the Negev Desert.
- 'Back in the early 7th century,
- 'it was an Arab city on the very
- fringes of the Roman Empire.
- 'Nominally Christian, but with
- hints of a recently pagan past.'
- There can be no doubt that this is
- a Christian place of worship.
- There are two crosses
- on the ceiling.
- But there's also something
- very interesting in the corner,
- which is a bull complete with horns.
- < And the bull is an image that,
- very probably,
- is drawn from much older,
- native Arab pagan traditions.
- That doesn't mean
- that the Christians who built this
- were, themselves, pagan,
- but it does mean, I think,
- that they are giving
- their monotheism,
- their belief in a single god,
- a little bit of pagan colour.
- And that, essentially, is the crime
- that Mohammed, in the Qur'an,
- < seems to be accusing
- his opponents of.
- 'But Avdat had more than
- the right religious complexion.
- 'It also had agriculture
- and olives.'
- In the lifetime of Mohammed,
- all this would have been green.
- It would have been agricultural
- fields as far as the eye can see.
- Archaeology leaves no doubt
- that there was a sophisticated
- irrigation system here
- that really did make
- the desert bloom.
- And so, while that doesn't mean
- that this Avdat
- is the actual spot
- where the Qur'an was composed,
- it does imply, I think,
- that the region, as a whole,
- seems to fit the wider context
- of the Qur'an
- better than somewhere
- much further south,
- in the arid region of Mecca.
- 'When you read through
- and through the Qur'an,
- 'what's really striking,
- as compared, say, to the Bible,
- 'which is full of allusions
- to recognisable landscapes
- 'that we know.
- 'In the Qur'an, it's an effort
- to find an allusion to any landscape
- 'or natural setting
- that we could actually pin down.
- 'In fact,
- in the whole of the Qur'an,
- 'there's really only
- the one exception.
- 'Not far from Avdat,
- 'a strange hint about
- where the Qur'an might actually
- 'have come from.'
- We are on the southernmost shores
- of the Dead Sea.
- Between, what is now,
- Israel and Jordan.
- Lot was the nephew of Abraham
- and he went to settle down
- in a city called Sodom.
- And the people of Sodom
- were notoriously racy.
- Unsurprisingly,
- this provoked the wrath of God.
- He destroyed his city and this is
- said to be the remains of Sodom,
- where the anger of God
- was poured down upon it.
- And the Qur'an,
- "So also was Lot
- among those sent by us.
- "Behold, we delivered him
- and his adherents,
- "all except an old woman who was
- among those who lagged behind.
- "Then we destroyed the rest.
- "Truly, you pass by their sites
- by day and by night."
- 'But if the people being addressed
- by the Prophet
- 'are passing this place
- by day and by night,
- 'then what's it doing here?
- '1,000 kilometres from Mecca.
- 'In terms of someone
- who is looking for clues...
- '..you are very much in the
- situation of someone who is panning
- for gold.
- 'And I think that this passage
- is just one little fleck.
- 'I mean, there is one possibility,
- of course,
- 'which is that this one fragment
- originated in this neighbourhood.
- 'Perhaps the rest came
- from elsewhere.
- 'But that then begs the question
- 'of where all the various component
- parts of the Qur'an are coming from.
- 'Are they necessarily
- to be attributed
- 'to one person living at one time?
- 'Again, when you start asking
- that question,
- 'it's very hard
- to know how far to push it.'
- 'It's from the West
- that this kind of history came up.'
- That its reason is our ultimate
- decider and judge of the truth.
- 'But what I'm saying is that those
- are not really going to give you
- 'the reason
- that is logically satisfying.'
- < Where do you think the likeliest
- place of its origin is?
- < Where do you think the likeliest
- place of its origin is?
- Ah.
- Well. That, I don't know.
- (LAUGHS)
- That, I don't know.
- Er, I don't think
- I should speculate on that.
- OK. All right. (LAUGHS)
- OK.
- 'My greatest fear is
- that I'm completely wrong.
- 'I do sometimes wake up
- in the middle of the night
- 'and think I've got it
- completely wrong.'
- 'Once the world is reduced
- 'to a mechanical world,'
- then all other levels of reality
- lose their status as being real.
- And they're relegated to the realm
- of so-called superstition.
- 'And what is not seen...
- 'is considered not to exist.'
- Trying to track the origins of Islam
- has been like chasing a mirage.
- The Arabs conquer half the world,
- but they don't talk about Muhammad.
- There's no mention of Mecca.
- So what do they do
- in detective stories?
- They follow the money.
- Are any of these,
- what's the first coin
- that actually mentions
- the name of the Prophet Muhammad
- on the coins?
- Do any of these coins
- mention Muhammad by name?
- (INDISTINCT)
- Yeah, but is the name
- of the Prophet Muhammad mentioned?
- No, no.
- Every coin tells a story.
- Every inscription
- conveys an idea of power.
- But sometimes,
- what's not on the coin
- can be just as significant
- as what is.
- It would be nice to see the earliest
- coin that mentions Muhammad.
- The earliest coin that has
- Muhammad's name, they don't have it.
- It's just, it's odd that we're 60
- years on from the death of Muhammad,
- and no mention of Muhammad.
- For nearly 60 years,
- the rulers of the Arab empire
- didn't put Muhammad on their coins.
- And then they did.
- Maybe, 60 years
- was what they needed
- to work out what the story
- really was.
- Maybe the issue isn't why
- Muhammad was not on the coinage
- at the beginning, but
- how he got there in the end.
- What if I've been asking
- the wrong question?
- What if it wasn't Islam
- that gave birth to the Arab empire?
- But the Arab empire
- that gave birth to Islam?
- The Empire was rich
- beyond imagining.
- By the mid-680s, it stretched
- from northern Persia to Egypt
- and North Africa.
- But who had the right to rule it?
- A vital question on which
- the Arabs could not agree.
- And with so much to play for,
- they began to turn upon themselves.
- It's 680.
- 50 years on
- from the death of Muhammad.
- A deadly spiral of rebellion
- and civil war is threatening
- the Arab empire with implosion.
- And from deep within
- the Arabian Desert,
- a new claimant
- to the empire emerges.
- His name?
- Abdullah Ibn Al-Zubair.
- And Ibn Al-Zubair
- is going to change the game.
- What I've got here is the coin
- that I was looking for
- in the Coin Museum.
- And it's stamped, quite literally,
- with the genius of Ibn Al-Zubair.
- It was struck in 685, 686,
- so that's more than half a century
- after the death of Muhammad.
- And it bears a novel
- and fateful slogan,
- "In the name of God,
- Muhammad is the prophet of God."
- And so here, at last,
- emerging from out of the black hole,
- we get a mention
- of a Muhammad who is a prophet.
- And this is the first time
- we have it on any inscription,
- any surviving document.
- Ibn Al-Zubair had essentially
- realised what Constantine,
- the first Christian Roman emperor,
- have realised long before him,
- that it was no good the Lord
- of an earthly empire
- laying claim to the favour of God,
- unless he could absolutely
- demonstrate the cast-iron basis
- on which he was making that claim.
- And Constantine, in his attempt
- to obtain that sanction,
- had turned to the Christian church.
- But Ibn Al-Zubair
- turns to the figure of Muhammad.
- Now, as it happens, Ibn Al-Zubair
- loses the civil war,
- he is defeated by a rival warlord
- who lays claim
- to the empire of the Arabs.
- But the discovery
- that the name of Muhammad
- can be used to buttress earthly
- power, that is not forgotten.
- The civil war had been
- a very close-run thing.
- And the victorious warlord,
- Abd al-Malik,
- had no intention of ever again
- allowing Muhammad's legacy
- to fall into the hands
- of a dangerous rival.
- The Romans had known
- all about religion and power.
- When they had become Christian,
- they had redrawn
- the map of Jerusalem.
- Now, Abd al-Malik set about
- fashioning a holy city of his own.
- God, it's beautiful.
- The dome of the rock.
- It's the oldest Islamic
- building in existence.
- In design, it was Roman,
- and Abd al-Malik was doing
- something else that was Roman.
- Plugging his dominion
- into the power of God.
- On the walls, there is
- an unequivocal mission statement.
- "Religion, in the eyes of God,
- is Islam."
- There are mentions of Muhammad,
- quotations from the Koran.
- At last, something that
- we can recognise unmistakably
- as a new religion.
- There is a sense here
- of something new coming into being.
- There is the sense of the old, the
- Roman-style pillars and the mosaics.
- And yet, this is clearly not Roman,
- this is clearly not Christian,
- this is the beginning
- of something very, very potent.
- A harbinger of a spectacular future.
- It was built on the very site
- of the old Jewish Temple.
- Down here,
- the foundation stone of the world.
- The very junction
- of heaven and earth.
- This is quite possibly
- one of the most awesome places
- on the entire planet.
- It is deeply, deeply holy,
- not to one,
- but to two great religions.
- It's the place where Jews
- believe God inhabits the Earth,
- the holy of holies, the Shekhinah.
- And to Muslims, it is the cave
- that Muhammad prayed in
- after being brought here from Mecca
- before he ascended to heaven
- to be confirmed
- as the seal of the prophets.
- So in religious terms, this
- is like a sort of nuclear reactor,
- firing out isotopes and power.
- It's certainly
- a very grand statement,
- that we Muslims
- have superseded you Jews.
- And we have superseded you Christians
- by being filled with inscriptions
- directed against
- Christian Trinitarian beliefs.
- So it's Muslims saying,
- we are here, we've come to stay,
- and we are the winners.
- Abd al-Malik now rules his empire
- as the deputy of God,
- just as the Christian
- Roman emperors had done.
- And like the Roman emperors, he has
- built a house of God in Jerusalem.
- But Abd al-Malik, Lord of Jerusalem
- though he is, is also an Arab.
- Perhaps for Arabs, Jerusalem,
- for all its ancient
- and unrivalled potency,
- owed too much to the Jews
- and Christians to stand alone
- as the holy city
- of the new Arab empire.
- A poet at Abd al-Malik's court
- describes him
- as the Lord of two houses,
- sacred to God.
- One in Jerusalem,
- and one, well,
- he doesn't say where it is.
- And for 100 years
- after the death of Muhammad,
- no-one says where it is.
- All sources go on calling it
- "A place in the desert."
- It's a sanctuary in the desert,
- without giving it a name.
- And at some point, this sanctuary
- must have been fixed at Mecca,
- in the middle of the desert.
- But why?
- The truth of the matter is,
- we don't know what was the true
- religion of the first Arab cultures.
- It's an Arab story.
- Arabs come from the desert.
- God is speaking to the Arabs.
- They don't want Jews or Christians
- having any influence on Muhammad.
- The Koran is in Arabic,
- the Koran is full
- of characters from the Bible.
- But if the book
- came out of the desert,
- how did these characters get there?
- We have nothing.
- We have this one book,
- out of nothing.
- We don't have the key
- that can unlock the tradition.
- But maybe that's the point.
- We're not supposed
- to unlock the tradition.
- God's message comes to a prophet,
- the prophet lives in a desert.
- There is no room for anyone else.
- It's remote.
- It's remote, it's uncontaminated,
- it's pure.
- It's a place where
- we can rule out that Muhammad
- got his ideas from others than God.
- It's interesting that the history
- is very weak
- in being able to provide
- causes for certain effects.
- Not being able to know something
- is no proof that it doesn't exist.
- You begin by looking in the record
- and all you find is emptiness.
- And you end up in the desert
- and all you see is emptiness.
- But perhaps the emptiness
- is the answer.
- Maybe Mecca gave Islam
- what it most needed,
- a blank sheet...
- ..where Muslims
- could put their prophet,
- beyond the reach of history.
- BELL RINGS
- Professor, do you think that what
- I am doing
- is complicit with the brute fact of
- Western imperialism,
- Western hegemony?
- No. Not necessarily.
- As long as you're a man
- aware of what you're doing.
- If you come as a Western
- scholar or historian,
- and in all honesty present what your
- world-view is, and this says,
- "When I look at the Islamic world
- from this paradigm,
- "this is what I see",
- and bring out why this is different
- from how Muslims see themselves,
- that, I think,
- is a very honest effort,
- and is a good effort.
- But if you try to
- act as a doctor to a child,
- "Take this medicine,
- it's good for you.
- "You don't what you're eating,
- the wrong thing.
- "This is how it should be."
- That's where the problem begins.
- And the Muslim world is not
- going to accept that.
- The days when the British would bring
- scholars from England
- to teach Indians how to be Hindus
- and Muslims are finished.
- It's finished.
- BELL RINGS
- It's true, before I began,
- I did have preconceptions.
- I was brought up a Christian,
- but I was also brought
- up in an environment
- that questions everything.
- Studying ancient history is
- a process of paint-stripping,
- tearing away stories that you want
- to believe the literal truth of.
- This is supposed to be Mount Sinai,
- where Moses saw the burning bush,
- where God gave him
- the Ten Commandments,
- but there's no historical
- evidence for any of this.
- Christian monastery, Roman
- fortifications,
- the old partnership, God and Empire,
- between them,
- they turned this place into Sinai.
- In my heart, I want to believe it,
- but my head won't let me.
- We believe that there is a living
- tradition kept by the people here,
- that this is where God had revealed
- himself in an extraordinary way.
- How much would it matter
- if it turned out that this wasn't
- the place where Moses had received
- the Ten Commandments?
- The spiritual encounter with God
- is more important.
- < The reality is there,
- < even if your eyes aren't open to
- see things in actuality.
- God is always present,
- but you're not aware of his presence.
- Ultimately, the City of God matters
- more than the City of Man.
- Yes.
- But as a historian,
- I have to presume that the City
- of God was built by man as well.
- I wanted to map the human
- past in human terms,
- to make a map that fits the facts.
- But I travelled to places where
- the maps revealed a heavenly plan,
- sacred lands,
- sacred places,
- a world where you don't have to
- believe in God
- to feel the power of God.
- This is the Promised Land.
- Some call it Israel,
- some call it Palestine,
- a land where Muslims, Christians
- and Jews still fight over
- the story of a promise made by God
- to Abraham thousands of years ago.
- Was there really a promise?
- It's not for the historian to say.
- But the world believers make
- in the name of God,
- that is what history is about.
- Even today, more people
- die for visions of heaven
- than they ever do
- for historical facts.
- Stories that never happened
- can be infinitely more powerful
- than stories that did.
- I set out to write the story
- of the beginnings of Islam.
- If you're a Muslim,
- then there's no problem,
- everything is explained by God.
- But I'm not a Muslim,
- and I don't think that civilisations
- appear like lightning
- from a clear blue sky.
- What I think now
- is that Islam emerged
- from a whole range of circumstances,
- from the religions and the empires
- and the convulsions of the world
- that witnessed its birth.
- And yes, of course,
- it is still the case,
- the black hole that surrounds
- Islam's beginnings
- doesn't give up
- its secrets easily.
- But maybe we are getting somewhere.
- The search for the historical
- Mohammed,
- for the origins of the Koran,
- for the whereabouts of the first
- sanctuary,
- for the way Islam evolved
- out of the Arab Empire,
- these are pieces of a whole
- new story.
- Subtitles by
- Red Bee Media Ltd
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