All language subtitles for Life Of Muhammad s01e02 Holy Wars.eng

RAGEH OMAAR:
1,400 years ago,

a man born here
in Mecca, in Saudi Arabia,

changed the course
of world history.

JOHN ADAIR:
If you had to rate

the top people in the history
of the world as leaders,

the name of Muhammad
would be in the top three.

AJMAL MASROOR:
Here we have a man who began a mission.

He gave light to the world.

OMAAR:
For one and a half billion Muslims,

he is the last and greatest
of that long line of prophets

who have brought the
word of God to humanity.

KAREN ARMSTRONG:
He was not just a spiritual genius,

but he also had political
gifts of a very high order.

OMAAR:
He laid the foundations

for a religion, Islam,
that after his death

developed
a culture and civilization

that spread around
the world and inspired

some of the most
beautiful architecture.

But today Islam is at
the very heart of the conflict

that defines our world.

And Muhammad's name

is associated with some of the
most appalling acts of terrorism

the world has ever seen.

ROBERT SPENCER:
Osama bin Laden and others

who have committed
acts of Jihad terrorism

consistently invoke the Qur'an
and Muhammad's example

to justify what they are doing.

Obedience to one true God Allah,

and follow in the footsteps
for the final prophet

and messenger Muhammad.

Outside of the Islamic world,

almost nothing is
known about Muhammad,

whereas for Muslims
he is the ultimate role model

and his life is
known in every detail.

So who was he?

What was his message?

And why are so many people,
Muslims and non-Muslims,

divided over his legacy?

In this groundbreaking series,

I will explore the many
complexities of his life story--

about the revelations he is said
to have received from God,

about his many wives,

about his relations
with the Jews of Arabia,

about his use of war and peace

and about the laws
that he enacted

when he set up his own state.

I want to examine his life
and times and understand

how they still
affect today's world

and whether they are
a force for good or evil.

I want to uncover the real
Muhammad, the Prophet of Islam.

Peace be upon him.

OMAAR:
Muhammad was born in Mecca in the year 570

into the ruling
tribe of the city,

the Quraysh.

At the age of 40,
according to Muslim tradition,

he received a blinding
revelation from God,

the first of many that would go
on to change not just his life

but the history of the world.

This is the defining
moment in Muhammad's life.

And today for the
one and a half billion people

all around the world
who follow him

completely accepting
his revelation

defines what it
means to be a Muslim.

Muhammad's revelations would
become the sacred text of Islam,

the Qur'an, literally
"The Recitation."

The orthodox Muslim position is
that it is God himself

who was the author
of the Qur'an,

and Muhammad was just the person
to whom it was first revealed.

When he started preaching,

Muhammad had quickly attracted
a small band of followers,

but they were now under threat
of death

from the rulers of Mecca
who controlled the Kaaba,

a shrine that housed
the many gods of Arabia.

They feared that
Muhammad's message,

that there was only
one true God,

would destroy the importance
of the Kaaba and, in turn, lead

to Mecca's economic
and political ruin.

By 620,

Muhammad had also lost two
of his greatest supporters:

his loyal wife of
25 years, Khadija,

and his clan protector,
his uncle Abu Talib.

He had reached one of the lowest
points of his life.

But it was at this moment
that he had

another extraordinary
spiritual experience

that would transform his life.

According to Muslim
tradition, one night,

after falling asleep
at the Kaaba in Mecca,

Muhammad was transported
on a metaphysical journey

to a place hundreds
of miles north,

a city that is also holy
to Christians and Jews...

Jerusalem.

What would become known
as Muhammad's Night Journey

would establish Jerusalem
in Muslim eyes

as a sacred city,

a place of devotion
and pilgrimage,

second only to Mecca and Medina.

It's one of the main
reasons why today

Jerusalem is at the heart
of the Middle Eastern conflict.

(demonstrators yelling)

The conflict between
Israel and the Palestinians

is a struggle
between two peoples

over the same piece of land.

But why is it that this issue
has become such a defining cause

across the Muslim world,

and why is it that the call for
the liberation of Jerusalem,

a city 800 miles from Muhammad's
birthplace,

has become such a rallying cry
for so many Muslims?

TRANSLATOR:
Jerusalem is very important to Muslims

because it represents a
part of our creed and faith.

The first event was the night
journey and ascension to heaven,

when God sent Muhammad
to his night journey

from Mecca to Jerusalem,

and ascended him from
Jerusalem to the heavens.

OMAAR:
According to Muslim tradition,

Muhammad is awoken during the
night by the Angel Gabriel

who lifts him up onto a winged
horse called Al Buraq,

and he is then miraculously
transported across the desert

to Jerusalem.

And it's from this point

that Muhammad begins
one of the most powerful

and extraordinary experiences
of his life.

He is taken in a journey where
he meets all the past prophets

from Abraham to Moses
and even Jesus,

and he prays with
all of the prophets.

He is then offered water,
wine or milk to drink

and he chooses milk in order
to signify the middle path

he is trying to steer
through life.

And then
a celestial ladder appears

and Muhammad begins
a mystical ascent

through the seven heavens,
where he is eventually taken

to the heavenly throne itself
and is spoken to by God himself.

To modern rational ears,
it's an incredible story,

but for Muslims it is one
of the most important events

in Muhammad's life.

Whether it can be seen as
a literal physical journey

or a spiritual experience

has divided believers
and nonbelievers alike.

(translated):
This was a miracle,

and the miracle
is part of the faith.

It does not have
any scientific explanation,

and it is against
what is normal.

We believe it because
it is said in the Qur'an

and in the honorable
quotes of the Prophet.

I really think deeply that it
was a spiritual journey,

and the meaning
of it is, in fact,

that he went to Jerusalem,

and then he went very close
to the one God, the creator.

OMAAR:
This is actually the shrine inside the rock

which is covered by the
famous gold dome mosque

known as the Dome of the Rock.

And it is exactly
from this point

where the Prophet Muhammad
is said to have gone

on his night journey.

Now, for some people it was and
is a literal physical journey

in which the Prophet
Muhammad traveled,

in the blink of an eye,

from Mecca 800 miles away
all the way here to Jerusalem,

but for other people the night
journey is actually symbolic.

It's a spiritual journey in
which the Prophet's soul enters

a new realm
of divine revelation.

ABDUR-RAHEEM GREEN:
It was highly important symbolically,

because in this night
journey, the Prophet Muhammad

leads Moses, Abraham, Noah,
Jesus, Jacob, all the Prophets,

he leads them in prayer,

and God speaks with Muhammad.

And in this discourse,
God orders upon the Prophet

and upon all the Muslims

the single most important action

that a Muslim has to perform,
the five daily prayers.

BARNABY ROGERSON:
You look for it in the Qur'an

and you find three
little mentions.

But the whole story about the
prophet going, flying on Buraq,

going to meet the
previous prophets,

going to Jerusalem,
being given instructions

about the five daily prayers,
this journey to heaven,

journey to the.. and the glimpse

of the edge of the utmost
throne of God,

has all been added on later
to build up

this sort of wonderful
cosmological gift

to the Islamic world,
but it's not in the Qur'an.

MERRYL WYN DAVIES:
The history of religion

is embellishment
and interpretation.

How many times should
it be in the Qur'an?

That it is in the Qur'an
is what is significant.

Muhammad's night journey
to Jerusalem

and his ascension to heaven

when he meets all the past
prophets dating back to Abraham,

so familiar to
Jews and Christians,

is a crucial moment in his life.

For Muslims
it is a confirmation,

an acceptance by these other
prophets and even God himself

that Muhammad is the
last in the long line of men

who have brought the
word of God to humanity

and that Islam and its followers

were also a part of
the ancient Abrahamic tradition.

It was also
an indication that Muhammad

was now prepared to leave
his tribal past behind him

and bring his message
to the wider world.

KAREN ARMSTRONG:
The Prophet's night journey

goes away from tribalism.

It finishes not with the tribe,

but with an embrace of
humanity and an abandonment

of the tribal spirit and
a reaching out to others.

That's the theological meaning
of what is happening.

OMAAR:
Because of what happened just behind me,

Jerusalem is
considered by Muslims

to be the third
holiest shrine in Islam,

after Mecca and Medina.

And because this city continues
to be under Israeli control,

that's why Jerusalem
continues to be

such a potent symbol for
Muslims around the world.

Muhammad's night journey
was a seminal moment.

It marked the ending of
one period of his life

and the beginning of another.

He was about to begin a new

and even more dangerously
radical phase of his mission,

in which he would abandon his
tribal life completely.

Rather than trying
to defeat the Quraysh in Mecca,

he would leave the city and
start again somewhere else.

One day in a place here which
used to be a small oasis,

Muhammad met a group of men
from the town of Yathrib,

which is about 15 days'
camel ride to the north.

The men told Muhammad
about the warfare

and the constant feuding that
affected their community.

Muhammad listened to them
and, for his part,

he told them about his mission--
about the unity of God,

about the importance
of living a virtuous life

and of the rewards of heaven.

Now, importantly, the men sat

and were even excited
by what Muhammad had to say.

And this was important,

because it was completely
different to the reaction

that Muhammad was used
to getting in Mecca.

The meeting ended with
the six men from Yathrib

converting to Islam and agreeing
to meet Muhammad once again.

Conditions had now got so
bad in Mecca for Muhammad,

he felt that he had no choice

but to get his followers
to do the unthinkable,

to abandon the city of
their birth for Yathrib

and an uncertain future

in a place where they would live
without any clan protection.

AMIRA BENNISON:
The community in Yathrib

was made up of a number
of different tribes.

Some of them were pagan,
the Aws and Khazraj,

some of them were Jewish.

There were three
main Jewish tribes.

And there was a lot
of disagreement, in fact,

in Yathrib between
different communities

about how they
wanted to do things.

There was sort of a lot of
jostling for power and prestige

and they felt that
they needed a mediator.

And they had heard about
Muhammad, who, at that time,

was a preacher in Mecca,

of growing reputation in
that part of the peninsula

and they perceived in him

someone who could perhaps
mediate in their disputes

and be a sort of neutral
arbiter and come and help them

resolve the problems
within Yathrib.

OMAAR:
It wasn't until the following year

that an even bigger delegation
came all the way from Yathrib

seeking out another meeting
with the Prophet Muhammad.

And this time they held it
under the cover of darkness

and in secret and it led
to a unity between the two,

between the Prophet Muhammad
and the community in Yathrib.

"I am of you and you are of me,"
Muhammad said.

Now, this agreement, it is
important to bear in mind,

was something really new,

something that was
a radical departure

because it wasn't
based on clan alliances,

on family or
on tribal allegiances.

It was based on something
far more universal

that went way beyond kinship.

ARMSTRONG:
It is an act

of extraordinary daring,
audacity and genius, in a sense.

In Arabia at this time,
it was absolutely unheard of

to leave your tribe,
your blood group, permanently

and take up permanent residence
with another.

It was blasphemy.

The sacred tribe was the most...
the absolute value in Arabia

and for him to
leave it like that

and create a new kind
of community, an ummah,

a community based on ideology
rather than relationship,

was unheard of.

OMAAR:
If the rulers of Mecca got wind of Muhammad's plans,

the consequences
could be disastrous.

So Muhammad now had to get his
followers out of the city

without alerting the Quraysh.

Over the next few months,

a few of Muhammad's companions
left the city each night

so as not
to arouse any suspicions

until finally only
a handful were left,

including his faithful
companion Abu Bakr,

his young cousin Ali
and Muhammad himself.

Meanwhile,
the Quraysh themselves

had been planning this time to
assassinate Muhammad himself.

The idea was that one member
of each of Mecca's clans

would stab Muhammad
at the same time,

making it impossible
for Muhammad's own clan

to revenge his death

as too many people
would have been involved.

One night the group
surrounded his house

and believing they saw someone
sleeping in Muhammad's bedroom,

the assassins with their daggers
drawn rushed into his bedroom.

But instead, they found
his young cousin Ali

asleep in his place.

Muhammad had fled.

ROGERSON:
He was a very canny man.

They were going to kill him,

with this assassination
plot that he escaped from

and goes on this wonderful
journey with Abu Bakr.

The think I like
of many, many aspects of it

is that he made certain that
everybody paid their debts.

They were leaving Mecca, but
every debt had to be fulfilled.

There's an underlying
Arabic code of honor

feeding the division.

OMAAR:
Along with Abu Bakr,

Muhammad had slipped
out of Mecca unnoticed.

He was now en route
to his new home in Yathrib.

Even though Muhammad had fled,

the Meccans were really
determined to pursue him,

and within hours
they were hot on his trail

and they chased him
all the way through

the punishing steep climb
on the foothills of Mount Thawr.

But by the time they
reached the top,

there was no Muhammad and there
was none of his footprints.

Eventually the Meccans
just had to give up

and go all the way
back down to Mecca.

But all this while,
unknown to them,

Muhammad and his companion Abu
Bakr had been hiding in a cave

at the top of Mount Thawr.

And when the coast was clear,

they just simply continued on
their journey towards Yathrib.

It was now 622 A.D.,

and Muhammad was
in his early 50s.

He had grown up
in Mecca as an orphan.

He had experienced some of the
wider world with his uncle

on many caravan trading trips.

He had been married
and had a family.

He had received a series
of divine revelations

but had been rejected
by his own tribe.

For over ten years,
he and his small band

of about 200 followers

had suffered extreme
humiliation and persecution.

Finally, with people
plotting to assassinate him,

he had fled his home

to a place completely
unknown to him.

This event became
known as the Hijra,

literally
a cutting off from the past.

There was now no way back for
Muhammad and his new movement.

ROGERSON:
He went as a preacher.

He didn't go as a conqueror.

They said come here
and be our judge.

We're not going to
accept you as prophet of God,

we're just going to
accept you as a prophet,

a revered man
whose word we trust.

He didn't come
with a conquering army.

He came as a refugee,
as an exile,

as a dignified man of respect.

Muhammad was preaching
Islam in Mecca for 13 years.

He only had 150 followers, max.

He was a very good calculator.

He knew if he fought
them from inside Mecca,

he was going to lose.

He left at the right time,
because he wanted

to expand his message, and he
went to the perfect location

where he can actually
hurt the Mecca people

and conquer Mecca from
outside, not from inside.

The Hijra, or migration,
from Mecca to Yathrib

is the turning point, if you
like, in Muhammad's life.

OMAAR:
The Hijra is so important in Muhammad's life

and the history of Islam itself

that the year in
which it took place

is the starting point for the
traditional Islamic calendar.

All Islamic religious festivals
and events are still fixed

using this calendar,

dating back to the moment
Muhammad left Mecca in 622 A.D.

I think it's of great
theological significance

that this marks the
beginning of the Muslim era.

The Muslim era does not
begin as the Christian era

with the birth of the prophet,

but with the date of the Hijra.

This break with the tribal
spirit is being undertaken.

OMAAR:
When Muhammad and his followers

first came here, what they found

was nothing like the city
of Mecca that they had left.

Yathrib, as it was then known,
was basically a large oasis,

a series of villages,

each village dominated
by a different tribe.

It was a situation
that inevitably led

to intense rivalries
and conflicts.

Yathrib would later
have its name changed

in honor of Muhammad.

It became known
as Madinat 'n-Nabiy,

the City of the Prophet,
or "Medina" for short.

BARNABY:
They arrived with nothing,

and they immediately had
to integrate themselves

from being a great trading
Meccan aristocracy

to being poor, penniless,

wearing the rags
of their clothing

in a very, very wealthy oasis

full of its own
wealth hierarchies.

They ground corn, they
wove mats and they fitted in.

When Muhammad came to Medina,
what kind of a place was Medina?

Okay, Medina at that time,
it wasn't a complete city.

It was what you call
sub-communities.

A collection of different
tribes and communities.

Yes.

The center of Medina
which was the prophet

and the main of al'Ansars
or the people of Medina.

OMAAR:
The followers, yes.

AL KHAIR:
And then you have people in Quba,

you have people in Alqablatain,

and then you have
the Jew east of Medina

and also in the south of Medina,

so you have tribes
surrounding Medina,

but as a general
they call it Medina.

OMAAR:
Muhammad's newfound freedom

allowed him
to build his own mosque.

It became almost an
extension of his own home.

Tell me about when
the Prophet Muhammad

built his first
mosque here in Medina.

He found the land
in the center of Medina

and he built this mosque.

OMAAR:
But this mosque, the model that you have here,

is very different from the one
that is in Medina now,

which is one of the biggest
and grandest mosques

in the world.

This is very simple.

Yeah, because at that time,

try to imagine you are talking
about 14 centuries before.

The building was very simple,
about 55 meters by 35 meters.

But it was similar to the
building around Medina,

which was built by mud,
and also stones in foundation,

and palm trees so they
can cover part of the mosque,

and they make an open area
in the back of the mosque.

Now that same mosque
has been transformed into this,

one of the biggest in the world

able to hold up to
half a million worshippers

at any one time.

Muhammad used his mosque
like a community center.

He not only preached here
but also made it his office,

where he could settle disputes,

hold negotiations
and have public debates.

Everyone was free to
enter and speak with him--

Jews, Christians, nonbelievers,
even slaves.

Above all, he and his followers
could now come to the Mosque

and worship in relative peace.

But they faced one
practical problem.

There was no effective
means to tell people

when it was time to pray.

According to tradition, one day,
the Prophet Muhammad

gathered everyone here in
the courtyard of his mosque,

where they wanted to discuss

how the faithful should be
called to prayer.

Should it be like the Christians
at the time using bells,

or the Jews, who used a horn,

or should it be something else
like using fire beacons?

Eventually,
after much discussion,

it was decided that the new
religion of Islam

should be proclaimed with
the human voice itself.

MAN (chanting):

OMAAR:
The man Muhammad picked as the first person

to announce the call for prayers
was a very symbolic choice:

Bilal, a freed African slave

who had endured the most
brutal persecution in Mecca.

In Muhammad's time,
slavery existed all over Arabia,

and although he
never abolished it,

Muhammad and his companions
did free slaves like Bilal.

Every day Bilal would climb
to the rooftop of the mosque

and in a loud voice he would
call the faithful to prayer.

This call to prayer

has since become an integral
part of Muslim life.

Although the words used
are the same the world over,

each call
has a distinctive sound

characteristic to its place.

The mosque and its later
distinctive tower or minaret,

would become one of the most
identifiable Islamic symbols.

A mosque is not
just a place of worship.

A mosque is a focal
point of community.

It is a place where the
transformative mission of Islam

must be put into practice
by services for the needy,

services for the community,

services to help people to
achieve the objectives of Islam.

It's the center for education.

That's what a mosque should be.

It's not what an awful lot
of mosques are today,

and the other thing is that

mosques have to be
welcoming, open places,

not just for Muslims,

because the
transformative mission,

the social objectives of Islam

don't belong just to Muslims.

They are for everybody.

But Muhammad was now not only
the prophet of a new religion,

he was also effectively
the political leader

of the community here in Medina,

and he fused these two roles
right here

in the courtyard of his mosque
where he spent most of his days.

Now, as his role grew,

Muhammad decided that what he
really needed was an agreement

that would not only formalize
his role in Medina

but also his relationship
with the various tribes.

It became known as the
Constitution of Medina

and is thought to be one of the
earliest written constitutions

anywhere in the world.

This was the first attempt
in Arabia to form a state

based not on tribal
ties but mutual interest.

To do it, Muhammad
had to win over the trust

of both the pagan
and Jewish tribes

and make them work
with each other

and with his newly
arrived Muslim community.

Prince Hassan bin Talal
of the Jordanian royal family

is an expert on the
Constitution of Medina.

HASSAN:
The constitution was necessary

for the establishment of a new
diverse state in Medina,

that is a Muslims, Jews,
Christians...

So it organized the relationship

between Muslims,
Jews and non-Muslims

on the basis of
a recognition of the importance

of respecting the lives,
the properties,

the places of worship and,
in particular, ultimately,

respecting the relationship

between the
descendants of Abraham.

It regulated rights
and obligations.

In a sense it was a Magna Carta,
if you will, of the Muslims.

In the case of Medina,
this was not a religious state.

On the contrary,
it was a civil state

and the government and
the people were subject

to the rule of law,

which recognized
their respective rights

and encouraged them
to live together.

OMAAR:
No complete copies of the original document have survived,

and although a number
of versions are found

in early Muslim sources,

written about a hundred years
after Muhammad's death,

some historians doubt
its very existence.

Was there a treaty of Medina?

We only know this
from one set of sources

which had their
particular biases,

their particular agendas.

There are some historians
who are of the view

that there wasn't
a constitution at all

and there wasn't a treaty,

but that this was something
made up subsequently.

The job of the historian
in those circumstances

is extremely difficult.

According to the
Muslim chroniclers,

there certainly was a treaty
and there was a constitution.

Incidentally, if you
look at the constitution,

there is nothing in that
that would surprise you

if you've immersed yourself

in the political sociology
of that period.

It is absolutely unsurprising.

Thank you
very much.

HUGH KENNEDY:
The Arabic used in it is very archaic.

There is every reason to assume

that this is a surviving
document from that period,

and it deals essentially

with exactly the sort
of practical things

that you would imagine.

What is going to be
the position of Muhammad

with regard
to the tribes of Medina,

with regard to the property of
the people of Medina and so on.

It's a very work... it's not
a blueprint for an empire.

OMAAR:
The Constitution of Medina is the earliest known model

of governance in Islam

and it clearly lays
out the duties

and the rights of citizens,

as well as responsibilities
of those that govern them.

For example,
it clearly does away

with the whole customary
practice of vengeance

and the practice
of private justice

and establishes the rule of law.

KHALID AL KHAIR:
In this constitution,

all the tribes of Medina,
they sign it together.

Including the Jews,
including the pagans...

Including everyone,
everyone,

they sign
it to call

what they call
the Ummah.

The community...

Yeah, everyone
is responsible

for the protection
of Medina,

and they are equal
against the law.

They run
a complete state

with all its law.

For example, if any two
Jews fight each other,

they will come
to the Prophet

and he will judge them not
according to Islamic law,

but according
to the Jews' law.

There is a
complete court.

Everything is
there as a state,

so he built
what you call it

a complete civilized
state in Arabia.

The interesting thing about
the Constitution of Medina

is that it recognized
that all these people,

pagan Arabs,
as well as the Muslims,

the Ansar and the Muhajarin, and
the Christians in that city

were part of the same Ummah,

of the same nation.

Nowadays, of course, Muslims
often use the term Ummah

to mean the Muslim community,

but that is not how it was used
in that very first constitution

of an Islamic state.

So when people today say to me
we would like to create

an Islamic state here or there,

I say to them, "Will it be like
the first one in Medina or not?

And if not, why not?"

OMAAR:
Although it survived throughout his lifetime,

after his death, Muhammad's
Constitution of Medina

was first changed

and later completely discarded
by later Muslim leaders.

DAVIES:
This is one of the worst problems that we have today.

To me the most important part

of the example of the Prophet
and the message of the Qur'an

is the acceptance of plurality,

the need for and the realization
that there are many faiths,

many ways and all are
capable of being a community,

an Ummah together.

I think Muslims
marginalize this message.

I think they fail to hold
it as the central principle

of social existence,
and by doing that,

they actually defy the
example of the Prophet.

OMAAR:
Muhammad and his followers

had arrived in Medina penniless.

And although they were now free
of the daily persecution

they had faced in Mecca,

their enemies still
sought to destroy them.

In tribal Arabia, vengeance
was a very powerful motive.

The Muslims in Medina
now faced a threat

to their very existence.

The much more powerful Meccans,
who had driven Muhammad out,

persecuted his followers by
taking their property

and their very
means of survival,

were still plotting
to destroy them.

Muhammad had to find a way over
their enmity, and fast.

OMAAR:
Then, according to Muslim tradition,

Muhammad received
a series of revelations

urging him and his
followers to fight back

against those who had expelled
them from their homes.

The exact interpretation
of these verses

has remained highly
controversial ever since.

Some have seen them as the
validation for a "just war,"

the occasional necessity
to fight in self-defense,

whereas others have seen
them as a justification

for the killing of anyone

who doesn't accept
Muhammad's message.

The revelation that is in the
Qur'an in chapter 2, verse 191

and again at 218,

that persecution
is worse than slaughter.

So in other words, if the
Quraysh are persecuting you,

it's all right for you
to slaughter them,

which leads to a kind of
elasticity of Islamic morality

without any absolute

other than what is good
for Islam is good

and any kind of moral principle
otherwise can be set aside.

And so that as the
basis of warfare,

and also Muhammad's oft
repeated dictum "war is deceit,"

which is found
in numerous Hadith,

it unfortunately lays
the groundwork for a culture

that is often quite
martial and belligerent

toward its neighbors
and others.

RAMADAN:
The permission is only this, in the Qur'an.

You are under oppression,
the people are attacking you,

you have the right to resist.

So this is why from the
mainstream classical

legal Islamic tradition, it's
the, you know, the defensive,

what we call the
defensive jihad,

which is you are oppressed, you
can resist this oppression

in the name of your rights.

So all the people and
some of the Muslim groups

who are using these
verses to say we can kill

and this is a
carte blanche for war are wrong.

This is not what
is said in the verse.

The verse is:
they are attacking you.

You have the right to resist,

because at the end of the day
it's a question of survival.

OMAAR:
Muhammad and his followers were engaged

in a battle for survival.

He saw these
revelations as justification

to attack the Quraysh
where it hurt most--

their caravan trade
with the outside world.

During March 624,
the Prophet heard

about an exceptionally
large Quraysh caravan

returning from
Syria back to Mecca.

He decided to capture the
caravan in the desert.

For their part the
Quraysh had anticipated

Muhammad might do this

and so diverted the
caravan away from Medina

and instead sent an
army to intercept him.

The two sides met here
at a remote watering hole

in the desert called Badr.

KENNEDY:
The two forces,

the force coming from Mecca

and Muhammad's force
coming from Medina,

meet up at the well of Badr.

And there is a confrontation

that probably only
lasts a few hours,

between certainly
less than 1,000 people,

probably 300 or 400
on Muhammad's side.

Possibly up to 900
on the Meccan side.

We're always told
that the Meccans

are more numerous
than the Muslims,

but we've no real
method of knowing

whether that's a historical
reality or not.

BONNEY:
What was actually happening

in the battle between
Mecca and Medina, in a sense,

the Prophet in exile at Medina,
was an ideological battle.

We think-- we don't
know for certain,

because it didn't happen--

we suspect that
if the Meccans had won,

they would have exterminated the
"heretics," as they saw them,

the Muslims, because they were
too much of a threat.

OMAAR:
The Meccans were defeated,

and the threat to Medina was
temporarily lifted.

Round one in this
struggle for dominance

between Mecca and Medina
went to Muhammad.

By modern standards,
this was hardly a battle,

more a skirmish.

But its significance
was massive.

It was the first time that
Muhammad and his followers

had gone to war
in the name of God,

and they were jubilant at this
extraordinary victory

over the Quraysh.

Muhammad's reputation
throughout Arabia

was hugely improved.

But for the Quraysh
this spelled shame,

which could not be
forgotten or forgiven.

This humiliation
would have to be avenged.

KENNEDY:
It meant that Muhammad's prestige in Medina,

where he had just recently
arrived, had of course shot up.

And also the booty
was extremely useful

for rewarding his
followers in Medina.

Having gifts to give,
and so on, made his position

much, much stronger.

OMAAR:
For Muhammad and his followers,

the victory at Badr had
a deep religious meaning.

It was a vindication
of the faith

that had sustained
him and his followers

for now nearly 14 years.

They saw it as God's approval
for their new movement.

Ever since, Muslims have seen
this early victory

as a divine deliverance,

comparable to the
Israelites' deliverance

from Egypt at the Red Sea.

One day while he was praying,
following this victory,

Muhammad received another
revelation that would give him

and his followers a more
distinct identity.

The revelation instructed him
to change the direction

in which Muslims pray,

known as the Qibla.

Now, originally,
Muhammad and his followers,

just like the Jews and the
Christians at that time,

prayed towards Jerusalem,

so that Qibla
in this mosque here

faces north towards Jerusalem.

But then according to tradition,

Muhammad turned the whole
congregation around

and made them pray
in that direction,

towards the Qibla facing Mecca.

And for that reason,

this mosque is known as the
Mosque of the two Qiblas.

Now, this seemingly simple
change

was actually really
quite profound

because it marked,
first of all, the emergence

of a new and proud identity--
that of the Muslims,

which was different
in how they prayed

towards the Jews
and the Christians

and it also means to this day

that Muslims wherever they are
in the world, five times a day,

all pray in the same
direction, towards Mecca.

ROGERSON:
This change of the direction of prayer from Jerusalem to Mecca

is a curious moment.

And some hostile commentators

have seen the early element of
Islam as being too Judaizing

and drawn towards the Holy Land

and Christianizing about

Islam as being
a revival movement

that is going to soon purge the
Holy Land of all its problems

and create this one
sort of unified faith,

but leaning very strongly on
these previous traditions.

One could imagine a process
where as Islam wants to build

its distinct institutions,

one of the other
things that it develops

is, of course,
its own spiritual center, Mecca.

And so one could imagine Mecca
being consciously chosen

as a way of
distinguishing this new faith

from the ones that
had gone before.

OMAAR:
But not all the people of Medina welcomed this move

to create a more Muslim
identity--

in particular, some of the more
prominent Jewish tribes.

I can certainly envisage

that the idea that
one should pray

to anywhere other than Jerusalem

would have aroused
enormous suspicion

amongst the Jewish tribes
of the peninsula at that time.

OMAAR:
The members of the Jewish tribes

saw the new direction of prayer
as an act of defiance,

symbolic of their deteriorating
relationship with Muhammad.

KENNEDY:
There is, as it were, a religious aspect to it

and an economic aspect

that made relationships between
the two very difficult.

The Jewish tribes were
unable to accept Muhammad

as the apostle of God

because that went
against their scripture

and their tradition and so on.

So, there was a
fundamental problem there.

But the other thing was just
control of trade and resources.

There is a lot of struggle
for the control of the economy,

if you like, the
silver market and metal work

and things like that.

The newly arrived
followers of Muhammad from Mecca

were keen to dominate
the local economy.

OMAAR:
The more powerful and successful Muhammad became,

the more his relations with
the Jewish tribes worsened.

He expected their support
in his conflict with Mecca

but they had
lucrative commercial ties

with the Quraysh in Mecca which
they were not about to give up.

So according
to Muslim tradition,

the Jewish tribes began
to have secret meetings

with Muhammad's enemies.

Some of the pagan tribes
that had converted to Islam

also started to resent
Muhammad's success,

and they too began
to turn against him.

Muhammad now faced a dual threat

from both inside
and outside his own ranks.

It wasn't long after
the battle of Badr

that Muhammad began to encounter

his first serious problems with
the Jewish tribes from Medina.

He learned of a
series of secret meetings

between the Jewish tribes and
his Quraysh enemies from Mecca.

Muhammad's fear was
that if the Quraysh attacked,

the Jewish tribes may
well swap sides wholesale

and help to crush him.

And thus he felt he had to act.

He surrounded
one of the villages

of the Jewish tribes
south of Medina.

And after a two-week siege,
they surrendered,

and then they were
banished en masse from Medina.

JOHN ESPOSITO:
Part of the Constitution of Medina had been a compact

in which people of
different tribes and faiths

could live together,
that Jews had a right to live

and function within
the society commercially,

to practice their faith,

but that what they owed the
state was their loyalty.

What happens at a certain
point is that the Jews,

not all of the Jews, but
particular groups of Jews,

are seen as, in effect,
committing treason,

as aligning themselves
and making vulnerable

the Medinan community,

aligning themselves
with the enemy.

OMAAR:
The exact nature

of the relationship between
Muhammad and the Jewish tribes

is another controversial
aspect of his life.

Most Muslim scholars regard
the Constitution of Medina

as a formal treaty
between the two,

and that when some
of the Jewish tribes

met with Muhammad's enemies,

they broke that treaty.

Others dispute
this interpretation.

You speak
about controversies,

or differences
of opinion

about the treaty of Medina.

Spell it out.

This is a dispute that I don't
think historians can solve.

It's interesting that
we don't really have

any reliable
independent contemporary

Jewish sources for this,

so you can
take the view

that they did enter into
a treaty and they broke it,

or you can take the
view that the treaty

was a Muslim
chroniclers invention,

in order to justify ex post
facto what had happened.

BARNABY:
There's a spark of real politique,

of power politics,
by expelling

these very wealthy communities
who had put themselves,

in each case,
in a treasonable situation.

On one level the Prophet came
with a whole lot of

penniless migrant refugees,

and certainly when
the first Jewish clan

who owned all this property,
owned all the valleys,

when they had broken the pact
and negotiated with outsiders,

that meant the whole point
of him coming to Medina

was that he was going
to be the chair

and stop all of this schism.

OMAAR:
At that time,

the acceptable punishment
for treason was death.

So the fact that
Muhammad only banished

this Jewish tribe from Medina

might suggest he
was still hoping

for some kind of
reconciliation with the others.

But relations between the two
sides remained fraught.

Another event was to increase
the tension even more.

Almost exactly a year
after the Battle of Badr,

the Quraysh returned to Medina
looking for vengeance

with a new army three times
larger than Muhammad's.

This was no longer
a tribal squabble,

but an all-out war
of extermination.

Once again Muhammad decided
to meet the Meccan forces

outside of the oasis,
here at Mount Uhud.

But his forces
were greatly depleted.

For one thing, the Jewish
tribes decided not to fight

because it was the Sabbath.

And one of Muhammad's
commanders deserted him,

taking 300 soldiers with him.

The Meccans, on the
other hand, were motivated

by the desire for vengeance.

This time neither side was able
to deliver a crushing blow,

and the battle ended
in a stalemate.

KENNEDY:
It was a hard-fought battle,

it was a draw, if you like,
but the important thing

was that the Muslim community of
Muhammad in Medina survived.

OMAAR:
The crucial difference was that this time

the Meccans had
some inside help.

According to Muslim tradition,

some of the Jewish
tribes in Medina

were now actively helping
Muhammad's enemies.

The third and final
battle took place in 627 A.D.,

five years after Muhammad
had moved to Medina,

when the Quraysh returned

with a massive army
of 10,000 warriors.

Muhammad could only
muster a force of 3,000,

and so this time,
there was no question of him

facing the Quraysh
in open battle.

So he decided to fortify
Medina against a siege.

Medina was relatively
easy to defend,

because it's surrounded
by volcanic hills.

But its most vulnerable point
was to the north,

and so Muhammad adopted
a very simple tactic.

He dug a huge trench,

and its effect on the Quraysh
advance was dramatic.

This area
of present-day, modern Medina

is where the so-called Battle
of the Trench took place.

Over there was the Meccan army,

and over there
was the Muslim army,

and the trench
dividing the two forces.

The Meccan army was
said to be so large

that it covered an area
as far as the eye could see.

But thus began
what must have been

an incredibly strange standoff.

The Meccan army was absolutely
unable to do anything.

They didn't have
any siege equipment

in which to get over this trench

that Muhammad and
his forces had built.

For his part,
Muhammad was quite prepared

to sit and wait
and allow the Meccans

to get frustrated and leave.

Digging a trench meant
that the horses of the Meccans

couldn't enter the city.

And it's been taken
by Muslims through the centuries

as a sign of Muhammad's
astuteness in ordering,

commanding this
different sort of defense

which caught the
Meccans off guard.

It meant that the strategies

or the tactics that they were
pursuing didn't work.

OMAAR:
According to Muslim tradition,

after two weeks
the Meccans' supplies

were starting to run out.

So they asked their new secret
ally, one of the Jewish tribes,

the Banu Qurayza,
to attack the Muslim forces

from within the city.

Whereas before Jewish
tribes had only traded

with Muhammad's enemies
or refused to take up arms

in support of Muhammad,

this time they were now on the
verge of actually attacking him.

The Qurayza were inside Medina
with Muhammad and the Muslims,

and they had an accord

with Muhammad and the Muslims,

but after they had
seen what had happened

to the other two
Jewish tribes of Medina,

the Nadeer and the Kai'nuka,
they understandably, I think,

reached out to the Quraysh

and offered to make an accord
with them against Muhammad.

ABDEL HALEEM:
So, you have these people, after all the alliance of Medina,

fighting with the
most bitter enemy

to finish off
the Muslim community.

That was high treason,
because the Muslims,

as the Qur'an tells us,

were shaken to the foundation,
and thinking it is a loss,

the end is nigh.

OMAAR:
Muslim scholars claim

that at the very least the
Banu Qurayza betrayed Muhammad

by negotiating with the Quraysh

and being on the brink of
attacking the Muslim forces

even though the Quraysh
and their allies withdrew

before this attack
could take place.

LANDAU-TASSERON:
That's the traditional explanation.

He was betrayed.

There is, by the way, no record
of any actual attack of the Jews

against the Prophet
or anything like that.

Now during this siege,

the Qurayza lent
weapons to the Prophet.

On the other hand,

they probably also
traded with the besiegers

because they were traders.

ALDERMAN:
I think the Banu Qurayza probably did side

with the Quraysh.

I think this would have
been a natural thing

for them to have done.

Jews were always
looking for allies.

In the diaspora,

a cornerstone of Jewish
political theory has been:

you meet and make friends

with everyone that you can
meet and make friends with.

And I think this would have
been absolutely natural

for them to have done this.

OMAAR:
If this plot had succeeded,

the Quraysh would have
been able to enter Medina,

they would have
slaughtered Muhammad

and all of his followers,

and his attempts
to start this new religion

would have come to a halt.

His reaction to this
latest act of treachery

would lead to one of the most
controversial incidents

in his entire life.

Muhammad ordered his army
to surround the village

of the Jewish tribe.

They held out for 25 days
before surrendering.

He now faced a dilemma.

If he allowed them to go free,

they could join
the Quraysh in Mecca

and help them to crush him.

Rather than make
the decision himself,

Muhammad agreed that
an independent arbiter

be appointed.

He allowed the
Jewish tribal leaders

to choose a respected
local leader to arbitrate

and pronounce judgment.

It was the third time he was
meeting some of the people

and saying, "I am now going to
ask someone to judge you.

Are you happy with this?"

And he asked Saad bin Ubbays
to come and to decide.

He decided that
the men should be killed.

And before this
the Prophet said,

"I am not going to judge.

I am going to ask someone."

The point is for us here
is to acknowledge two things.

First it happened
that men were killed,

but in a situation where he
spared the life of the people

two times before and this was
the last time and say,

"This is enough
because you are continuing,

"even though we are sparing
your life, to attack us,

which was a betraying us."

He said all the fighters
amongst Banu Qurayza

should be put to the sword

and the women and children
should be taken as captives.

This is what happened.

They were executed.

DARWISH:
This is the first holocaust against the Jews.

How can a prophet
order a massacre of 800 men

even if they tried to kill him?

He could have banished them
or he could have moved.

GREEN:
It had nothing to do

with the fact that
they were Jews.

They could have been a Christian
tribe or any other tribe.

It wasn't a holocaust.

It wasn't directed at the Jews
because of their religion.

If that was the case,

then it would have set a
precedent in Muslim history,

and we would not have found

the golden age of Jewish
Enlightenment taking place

under the Muslims in Spain,

If this claim was true,
then we would have found

the position of Jews
throughout Islamic history

would have been very,
very different.

OMAAR:
It's this incident, perhaps more than any other,

that has led many critics
to brand Muhammad

as a bloodthirsty tyrant
willing to use all violent means

in order to maintain his rule.

And it's also seen
as the origins

for much of the hostility

in the Islamic
world today towards Jews,

and certainly judging
by our own standards today,

it was an appalling
act of brutality.

But we have to see it
within the context of the time.

The fact that very few people
were shocked by this act

is a stark reminder
of the brutality of the age

and society in
which Muhammad grew up.

ALDERMAN:
I think the massacre at that time

had an impact on the outlook of
Islam towards the Jewish world.

I think over the
centuries since then,

the Islamic world has,
in a sense,

bought into a
particular view of Jews.

Now, having said that,
I think there are other factors

that have influenced Islamic
attitudes towards Jews,

but I think that was
certainly one of them.

I think it seared itself into
the Muslim historical memory,

and to that extent,
it has had an impact

that we feel down to this day.

OMAAR:
In some parts of the Muslim world

and Muslim
communities in the West,

a new anti-Semitism has appeared

that claims legitimacy
from the Qur'an.

Its offensive rants

are to most Muslim
and non-Muslim ears

completely abhorrent.

(speaking Arabic)

RAMADAN:
All the people who are confusing

some of the historical events
with taking a position

against the Jews only
because they are Jews

are not respecting
the Islamic tradition.

This is unacceptable, this is
racist, this is anti-Semitism,

this is against our religion.

We can't at the same time say
"hum ahl al-Kitab"

that they are
people of the book,

and they are following in
the monotheistic tradition

and at the same time
have racist statements,

just targeting the Jews,

while the Prophet, when
he arrived in Medina--

and this is something which
is very important for us--

when he started this Islamic
society with the rules,

he spoke about "al-ummah
al-islamia", the community,

and he said "hum min o matina"--
they are members of our Ummah.

Who?

The Jews and the Christians.

So how come he is saying this,

and now we come
with these statements

that are completely unacceptable
from an Islamic viewpoint

and we are confusing what a
state, a government can do,

for example, in the Middle East,
with what the Jews are?

The Jews are our brothers and
sisters in faith and humanity.

The legacy of
Muhammad's treatment

of the Jewish tribes in Medina
is still with us today.

But at the time, it saw
him emerge as the leader

of a powerful new
movement in Arabia

that was gaining in confidence.

But would this be
his only legacy?

He was now in his late 50s

and for most of his life had had
to face brutal persecution.

He'd been forced
out of his hometown

and was engaged in almost
continual bloody conflict.

In particular, Muhammad
had to resolve this struggle

for supremacy with the Meccans.

Would that end in
yet more violence,

or could he find a safer
future for his followers?

In essence,
would Muhammad be remembered

as a leader and warrior
who conquered Arabia,

or as a prophet with a wider
message for the entire world?

In the next and final part,

Muhammad faces his enemies
one more time and wins,

but through peace.

And he outlines his legacy
in a final sermon

in Mecca.

DAVIES:
The Prophet's final sermon sets the agenda

for modern,
contemporary Muslim society.

It shows were we failed,

and it shows were
we have to try to get to.

It sums up the
transformative mission

that was the life
of the Prophet.

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