Original subtitles

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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