All language subtitles for Civilisations.2018.s01e04.Picturing.Paradise.[MPup]

Every year, thousands of people from
across the world come together

at a single spot in rural Cambodia.

It's the spring equinox,

and they're here to witness
an extraordinary sight.

The moment when the sun
rises over the central spire

at the temple of Angkor Wat.

I don't usually
think of myself as a pilgrim

but this morning
I got up well before dawn with

thousands of others to come to see
the sun at Angkor Wat.

Certainly, when the sun seemed to
balance for a second or two

on top of the central tower
of the temple,

there were gasps of
amazement and wonderment.

It's religious art at its most
spectacular.

It's show stopping.

But the spectacle of Angkor Wat
doesn't stop there.

Built by the kings of the Khmer
empire in the 12th century,

Angkor is intended to give
concrete form

to the claims of Hindu religion.

Five high towers are said to
represent the mythical Mount Meru,

centre of the cosmos.

Religious patterns
and symbols adorn the walls.

And a seemingly endless
narrative frieze

is wrapped around
the centre of the temple.

Angkor Wat is one of the biggest

and best-known religious
monuments in the world.

When you look at the sculpture

and the decorative patterns
on the walls, the extravagant,

in-your-face superfluity
of it all, the sheer excess...

..the basic point is clear that this
is a building

designed to unify the natural,
the human and the divine worlds.

For millennia, art has been used to
bring the human and divine together.

And it's given us
some of the most majestic

and affecting visual
images ever made.

I want to explore what
really lies behind

these extraordinary creations.

And reveal the kind of religious
work that art does

all around the world.

But, for me, the story of religious
art is about more than this.

It's about controversy and conflict,

danger and risk.

Whether it's Muslim or Christian,
Hindu or Jewish,

I want to expose the dilemmas
that all religions face

when they try to make gods
visible in the human world.

When does the worship of an image
turn into dangerous idolatry?

Where does divine glorification
end and worldly vanity begin?

What actually counts as an image
of God or of God's word?

Treading these fault lines,
I'll even show how the defacement

of religious art is fraught
with its own problems and paradoxes,

and I want to end on what
we often think of

as the cradle of
Western civilisation itself

to ask what it is we now worship

and how far we still look
with the eye of faith.

"There are gods, gods everywhere.
And nowhere left to put my feet."

Those are the words of a 12th
century Indian poet, as he cast

his eyes on the mass of religious
images that surrounded him.

Several centuries on, you can
still see what he meant.

Coming to a place I'm not
so familiar with, like India,

helps to open my eyes to the fact
that religious art gets everywhere.

You don't only find it in churches,
temples and galleries.

Religion has always brought out
the artfulness in people,

on the body, in the home,
and on the street.

And it can seem quite simple,

whether it's a matter of religious
awe, or a way of satisfying

our curiosity by peeking into
the hidden world of the divine.

But if we go a bit deeper

and try to explore how these
religious images actually work...

..it turns out to be a little
harder than you might think.

It was 1906 when the artist-explorer
Christiana Herringham

was trekking through this remote
part of central India.

She had been intrigued by stories
of an ancient religious site

long hidden in the hills.

And, after weeks
of very rough travel,

she was astounded by what she saw.

Spanning an entire rock face
were the Ajanta Caves.

This network of Buddhist
prayer holes

and monasteries
was begun around 200 BC

and added to over the centuries.

Gradually, hundreds of sculptures

and reliefs of the Buddha
were carved out of the rock.

But what Herringham really
wanted to find

lay inside the caves themselves.

These are some of the earliest
Buddhist paintings in the world.

By then in a perilous state,
Herringham set about recording them

before they finally faded away.

This amazing book is how
she preserved the paintings.

You've got a preliminary
set of essays,

talking about how the work was done
and what the paintings meant.

But then the most gorgeous
colour plates.

But Herringham not only
preserved these scenes

from the life of the Buddha.

In her mind's eye and on her page,

she radically and problematically
reinterpreted them.

When she looks at the colour,
the perspective,

the careful lines and composition,

what she sees is
the Indian equivalent

of Italian Renaissance art,

and she actually talks about them
as frescoes,

and she talks about the caves
as a picture gallery.

And, in a way,
this book is part of that vision.

By giving you small snapshots
and giving you them like this

so that you could, if you wanted
to, just put them up on your wall,

as pictures, what this book
is doing is it's translating

and Indian Buddhist site...

..into the heritage of world art.

Of course, we now see
plenty of religious art

in the safe space of a gallery.

But, to understand how these
paintings really work,

we need to look at them in the caves
for which they were made.

Almost every surface is painted.

Some still showing
traces of vivid colour.

Others have become muted over time.

Over and over again,
we see the Buddha as he rejects

the vanities of the world
in search of enlightenment.

But this is not an easy read.

The scenes are
often in a puzzling order

and many details
get lost in the darkness.

But it's partly
their fragmentary layout

and their shadowy setting that gives
these pictures their meaning.

These paintings made the viewers
do religious work.

They demanded that you identify,
find and refind for yourself...

..the stories that you probably
knew in outline already.

You couldn't come here
and be a passive consumer

of religious images.

You had to be an active
interpreter of them.

I think there's also
a point about the fragmentariness

of religious narration.

These paintings echo, in a way,

the many different versions
we have of religious stories.

Their open-endedness,
their contradictions,

and their inconsistencies.

And even the lack of light
has its part, too.

When you came in here, with
your flickering candle trying to

make out what was
on the walls, in a way,

that was a perfect metaphor for one
kind of religious experience.

The idea that you were
searching for the truth,

searching for the faith
amidst the darkness.

The images at Ajanta
invite their viewers to seek out

the Buddhist message for themselves.

And forge their own path
to enlightenment.

But just when the last of these
scenes were being painted,

on the other side of the world,
religious imagery was being

deployed much more aggressively
in religious controversy.

In the 6th century AD,

the marshlands
of Italy's Adriatic coast,

which had previously been host
to little more than remote

fishing villages, became the front
line in an ideological war.

Early Christians who, at this stage,

were certainly not
a unified faith...

..argued furiously over fundamental
parts of their doctrine.

And, amid this controversy,

they harnessed the power of art
in a most forceful way.

Here in Ravenna is
the church of San Vitale,

named after a local saint
and martyr.

Built in the 540s from the ruins
of ancient Roman buildings,

its very fabric is a reminder of the
Christian conquest of pagan Rome.

And, throughout the church,
every technique has been used

to assert the Christian message
and demonstrate its awesome power.

Stories from the Bible tell how
the one true God first revealed

himself to humankind.

The image of the Christian emperor,
flanked by bishops

and soldiers, expresses the unity
of the church, state and military.

And the golden mosaics, the great
innovation of early Christian

artists, reflect divine light
into the darkness.

But there is one image
that dominates the church.

It's the figure of Jesus himself.

And it was he who lay at the heart

of early Christianity's
theological battles.

The early centuries of Christianity
were not a period

of peace and goodwill. Far from it.

They were torn apart by religious
controversy about the nature

and divine essence of Jesus.

There were crucial religious
issues at stake.

What was the exact relationship
between Jesus and God?

What and where had Jesus been
before he was born to Mary?

How could a perfect
and indivisible God

give up part of himself
to create a son?

And, so - and this was the killer
question for many -

were Jesus and God
made of the same substance?

Or were they just
very like each other?

The mosaics here make a very strong
case for the divine status of Jesus,

as if to erode any misunderstanding

because he appears as part of a
calculated scheme of images designed

to end the controversy, telling
the viewer exactly what to believe.

In perfect alignment are three
different aspects of Jesus.

The apse, there's
the beardless Jesus, young,

the son of God.

The centre of the ceiling,

there's Jesus as
the symbolic lamb of God,

the Jesus who's to be sacrificed
on behalf of humanity.

And, at the top
of the entrance arch,

there's the older, bearded,
all-powerful Jesus,

who's about as indistinguishable as
you could get from God the Father.

So, there's a lesson here
in seeing Jesus.

And, also, particularly in that last
image, a clear steer.

These images are telling us never to
doubt the divinity of Jesus Christ.

But elsewhere in the Christian
world, and at other times,

images can have some unexpected and
just as controversial consequences.

Behind the facades
of its palazzian churches,

the city of Venice contains
a treasure trove of religious

paintings that remain exactly where
they were intended to be seen.

And beyond these walls
is one of the most spectacular.

This is the meeting house
of a religious brotherhood,

known as the Scuola di San Rocco.

A bit like a Renaissance version
of a Rotary Club,

moneyed Phoenicians
would meet here to share

in their selfless concern
for the poor.

And the paintings
that surrounded them

offered reminders
of their charitable obligations.

If you look at the scene
of the birth of Jesus,

there's no doubt
that's happening in poverty.

And if you look at the Last Supper,

the most prominent figures
in the canvas in front of Jesus

and the disciples are actually
two beggars and a dog...

..who's presumably looking for some
scraps from the table.

Most of the artwork we now see
was produced in the 16th century

and the man responsible was
Jacopo Tintoretto.

A home-grown Venetian favourite,

he spent years decorating

the meeting house
with over 50 paintings.

And his most famous image is this...

..the crucifixion of Jesus.

People who come here now have
all kinds of different reactions

to this painting.
Some are overwhelmed by the size.

Some are puzzled by the busy
bits of detail.

Critics and art historians have had
different reactions, too.

Some of them have honed in
on the technique, picking out

Tintoretto's bold brushstrokes

or the contrast between
light and shade.

Some have concentrated instead
on the emotion of the scene.

And that's the line that John
Ruskin took in the 19th century

when he was so dumbfounded by it,
that he said the painting

was absolutely impossible
to analyse.

Think he might have tried
a bit harder.

What Tintoretto has done

is blur the lines between
the viewer and the painting.

Some of the characters there
are wearing modern,

that is 16th century, dress,
not biblical outfits.

And there are some
ordinary 16th century people

doing the digging, tugging on the
ropes and putting up the ladders.

More than that, if we stand in front
of it, it's almost as if you

become part of the encircling crowd
around that central scene.

What's being hammered home here is
the fact that the crucifixion

is both a historical event
in past time

and a religious event,

which breaks down the barriers
of time and space.

But there is another,
more controversial reading

of this painting
which often gets lost

on the connoisseurs
who stand before it.

This painting was
produced at a really critical

moment in the story
of the brotherhood

when they were being attacked for
spending far too much on bling

and on doing up their premises, and
not half enough on helping the poor.

In some of his pictures,

Tintoretto seems to be
responding to that charge.

When he included beggars
in the scene of the Last Supper,

or the kind of ordinary people
the brotherhood was supposed to

support in the scene
of the crucifixion that really

looks like a calculated
defence of their charitable aims

in the face of opposition.

But the whole controversy points to
a crucial problem in religious art.

The more you plough
your resources

into the visual glorification
of God...

..the more you lay yourself open
to the accusation

that you're more interested in the
material than in the spiritual.

That you're more interested
in worldly vanities than in piety.

We're now treading the fault lines
between art and religion

and the problems
of picturing the divine.

And here the perils of vanity
are just the beginning.

Seville has been a centre of
Catholic image making for centuries,

home to some of Spain's greatest
religious painters...

..Velazquez, Zurbaran and Murillo.

And images still play a big part
in the religious life of the city.

WOMAN RECITES PRAYER IN SPANISH

But, here in Seville, there's
one image that has a peculiar power.

WOMAN CONTINUES PRAYING

Housed in the church of the Macarena
is a statue of the Virgin Mary.

She's been here
for over 300 years,

crying in sorrow at the death
of her son, Jesus.

She's tremendously impressive.

She was started in the 17th century

and one story is she's the work
originally of a female sculptor

because only a woman could quite
capture the Virgin like this.

But she's been added to ever since -

when she got that
splendid gold crown,

when she started wearing
those very big capes,

and she's got a large wardrobe,

and she often changes her dress.

The every day care
and attention paid to this statue

might at first seem a little odd.

But she was intended to have
an aura of humanity about her.

Her tears may be made of glass
but her hair is real human hair.

Her exposed flesh, that's her head
and hands, are made of wood because

they thought wood was much warmer
than marble, was more organic.

And, in other ways, she's treated
as if she's a human being,

so, no-one apart from the nuns
are allowed to take her clothes off.

In many ways, she's not finished
but a work in progress which only

becomes complete for a single night
at the most sacred time of year...

..at Easter.

The holy cross is
presented to the crowd

and hooded penitents begin to
march.

For many, this is highly charged
and emotional.

Now they wait, longing for the
extraordinary moment when the Virgin

appears at the threshold,

and a moment of transformation
is at hand.

HE KNOCKS

Carried on a throne, she begins her
journey into the night.

And, as she moves,
the statue seems to come to life.

It's as if the likeness of
the Virgin has become her presence.

And you can see that
in the astonishing

reaction of the faithful.

CHEERING BECOMES LOUDER

But this adoration breeds suspicion

because here in Seville there are
some in the church who fear

that the image of the Virgin

has stolen the limelight
from the Virgin herself.

The big question is what
are the worshippers worshipping?

Is it the idea of the Virgin Mary
who somehow is out there,

beyond the image?

Or are they worshipping
the statue itself?

That's to say this is
the idolatry question,

which almost all religions
have faced.

The hierarchy of the church
has always been anxious

about reactions to such statues
and the expense lavished on them.

It has seemed uncomfortably
close to the worship of images

prohibited by the Ten Commandments.

The Catholic Church has to be very
careful about those people

who are...
whose faith is not very deep.

Because the problem is that
people in front of the statue

think that that's all.

The danger is that they believe that
everything is that, the statue.

And we have to be careful.

That's not the way.

It has been blessed, and things
like that, but it's a statue.

That's a representation
of something higher.

You have to believe
that through that statue

you go up to the divinity.

It's a basic and perennial
problem of religious art,

which all religions must face.

But they take different views
of how to handle it.

And of religious imagery
more generally.

Out on the rural fringes of Istanbul
is one of the most striking

religious creations of modern times.

It appeared on the landscape
less than a decade ago

and has drawn people in ever since.

It's the Sancaklar Mosque...

..the work of one of Turkey's most
visionary architects.

This is one of the most startling
mosques in the world.

What the architects wanted
to do is to harness

the power of modernism, which is

often thought of as a very secular
movement, to express the very

essence of religious space,
stripped of all the non-essentials.

And it's certainly untraditional
in all kinds of ways.

But, in other ways,

it's exploiting the traditions
of Islam very heavily.

This inside space is meant to be
reminiscent of the Cave of Hira,

where the Prophet Muhammad
first received

the revelation of the Word of God
that became the Koran.

And, of course,

it also evokes one of the classic
stereotypes that many people now

have of Islam, that it's a religion
that is in some way artless.

That it prohibits not just
the image of God and the Prophet,

but the images of living creatures
which only the creator, God,

is supposed to be able to create.

In fact, the only man-made
image is a wonderful

piece of calligraphy which
is a quote from the Koran.

It's as if what we're expected to
do when we come in here

is to see and go away with
the Word of God.

Islam, as a faith of the word,
is enshrined in the Koran itself.

There are many famous sayings
and stories that condemn idolatry

and give warning
about the dangers of images.

But in the ancient
city of Istanbul itself,

a very different picture of Islam
fills our field of vision.

Islam is absolutely
not an artless religion.

In the whole history of the faith,

you cannot trace
a single, uncontested line

about images of living creatures
or about the image of God.

In the Middle Ages, the Islamic
world held some of the most

intricate debates on aesthetics,
the nature of beauty,

the optics of the human eye,

and our sensory experience
of the natural world.

And there's a kaleidoscope
of stories

and parables that are Islam's
conversation with itself

about the role of the artist
and the purpose of the image.

And one of the most
revealing takes us

into the domestic life
of the Prophet Muhammad himself.

One day, Muhammad came home to
discover that his wife Aisha

had acquired a tapestry

with images of living creatures
woven into the design.

And she'd hung it up.

Muhammad is furious,
he won't even go into the house

because it's the creator God
who's supposed to create living

creatures, not some tapestry artist.

So, Aisha takes it down
but she doesn't let it go to waste.

She cuts it up
and turns it into cushion covers,

and that, apparently,
creates no problem.

The story of Aisha's cushion
is a wonderful illustration of how

Islamic attitudes can shift
according to the role

and the setting of the image.

But there's one kind
of Islamic art whose role

and function is much more
significant than any other.

As soon as Muhammad received
the Word of God

in the 7th century,

calligraphy, or the art of
beautiful writing, was taken

to the very heart
of Islamic identity.

There's an obligation
on the calligrapher to serve

the community in which
he or she is writing for.

But calligraphers
were highly esteemed.

The pen is the potent
symbol of knowledge.

The art of calligraphy became
the means by which the sacred word

could be set down, spread,
and remain uncorrupted for all time.

From the very birth of Islam,

the first verses revealed to the
Prophet Muhammad were by the pen.

Therefore, it sanctified the use
of the pen at the outset of Islam.

And, ever since that point, artisans
have been trying to beautify

the divine word through that pen.

Of course, the text of
the calligraphy

is very impressive

but, for me, what is more important
is the visual

of the calligraphy, the graphic,

the balance and the rhythm
of the calligraphy.

To be a good calligrapher, you have
to have years of work in you.

Even on one single letter.

It takes a complete life

to come to that maturity to do
a good calligraphy.

So, you see all his life
in a single stroke.

With exquisite penmanship,

Islam had an art form to set it
apart from many other religions.

And it was said that while the Koran
was received in Mecca

and spoken in Cairo,

it was Istanbul that produced
the finest calligraphers

able to write it down.

This is the Blue Mosque.

It was commissioned in the 17th
century by Sultan Ahmed...

..and, in its almost excessive
size and splendour,

it was designed to surpass
all other mosques in the city.

There are no idols or images
of living creatures.

Instead, the walls are alive
with the most ornate patterns.

Plants and flowers intertwine in the
most vivid glaze of ceramic tiles.

And, laced into the scheme,

are some of the most extraordinary

examples of monumental
calligraphy in the Islamic world.

It's as if the Blue Mosque itself
was conceived

as a great library
of Islamic script,

and it's here that we see
calligraphy at its most powerful.

When you enter the building,
above the door, there's a message

telling you to expect
something special,

that you're going through
the Gates of Paradise.

And that's just one of a whole
series of notices throughout

the Mosque, often beautifully
written snippets of the Koran

which guide the thoughts of the
faithful and interpret what you see.

If you look up into the dome,
you're reminded that it's Allah

who supports
the heavens and the world.

And it was a message that basically
says that you should take back

there into the outside world
the state of purity that

you've reached through prayer.

It's as if there's
a written programme here,

telling you how to experience
the building and how to look at it.

But for those who worshipped
and still worship here,

there's another way
of reading this writing.

Placed high above the prayer hall,
the script becomes almost illegible.

When it was first painted,

many of the faithful would have
been illiterate.

And, even for those who could read,
the clarity of the message is

obscured in the rhythm
and patterns of the text.

This very magnificent, elaborate
script is quite complex.

It's not always easy to read and I
don't think it was meant to be read.

Sometimes it's there also
as a form of blessing.

And, just by looking at it, you can
absorb some of that blessing.

What we have to remember is that
writing can work in other ways.

Here, we are seeing God represented

in visual form but not as human.

Here, God is displayed
as his word in the Koran.

It's God in the art of writing.

Now, Islam is by no means the only
religion to use writing

as a way to negotiate the problem
of how you represent the divine.

The Christian gospels, for example,
can claim that God is the word.

But in Islam,
more than anywhere else,

we see the image becoming the word,
and the word becoming the image.

In the face of all the debates
and prohibitions on images, Islamic

calligraphy evolved to redefine
what an image of God could be.

No single religion has ever managed
completely to resolve

the tension between word and image,
but there are some moments

when it might just seem possible.

These wonderfully appealing images
were made over 500 years ago

and they're from the pages
of a Jewish Bible.

What's so remarkable is that they
dance around a text that is

dense with warnings
about idols and images.

And, yet, they flout them in
the most charming and beautiful way.

I've got this extraordinary book
open on the page

of the second commandment,
the one that prohibits idols.

Now, there have been
centuries of debate

and disagreement about what
that prohibition actually meant.

But, in this case,

unless there's an appallingly
flagrant contradiction going on,

it is not taken to forbid
a quite extravagant

set of images,

even on the same opening
as the second commandment,

you get these two little chaps,
little big bums there.

And, throughout the book,
you find really lavish pictures.

Here is a full page of the menorah.

And the rather lovely
narrative scenes,

like Jonah and his encounter
with the whale.

But what makes the Bible
so precious

is that it's a testament
to a brief

but extraordinary moment in Spanish
history when Muslim, Christian,

and Jewish traditions
came together

in a really productive
and imaginative way.

If you look at this book, you can
see in some ways the Jewish artist

really celebrating the mixed
traditions of medieval Spain.

Some of it really clearly

has roots in Islamic traditions.

And this is a wonderful image,
rather like a carpet,

and, at first sight,
it looks very, very Islamic.

Then you discover,
when you look carefully,

that it's got this incy-wincy
writing all around it,

micrography, it's called, which is
really distinctively Jewish.

So, it's a wonderful bit of cultural
blending in itself.

And there are bits of Christian
tradition, a wonderful picture

of King David actually
based on a European playing card.

Now, the man who did these
extraordinary images

very proudly signs his name

over a whole page
at the very end of the book.

He says that

"I Joseph ibn Hayyim
decorated and finished this."

Now, these Jewish bibles
are not very often signed,

certainly not signed in a way that
takes a whole page.

This is wonderful chutzpah,
it's a kind of artist who

even at the very end of his work
can't keep that artistry in.

But this is much more than a name.

Here Joseph ibn Hayyim is addressing
the fundamental issue

of word and image
that divides so many religions.

And, in his own way,
he settles the debate.

In his hands,
they're one and the same thing.

The poignant fact is that under 20
years after this page was completed,

the Catholics expelled
the Jews from Spain.

This Bible survives not only
as a witness to integration,

but also to religious war.

So too in England.

Through the 16th and 17th centuries,
Protestants and Catholics

fought over this land
in a conflict whose visual scars

can be found in churches
across the country.

There's no more powerful evidence
of that than Ely Cathedral.

Though later much restored,

Ely remains an exquisite jewel
of Gothic architecture.

Its cavernous knave,

its ornate carvings that still
reflect their medieval colours.

And high above, this extraordinary
Octagonal Lantern,

almost a gateway to heaven itself.

But during the great
religious schism,

the splendour of Ely would fall
victim to one of England's

most infamous Protestant reformers.

On 9 January 1644, Oliver Cromwell,

who was then Governor of Ely,
marched into this cathedral

in what is one of the most
mythologised and probably

highly embellished incidents
in the English Religious Civil Wars.

It's hard to imagine it now because
it all feels so tranquil here,

but the story goes that

Cromwell went up to the priest
who was conducting evening service,

told him to put away his version
of the prayer book,

to stop the choir singing - a kind
of "turn off the music" moment -

and then he either
actively encouraged

or at least did nothing to stop
his troops turning on the fabric,

and the images and the glass
in the place.

As they went through the vestry
and the cloisters,

what they did was basically
smash the place up.

Cromwell's attack was just
one assault in a long campaign

against the images at Ely.

For these reformers,
the worship of holy images

was a Catholic superstition,

a distraction from
the pure word of God.

The images at Ely had to go.

And here in the Lady Chapel,

there remains evidence of widespread
destruction on another occasion.

Lots of different kinds of
iconoclasm have gone on here.

The original stained-glass windows
are one obvious casualty.

But they've also gone for the
figures - of saints, of kings

and the scenes from
the life of the Virgin.

Sometimes the whole sculpture's
just been removed,

but quite often what they've done
is they've just taken away

the head and the hands,
leaving the body in place.

It's as if they were aiming to
destroy those bits of the sculpture

that gave it its most living power,
the bits that you interacted with.

The point is, I think, that this
isn't just random vandalism,

this is quite focused,
even thoughtful destruction.

Iconoclasm is something
we often deplore,

but there is another way
of looking at it.

Those figures minus heads and minus
hands have not been made invisible.

It's almost as if they've

been turned into a different
sort of image in their own right.

An artful narrative
of religious conflict.

But there are more
and perhaps unintended consequences

to such artful destruction.

Liberated, you might almost say,

from the figures of saints and
prophets that once crowded the walls

and with its clear stainless
windows, the Lady Chapel

has been transformed, giving us
another version of beauty.

This is a tremendously
aesthetically pleasing space.

It's light and airy and a marvellous
mixture of austerity and decoration.

And we owe that to the iconoclasts.

This fine balance between
destruction and creation

is often overlooked,

but it's what makes iconoclasm
so interesting, so paradoxical.

And it gets yet more intriguing

when we look at other theatres
of religious war.

When Muslim armies from Afghanistan
invaded India in the 12th century,

they were horrified
by what they found.

This was the original
home of the Hindu faith,

were people worshipped not one God
but millions.

Worse still, artists across India
were kept busy

creating a never-ending array
of idols

that were central to Hindu religion.

Muslim writers often presented India

as a place of image worship
gone mad,

even as the very origin
of idols themselves.

One story had it that idols only
spread more widely in the world

because they'd been washed away
from India

by the waters of Noah's flood.

Along with these stories,

legendary tales were sent back to
the Muslim world

of mass idol-breaking and the total
destruction of Hindu temples.

And in their place,
the Muslim crusaders built this.

This is the first mosque in Delhi.

Constructed in the 1190s,

it was once known as the
most imposing mosque in the world.

Huge arches form a grand gateway,

a towering minaret proclaims
Islam as the one true faith.

And in the centre,
surrounding the prayer hall,

is this extraordinary
ornate colonnade.

It's easy to imagine this

as a sanctuary for
the Muslims who made it,

an island of Islam
in an idolatrous Hindu world.

But in this building,

the Hindu world isn't quite
so distant as it may seem.

Various elements of earlier Hindu
structures and images

have actually been reused and
incorporated into its very fabric.

One point must be to assert
conquest by Islam

and to show how the Hindu idols
have at least been neutralised.

But even when they have
been defaced, some aspects

of the humanity of these
human figures have been preserved.

The simple fact, for example,

that they've chosen to place
most of them the right way up,

suggests a respect for
the human form and its image.

This remarkable mosque portrays
a certain appreciation

of the very pictures
Islam condemned.

And just like Ely Cathedral,

it demonstrates that even in
the most severe cases of iconoclasm,

art lives on -
inextricably bound to faith.

But destruction can raise
even bigger questions too.

I want to end at one of the world's
most famous and densest

religious spaces, a place once
the home of the ancient gods,

later converted
into a Christian church

and later still
turned into a mosque.

Built around 450BC, the Parthenon
was originally dedicated to the

goddess Athena, and for centuries
it teamed with images of the divine.

It used to be one of the richest
and most colourful,

most intense religious places
anywhere.

A real phantasmagoria
of religious images.

And everywhere you looked,
there were religious offerings,

altars for sacrifice and temples.

Only the bare bones of Ancient Greek
or any other religion stand here

today, but it's become the focus
of a worship of another kind.

It's easy to come to a place
like the Acropolis and to assume

that whatever religion there
once was here has gone for good.

But I think we should be
a bit more careful.

However secular they might be,

when people here look at this
monument,

when they admire its art
and engage with its mythology,

many are reflecting on questions

that religions have often
helped us face.

Where do I come from?
Where do I belong?

What's my place in human history?

I think people are engaged
in a modern faith here,

the one we call civilisation.

It's an idea that behaves
very much like a religion.

It offers grand narratives
about our origins and our destiny.

Bringing people together
in shared belief.

And the Parthenon
has become its icon.

So if you ask me,
"What is civilisation?"

I say, "It's little more than
an act of faith."

The Open University has produced
a free poster that explores

the history of different
civilisations through artefacts.

To order your free copy,
please call...

..or go to the address on-screen

and follow the links
for the Open University.