All language subtitles for The Life of Muhammad (2011) - S01E01 - The Seeker (1080p AMZN WEB-DL x265 t3nzin)_track3_[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:
When Muslims come
on a pilgrimage to Mecca,

they put on two simple
pieces of white cloth.

They discard
their everyday clothes

in favor of
these simple cloths,

which symbolize purity
and make everyone equal,

a tradition dating
back to Muhammad's time

more than 1,400 years ago.

Just after I was born,

the very first words
whispered into my ear

were those of the Shahada,
the simple statement of faith:

"There is no God but Allah,
Muhammad is God's messenger"--

words that link me
to this holy place

and to the founder of Islam.

Like most Muslims,
the first human name I heard

was not that of my mother
or father, but of Muhammad.

I first came to Mecca
over 30 years ago

as a child of just five years
with my family, on Hajj,

the Muslim pilgrimage.

As pilgrims we came
to the Grand Mosque,

to the Kaaba, the most
familiar symbol of Islam.

It is the place to
which Muslims face every day,

wherever they may be, in prayer.

When Muslims circle the Kaaba,

they walk in the footsteps
of their Prophet Muhammad,

in devotion to God.

People come from the four
corners of the world,

but what unites everyone here

is a desire to emulate the life
of the Prophet Muhammad,

a man as important to Muslims
as Jesus is to Christians,

a man defines who they are.

But unlike Jesus, Muhammad
was not the Son of God.

For him there was
no miraculous birth,

no healing miracles and no
resurrection after death.

He was just a man.

Muhammad was born
1,400 years ago

in one of the world's
most inhospitable regions.

It was a stark, harsh
environment of mountain,

desert and searing heat,
one-third the size of Europe.

The vast emptiness
of Arabia was sandwiched

between two of the ancient
world's great powers.

To the north was
Christian Byzantium,

the last remnant
of the Roman Empire,

with its capital
in Constantinople.

To the east was another
ancient civilization,

the Sassanids, the remains
of the great Persian Empire.

In between were hundreds
of Arab tribes and clans,

constantly competing in a battle
for supremacy and survival.

There were very few cities.

One of them was Mecca,
the city were Muhammad was born.

Muhammad is believed
to have been born

on a spot close to here
in the year 570.

His father, Abdullah,
died before he was born

and his mother,
Aminah, was very poor.

And what's really
interesting is at the time

there was no sense of
the coming of a messiah,

there was no stars in the sky,

and wise men didn't travel from
afar in order to worship him.

In fact, at the time,
barely anyone noticed,

and no one really cared.

And yet today,

there isn't anything to mark
where Muhammad was born.

No shrine, no museum,
not even a plaque on a wall.

Most Muslims make
a clear distinction

between the messenger
and the message.

Muhammad may be
held in high esteem

but to worship him
is considered shirq,

a heinous and unforgivable
corruption of Islam.

So, over the years,

many sites connected with
Muhammad and his life

have been removed to ensure
there is no worship

of anyone other than God.

The same goes for visual
depictions of Muhammad.

Unlike in Christian churches
with their myriad images

of Jesus on the cross
and the Virgin Mary,

mosques have
no images of Muhammad

or any other person at all.

What is very important
in the Islamic tradition

is to understand
the very essence

of the Islamic monotheism,

what we call tawhid in Arabic,
the oneness of God.

He is beyond everything
and we don't represent God,

but in order to be quite clear
in this relationship with God,

we never represent or have an
image of any of the prophets,

so it's not only the last
prophet, Muhammad,

it's all the prophets.

Abraham, Moses, Jesus
are not seen and drawn

and anything like this in Islam.

It's out of respect
towards this oneness of God

and following the messenger,
never worshipping him.

OMAAR:
In the past, some Ottoman
and Persian miniature paintings

have depicted Muhammad,

but his face was always
hidden behind a veil.

But in the West there is a long
history of depicting Muhammad

in drawings and paintings.

Most recently a Danish cartoon

portrayed him as a terrorist
with a bomb in his turban.

This led to an explosion

of anger and protest
right across the Muslim world,

not just because it was
showing Muhammad's face,

but also because it was
ridiculing him too.

Despite the lack
of visual imagery,

the written sources for
Muhammad's life are extensive.

The first is the Qur'an itself,
Islam's holy book.

But there is also a rich
library of stories and sayings

connected to Muhammad

preserved and written
down after his death

and known as the Hadith.

Muslim scholars had to sift
through thousands of sayings

and stories about Muhammad
to check their validity.

AMIRA BENNISON:
Muslim scholars themselves

were terribly worried
to try and verify

whether the Hadith they were
collecting were true,

whether they were false,
whether they were fabricated.

ROBERT HOYLAND:
The problem that
scholars have with it is, one:

it's only set down
in writing at a much later time.

The actual earliest physical
texts that we can hold

are actually only from the 820s,

and Muhammad dies
in 632, so that's a long period.

Obviously yes, of course,

they've been
transmitted over time,

but with transmission orally
over time, problems can come in.

MUHAMMAD ABDEL HALEEM:
The Arabs relied on their
memory throughout history.

Their history
and their genealogy

were all retained by memory,

and Muhammad was
a very important man.

By the time he died he had
hundreds of thousands of people

following him or
some opposing him,

and they all said
and preserved all this,

and that is a source
which cannot be ignored

simply because some people say
no, this is just an invention

or that it was
written later-- it wasn't.

OMAAR:
While the veracity
of the Hadiths

is still debated
and argued over,

there are, remarkably,
accounts of Muhammad's existence

from non-Muslim sources.

GERALD HAWTING:
Non-Muslim evidence for
Muhammad is not copious;

it exists.

The name Muhammad
is attested in Greek,

Syriac and Armenian writings

from, say, the first 30 years
after the death of Muhammad.

Which 30 years after
Muhammad's death is, I suppose,

pretty good.

OMAAR:
The Armenian historian
Sebeos wrote about Muhammad

just 24 years after his death.

The particular interest here is
that for the first time

in Armenian, someone
talks about Muhammad

and mentions him by name
and says a little bit

about what he did.

Sebeos himself was
talking about the events

around the year 630,

which was before
Muhammad had actually died.

OMAAR:
Sebeos gives
a surprisingly accurate account

of Muhammad's
background and teachings.

Translating from the Armenian,

"At that time a certain man
whose name was Muhammad,"

which is the usual name
for Muhammad in Armenian,

"a merchant,
as if by the command of God,

"appeared to them as a preacher.

"Now Muhammad gave them laws,

"namely not to eat carrion,

"not to drink wine,
not to speak falsehood

and not to engage
in fornication."

OMAAR:
Sebeos and other
non-Muslim historians

write about the
existence of Muhammad

in roughly the same timeframe
as Muslim accounts.

Together with the
Hadiths and the Qur'an,

we have a large body
of detailed facts

about the life of Muhammad.

We know he was
born into the tribe

that ruled the
town of Mecca, the Quraysh,

and that his family was poor.

His father had died
before he was born

and left his mother, Aminah,
little to live on.

When he was just
a few months old,

she handed him over
to a Bedouin tribe

living on the
outskirts of the town,

a tradition among
the Arabs of the time.

Muhammad had a Bedouin wet nurse
and lived a nomadic life

for the first four
years of his life.

Arabia at the time of Muhammad's
birth was a cruel place to live.

There was no law, no state
and very little peace.

Tribal loyalty and customs were
the only sources of protection.

Justice was harsh,
arbitrary and it was swift

and the punishments were brutal.

A man, for example, caught
stealing a loaf of bread

would be killed.

And it meant that the
daily struggle for survival

left very little
room for compassion.

For most people there
was very little chance

of a better existence.

Muslims have a special word
to describe this era--

the Jahiliyyah,
or the age of ignorance.

This was a society that had its
structures, a belief system,

but not as we would understand
an organized religion today.

The peoples of
Arabia were polytheistic;

they venerated a
number of different gods.

In general each tribe
had their own patron god

and that was the
case throughout Arabia.

OMAAR:
And Mecca,
Muhammad's birthplace,

is believed to have been
the most important center

of this polytheistic worship.

ARMSTRONG:
There was a long
established Arabian paganism

as we'd call it today,

that took virtually
the same form

in most of the city's
unsettled regions.

There would be a sort of square
shrine in the middle,

circumambulation around it

and various gods.

There was Allah, the high God,
and there were goddesses,

but most of the Arabs were not
particularly religious

in that sense.

This was something
more for the settled areas,

the towns the
agricultural settlements.

OMAAR:
Orthodox Muslims believe
the Kaaba was built by God

in the time of Adam,

but there is no archaeological
or historical evidence

to confirm its exact origins.

By the time of Muhammad's birth
it had long been a shrine

drawing people
to the town of Mecca,

the center of pagan cults
for the peoples of Arabia.

SAJJAD RIZVI:
Muslim sources acknowledge

that the Kaaba
is a central temple

for the worship of God which has
existed from time immemorial,

so there's a sense
in which the first founder

of this particular
sanctuary for God was Adam

and then the various
prophets after kept it up

and then it was eroded
away as people moved away

from the worship of the one God,

and then it was rebuilt by
Abraham and his son Ishmael

and then again people forgot
what its reason was.

OMAAR:
There are no non-Muslim sources

which connect Abraham to Mecca,
but by Muhammad's birth,

the Kaaba contained the idols
of over 360 different gods,

each one venerated
in its own right.

There was a special time of
truce declared every year,

when all the hostile
tribes could come to Mecca

to circle the Kaaba
and worship their gods

without fear of conflict.

This regular pilgrimage
brought many people to Mecca

and that meant trade and wealth.

The tribe Muhammad
was born into,

the Quraysh, controlled
the running of the Kaaba

and so were rich and powerful,

although Muhammad's
immediate family

were not part
of the ruling elite.

At the age of five,

Muhammad returned to his mother
Aminah and lived in Mecca.

But she was in poor health.

She decided to visit some
of her family in Yathrib,

a town about
300 kilometers north of Mecca.

But as the camel caravan made
its way through the desert,

Aminah's illness got worse.

The caravan stopped here
in the small oasis of Abwa

in order to drop off
Muhammad and his mother

in the hope that she would
recover her strength.

But it was not to be.

After just a few days
Aminah died.

With both his parents now dead,

Muhammad was all
alone in the world,

an orphan at the
tender age of six.

These searing events
would have a profound impact

on his outlook
and his personality.

BARNABY ROGERSON:
Muhammad's virtually
alone at this resting place

watching his mother die,

and it's only when
the next caravan comes

on this well established journey

that he gets
reintegrated into society.

It must have been terrifying and
deeply poignant and disturbing.

OMAAR:
The young Muhammad
was to learn even more

about loss and sorrow.

He was taken in
by his paternal grandfather,

who died just two years later,

before coming under the
protection of his uncle,

Abu Talib, a powerful figure
among the Meccan elite.

Abu Talib was a trader
taking caravans to Syria,

part of a business which from
ancient times connected Arabia

to the populous centers
and civilizations

of the Middle East and beyond.

Mecca was a link in that chain.

ROGERSON:
I imagine trading caravans

picking up the spices
up the Yemen

or silver or the leather,
bringing them to Mecca

and a quite separate group
of traders picking them up

and taking them to Syria, to
Gaza, to Egypt, to Palestine.

And all around the holy
sanctuary you'd have had

the bustle of trading and
of camels being gathered.

OMAAR:
For Muslims, Mecca is seen

as a major trading
center at the time

and a fitting place for the
birth of their prophet.

But some historians dispute
its historical importance.

The Muslim tradition
gives us a portrait of Mecca

as this great trading city,

this great pagan cult center.

And the problem is that

the archaeology and the records
of the time do not back this up.

Mecca, if it existed,

was way off any trading routes

and we have no mention of it
at all before the Islamic era.

HALEEM:
This is easily explained

by the fact that Mecca
was in the middle of the desert

and we know that
these foreigners, historians,

would not cross
such a hostile terrain

as the Arabian desert
to get to Mecca.

They kept to the
sea or to the coast

and if
they haven't talked about it,

this is understandable.

I mean, people here
didn't talk about Timbuktu

in the 18th century or before.

It didn't mean
that it didn't exist.

(camel nuzzing)

OMAAR:
The charge by some historians

is that after Muhammad's death,

Muslim historians
deliberately exaggerated

the importance of Mecca.

This was done, they claim,
in order to show that Muhammad

was born in
a rich and important city

with its own religious history,

independent of any Jewish
and Christian influences.

HAWTING:
I am not saying, of course, that
there was no place called Mecca.

There must have been somewhere
called Mecca before Islam.

It's just not
very well attested.

But its importance
for Islam, I would imagine,

is something that is discovered
by the early Muslim community,

as it develops.

By the early Muslim community,

I'm not thinking of the Prophet
and his followers,

but rather Islam
as it begins to develop

following the Arab conquest
of the Middle East.

OMAAR:
Whatever the importance
of Mecca,

Muhammad's involvement
in the caravan trade

was an extraordinary
opportunity.

Not only did it
lift him out of poverty,

but it also brought him into
contact with the outside world.

The pace of travel was slow
through deserts and oasis,

through Arabian towns

and past the ruins
of ancient civilizations

such as Petra, the capital of
the Nabatean Arab civilization

brought to ruin
by a massive earthquake.

In his travels, Muhammad would
have heard stories

about these other peoples
with their alien cultures

and different faiths.

ROGERSON:
When I talk
to extremely pious Muslims,

they don't want
any influences at all,

they just want the Prophet
like a white sheet of paper

to be written on
by the words of God.

One can still allow that image,

but absolute... for me
the caravans are vital.

I mean, experience
of knowing the tribes,

of dealing in marketplaces,

seeing what people
wanted from the world,

seeing the difficulties
of the world,

experiencing the ruins
of great Arabic civilizations,

passing by the ruins of Petra,

looking at the glories
of Damascus.

I mean,
that experience of the world,

he knew about the realities

of what the Arab
world was about.

OMAAR:
According to Muslim tradition,

by the time he was 21,

Muhammad had gained
a reputation for integrity

and was known as
"al-Amin" and "al-Sadiq,"

the Honest and Truthful One.

So what did Muhammad,
a man entering his prime,

actually look like?

Although Muslim
tradition prohibits

any portraits of him, we do have
a detailed written account

from one of the earliest
biographies that describes him

as "a little
above average height.

"He had a sturdy build
with long, muscular limbs

"and tapering fingers.

"His hair was long,
thick and wavy.

"His eyes were large and black

"with a touch of brown.

"His beard was thick.

"He was of fair complexion.

And now ready to get married."

OMAAR:
Muhammad's first
attempt to find a wife

ended in humiliating failure.

When he asked his uncle
for the hand of his daughter,

he was refused because of his
lowly status as an orphan.

But then his luck
changed dramatically.

He was asked by a rich
older woman called Khadija

to do some business
for her in Syria.

When Muhammad
fulfilled his promise

and brought her a good profit,

she did a very unusual thing:
she asked him to marry her.

PRINCESS BADIYA:
His marriage to Syedna
Khadija was most unusual.

She was most unusual,
to start off with,

being, you know, a little
bit older than him

and also being so
successful in her own right

as a business woman,

but I think it could
actually be quite unusual

even by today's times.

I mean many men,

Western men, Muslim/non-Muslim
are intimidated

by successful women,

so I think it shows great
strength of character,

confidence and respect for women
in the Prophet himself,

that he entered into this
marriage back then

and anyone who would do so now

would have to have those
qualities as well.

OMAAR:
Even in today's Islamic world,

it would be unusual for an older
woman to marry a younger man.

But in Muhammad's day it was
almost unheard of.

ARMSTRONG:
In most of Arabia,

women before the coming
of Islam were treated

as little better than animals
and had few human rights,

but city life, merchant life
often gives women opportunities.

They quite often took
an important part

in cottage industries
and trading.

And Khadija seems to have
been one of these women.

She was widowed,

and her husband had probably
left her a sort of a business

and it was a good business,
a powerful business

and she was able to manage it.

OMAAR:
Muhammad's marriage to
Khadija lasted 24 years.

Despite polygamy being the norm,
while Khadija was still alive,

Muhammad never took
another wife.

And by all accounts,
Muhammad never stopped Khadija

from carrying on her business,
an independent status

most Muslim societies
still struggle to offer

to women today.

An older woman marrying
a younger man

is still stigmatized.

The idea of women
in business, in politics

is also difficult
in Muslim societies.

In the case of Khadija,
she is proof

that women
are an equal partner

in creating a Muslim society.

OMAAR:
Muhammad's marriage to Khadija
brought him personal happiness,

but it did not mean that
he was content with his life

or the ways of the
world in which he lived.

ROGERSON:
He, from age 25 to 40,

should have been the prime
of his life.

Got Khadija, wealthy, beautiful
Arab woman who trusted him.

He'd got four
beautiful daughters

and had two sons born of him
which didn't survive.

He'd become a man of respect.

He was from
a respectful clan anyway,

but now he had the
family to back him.

And in a funny way he'd risen
to the top of his society

and had become sort of
sickened at what that meant,

with the sort of violence
of clan society

and the way that wealth
could buy you anything.

OMAAR:
The fact was that
Muhammad was not happy.

He himself had experienced the
extremes of Arab tribal society,

and the iniquities of tribal
life disturbed him

and made him uneasy.

By all accounts,

he'd reached a moment
of personal crisis.

ABDUR-RAHEEM GREEN:
He was really upset

by the bad treatment
of the poor and the weak

and the downtrodden
people in the society.

There's definitely this great
ontological anxiety he had

about, you know,
the big questions:

Why are we here?

What's the purpose of life?

How do we make sense
of the world around us?

MASROOR:
I believe he was
looking for a connection,

just like Abraham was
looking when he was young,

just like Moses was looking when
he was wandering the valleys,

just like all the other prophets

of the Old and
New Testament were looking.

JOHN ESPOSITO:
Probably at the heart of it also

is the most rooted issue

for many who begin
to question their society

and even question, if you will,
the morality of the society

and the religious values
they were raised with,

which get down
to the nature of God.

OMAAR:
According to Muslim tradition,

at this time,
Muhammad had begun to make

regular spiritual retreats.

Throughout the year he would
take Khadija and his family

up into the mountains
above Mecca

to seek peace and quiet,
and pray.

What was Muhammad after?

What was he seeking
and what was he doing?

He was certainly troubled,

and he was seeking some
kind of spiritual truth.

Muhammad's spiritual retreats
were becoming more intense

and ever more frequent
and they were devoted

to really intense personal
reflection and meditation.

And he chose this spot,
Jabal Nur,

which is a hill far up
and a really challenging climb

up from the city down below.

And he would climb all the way
to the very top to a cave,

known as r'Hira, and it was
there that he would spend hours,

in fact whole days and nights

in ever more intense
and fervent meditation.

Until one day,
in the year 610,

something happened that would
transform not just his life,

but the entire
history of the world.

According to Muslim tradition,

Muhammad was meditating as usual
and he fell asleep.

But then suddenly
he awoke in abject terror.

His body was shaking
uncontrollably.

He later described the
experience as if an angel

had him in such a tight,
suffocating embrace,

that he felt that his life was
being squeezed out of him.

As he lay there,
completely shattered,

Muhammad heard one voice and it
commanded him with one word:

"Iqra! Read!"

But Muhammad replied: "I can't.

I'm not one of those who read."

The voice returned
for a second time: "Read."

Muhammad replied: "I'm not
one of those who read."

Then the voice returned
for a third time: "Read."

And on this third command
Muhammad replied:

"What shall I read?"

MAN (chanting):

ARMSTRONG:
He was able to hear
the divine message.

And it's quite clear
that revelation--

some of the prophets of Israel
had this experience too--

is devastating.

Not a nice peaceful experience,

but something that
racks them in every limb.

Prophet Jeremiah
cried aloud, "Ah God, God,

"I can't speak, I'm a child.

Your revelation hurts me
in every limb."

Isaiah, when he saw his vision
of God in the temple, said,

"I'm dead.

I have looked
on the Lord of Hosts."

This is a lethal power

because the impact of what's
coming through is shattering.

Your world goes,
the world as it was before goes.

ROGERSON:
You have an essence
of the divine power

which you have to articulate--

that's the role of prophets--
into the language of your time,

into the metaphors of your time
so that people around you

can understand this completely
unworldly experience you have.

And for me the prophet has got

that sort of terrifying
brief access to divine power

and he's using that
consciousness that sort of

flooded into his body
and creating the words.

OMAAR:
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.

And yet,

at the time of the first
revelation at the Cave of Hira,

Muhammad's reaction
was very different.

OMAAR:
Muhammad ran
to his beloved wife,

"Khadija, oh, Khadija," he said,
"cover me, cover me.

"What has happened to me?

I fear for myself."

Khadija took her cloak and
covered his exhausted body,

and then with all of his doubts,

she was the one who reassured
him about his experience.

Khadija's words
not only calmed Muhammad,

but they also helped him
reconcile himself

with what had happened.

The seeker had finally found
what he was looking for.

But then nothing.

Muhammad's first
blinding revelation

was followed by a long silence

that threw him
into complete crisis.

Had he been deluded after all?

Was the revelation just
meaningless hysteria?

Had Muhammad the Seeker been
abandoned by God?

He was absolutely in despair.

I mean one of the sources says
he was so despairing

he almost flung himself
off the top of the mountain.

OMAAR:
Days of silence
became weeks, then months.

All the while,
Muhammad lived in turmoil,

doubting what he had
experienced, doubting himself.

Then one morning,
after several months,

the long silence ended and
the revelations began again.

OMAAR:
Muhammad now began to understand

that he had
a special responsibility.

He had a message.

Like the other
prophets before him,

he believed God
had given him a vision.

His duty was to
share this message,

to pass it on to
the people around him,

to help them change
their lives for the better.

Muhammad's Revelations would
become the sacred text of Islam

and what is now
known as the Qur'an,

literally "the recitation."

The Orthodox Muslim position is
that it is God himself

who is the author of the Qur'an

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

The Qur'an is considered
by most Muslims

to be God's miracle.

Throughout Muhammad's life
he steadfastly denied

he had any miraculous powers.

He insisted no extraordinary
signs and wonders

were associated with him,
except for the words.

He was just a man.

The Qur'an, the message, was
the only miracle that mattered.

The spiritual power
of the message

is in the words themselves.

(prayer recited from Qur'an)

OMAAR:
Almost all Muslims believe

that Muhammad was
unable to read or write.

His illiteracy has become
essential to their faith.

It is important because
some critics of Islam

have often claimed that
Muhammad, in his travels,

must have read Christian
and Jewish scriptures,

and so borrowed
religious ideas from them

which he then rehashed
as his own message.

But if he could not read
or write, then he was,

the Muslim argument goes, pure
and free of any such influences,

and the revelations
that form the basis

of the new religion of Islam
came direct from God.

HOLLAND:
It is very important
for Muslims to believe

that the Qur'an is the
unmediated word of God,

that Muhammad did not obtain it

from Christian
or Jewish or Samaritans.

That is why, despite the Qur'an
actually saying the opposite,

tradition says
that he was illiterate.

That is also why he is put
in the middle of a desert,

because in the
middle of a desert

he is hundreds and
hundreds of miles away

from the melting pot
of the Near East, the place

where all these extraordinary
religious traditions

are bubbling and welling up.

ZIAUDDIN SARDAR:
To present the argument

that the Qur'an
is influenced by Judaism

and Christianity
is quite absurd.

I mean,
clearly Islam sees itself

as a continuation
of the monotheistic tradition.

We are a continuation
of Judaism and Christianity,

so of course we are
influenced by these religions.

GREEN:
The Qur'an clearly says
that the Prophet Muhammad

could not write
with his right hand.

It is very clearly
mentioned in the Qur'an.

And although the term Umi
doesn't mean illiterate,

it means not versed,
it means not learned,

it means a person who has not
studied and learned scripture,

but it has the
implication of also being

of being someone
who is illiterate.

But the point also is
that when the angel Gabriel

comes to the Prophet Muhammad in
the cave and tells him "Read,"

the Prophet says,
"I can't read."

OMAAR:
The Qur'an
is as sacred to Muslims

as the person of Jesus
is to Christians.

Whereas for Christians,

Jesus is the word
of God, the logos,

and for him to remain
divine and pure

his conception has to be
unsullied by man,

for Muslims it is the Qur'an
that is the word of God

and so for it to remain divine,

it has to be untarnished
by any human interference too.

So dishonoring the Qur'an is
profoundly shocking to Muslims

as it's an attack
not only on Muhammad

but also on God himself.

In recent years there
have been numerous instances

where the Qur'an has been
burnt or desecrated,

sometimes to humiliate Muslim
prisoners in Guantanamo Bay,

sometimes as a reaction
to a terrorist attack.

Initially Muhammad took his
message to those closest to him.

The first convert
was his wife Khadija,

followed by family members
like his teenage cousin Ali,

who would eventually
marry Muhammad's daughter,

and then there
were good friends,

like the prominent local
businessman Abu Bakr,

who would eventually
succeed Muhammad

as the first Caliph of Islam.

RIZVI:
It's often said
that the earliest Muslims

were a mixture of young men
from aristocratic families,

as well as those who were very
much in the margins of society.

So there's the idea that Islam
was a revolutionary message,

revolutionary in the sense that
it actually wanted to overturn

the social order, the cosmic
order of society at the time.

OMAAR:
The process of conversion

was as straightforward
as it is today.

All it requires is
the simple statement of faith

in front of two witnesses.

The key requirement is that
conversion must be the exercise

of free and informed
personal choice.

In fact, one of the most
important people

in Muhammad's life, Abu Talib,
who was his uncle

and the head of his clan,

who protected him throughout
all his troubles in Mecca,

never converted despite
Muhammad's best efforts

to persuade him;

and there was nothing
he could do about it.

The most direct, the most
unequivocal statement

in the Qur'an is, "There is
no compulsion in religion."

No ifs, ands or buts.

That is the essence.

Unless you make a free choice,
a free willing choice for faith,

you cannot be held accountable
for your actions thereafter.

That's the essence
of what Islam is about.

MICHAEL NAZIR-ALI:
The Qur'an itself
is quite clear.

La Ikraha Fiddin is often quoted

as an example
from the Qur'an itself,

"There should be no compulsion
in religious matters."

And the Prophet said, even
vis-à-vis the pagan Arabs...

(speaking Arabic)

"To you your religion
and to me mine."

And that seems a very good way
of promoting tolerance.

But of course throughout history

we have seen that that kind of
attitude has not been respected.

OMAAR:
The divine revelation
that Muhammad was preaching

would later become
known as "Islam,"

which literally means
"surrender."

So a believer, a Muslim,
is one who surrenders to God.

The origin of the word is
from Salaam, meaning "peace."

At first when Muhammad began his
mission to the people of Mecca,

he kept referring back
to the Abrahamic message

of the Christian
and Jewish prophets,

that he was only preaching
what they had preached:

the message of the one true God.

And he repeatedly
warns against oppression

and the injustices
of Meccan society.

ESPOSITO:
He becomes,
and is, in many ways,

the heart of what a prophet is.

A prophet is one who, yes,

brings and declares
God's message,

but a prophet
at heart is a warner,

because he is a reformer.

The reformer is warning
the society and saying,

this is a society that has
departed from the straight path.

OMAAR:
Muhammad's message was
not always welcome.

The rulers of Mecca,
the Quraysh,

disliked what he preached
about equality for all.

The more he preached, the more
incensed the Quraysh became.

So they tried to make him change
his mind by offering him money,

power, anything that he wanted.

To all their proposals,
Muhammad gave the same answer:

"I haven't come here
to accumulate wealth,

"or to be your leader
or to be your king.

"I've only come here
for one purpose and that is

"to be the Messenger of God
and to convey his word.

"And, if you accept,
it will be beneficial for you.

But if you don't, I'll simply
wait and await God's judgment."

Now, clearly for
the Meccan authorities,

gentle persuasion was
not going to work.

They were going to have
to try something else,

something a little bit
more aggressive.

Gentle persuasion was now
replaced by violent persecution.

Muhammad's followers,
especially those with no clan

or tribal protection, such
as slaves, women and orphans,

were now
subjected to brute force.

According to Muslim tradition,

some were thrown
on burning coals,

others cruelly
beaten and tortured,

and some women were
even stabbed to death.

ARMSTRONG:
Now, this is because

Muhammad is challenging
the Quraysh where it hurts,

in their purse,

because the old cult
is very much bound up

with the whole
business of Mecca.

People come to the Kaaba

and they come
to worship in the Kaaba

and this will be
really bad for trade.

They are very, very angry.

They feel it is
a profound threat.

OMAAR:
Muhammad and his
small band of followers

faced a very
difficult situation.

They were attacked in public,
both verbally and physically.

And in private,

they had nowhere they
could meet and pray.

A million miles away
from the freedom of worship

that Muslims enjoy today.

This five-story mosque
and Islamic center

is being built here
in Northwest London,

and similar things are being
done almost everywhere

where Muslims live in the West.

Although we take this kind of
opportunity for granted today,

the Prophet faced a completely
different experience

when he first tried to gather
his own Muslim community

amongst his own people in Mecca.

What's amazing standing
here with you now

is that the building of this
community center is so different

from the experiences that
the Prophet had establishing

his own first community,
where he didn't have

any of the
opportunity or freedom.

Well, yes.

I mean, those were
the very difficult times,

obviously Islam started.

They had to work very hard.

They were not allowed to pray,

not allowed to do
anything that they had to do,

and even if they are going
for praying they had to endure

a lot of problems.

Humiliation.

Humiliation.

But nowadays things are
different masha'Allah.

OMAAR:
Instead of trying to resist

the Quraysh's
persecution with force,

the Prophet looked
for another way

to safeguard his followers.

In many ways,
a far more radical step.

He got them to leave Mecca,

to abandon their
homes and seek refuge

on the other side of the Red Sea

in the African kingdom of Aksum,

ruled by King Negus,
a Christian.

(men singing)

In 615 A.D., a group of Muslims

secretly left Mecca
with their families

and settled in a refugee camp in
what is now modern-day Ethiopia.

The Quraysh were
incensed by this exodus.

They immediately sent
a delegation to Negus,

the king of Abyssinia,
in order to persuade him

to send the exiles back home.

Negus, the king, summoned
the leader of the Muslims

in order to explain.

After telling the king
that Muhammad was in fact

the Prophet of the one true God,

he famously began to recite
a verse from the Qur'an.

OMAAR:
The verses he read

described the
virgin birth of Jesus

and described him to
be a prophet of God.

The words worked their miracle.

And Negus,
the king of Abyssinia,

was moved to tears

and allowed the Muslims to stay.

Back in Mecca, the Quraysh began
to turn the heat up on Muhammad

and his remaining followers.

They instituted a city-wide ban,
which basically prevented anyone

from having anything to do with
Muhammad and his entire clan.

They weren't allowed
to intermarry,

they weren't allowed to trade,

they weren't even allowed to buy
food from the local markets.

In Mecca, Muhammad and his
followers were now

public enemy number one.

There was now immense
pressure on Muhammad

and his remaining followers
to compromise their message

of believing in one God only
and to give in to the Quraysh

or to at least accept
some of the other gods

worshipped by them.

It was at this moment

that an event is
supposed to have taken place

that would lead to
a fundamental clash of values,

an event that still defines
Islam's relationship

with the rest of the world.

Most Muslims deny that this
event ever actually happened.

But it has been
used by Islam's enemies

to condemn both Muhammad
and the Qur'an as bogus.

There are many different
accounts of this story,

but the main version goes
something like this.

One day Muhammad was sitting
somewhere in the Kaaba

when he received
a new revelation,

one which suggested that he
could strike a compromise deal

with the Quraysh
that would allow them

to continue to worship
their old gods.

Well, when the Quraysh heard
this, they were overjoyed;

at last they thought
Muhammad was coming back

to their way of thinking.

But now comes the
key part of the story,

which is that Muhammad is then
supposed to have received

another revelation that told him

his apparent acceptance
of the old gods

had actually been
inspired by Satan--

hence, why these verses
were later called

"The Satanic Verses."

If true, it seems to suggest
that Muhammad was able

to alter the divine
word of God at will,

and that in consequence,

both Muhammad and
the Qur'an were fake.

SPENCER:
Now of course Muslims say

this incident did not happen

and was manufactured
by haters of Islam.

It then becomes very hard
for them to explain, however,

how it got into Islamic sources
that are relatively early

or are, like some a'shari,

based on earlier Islamic
sources that are lost.

One wonders how it is
that somebody like that

who is a pious Muslim

would have or could have
picked up such a thing

if it had originated
from the enemies of Islam.

There are three different
and conflicting versions

of this story in the Muslim
histories of Muhammad's life

compiled after his death.

There is no direct
reference to it in the Qur'an

and neither is it
mentioned in the earliest

and most reliable account
of his life by Ibn Ishaq.

Neither is there any mention
of it in the great Hadith

of the ninth century.

Muslims do not generally
reject traditions

because they are
critical of Muhammad

but because they cannot
be properly verified.

In 1989 a storm
of violent protest

erupted across
the Islamic world,

when a novel written
by Salman Rushdie

was published in the UK.

The book, The Satanic Verses,

is a fictional account
of this incident

and, Muslims claim,

depicts Muhammad as an impostor
with purely political ambitions

and the Qur'an
as the work of the devil.

All over the world, Muslim
public opinion was outraged.

Well the event
of 14th of January 1989

is the day when I can
very clearly remember

there were over a thousand
people, minimum,

and just to show that we do
disapprove this material,

we will publicly burn this book.

And that is what we
did on that day.

OMAAR:
The burning of the book
was just the start.

Violent demonstrations
and riots broke out

all over the Muslim world.

Attempts by the Muslim community
to have the book banned

were opposed by many

in the name of
freedom of speech.

This issue was
then taken over

by Ayatollah Khomeini,

the then leader of the
Islamic Republic of Iran,

who declared a fatwa,
or religious order,

against Rushdie, calling
for his death by any means.

The Fatwa has never been lifted

and although Rushdie
survived unharmed,

numerous people
connected with the book

have been attacked
and even killed.

A single contentious event
in Muhammad's life--

and one most Muslim scholars
believe never took place--

was being used
to define Muhammad,

who he was
and what he stood for,

and, most importantly,
what it meant

to be a Muslim in today's world.

What this whole issue did
was that it highlighted

a fundamental difference of
views between those in the West

who believed that they
had a right to say

what they wanted to say,

and those Muslims who believed
that they had a right

not to be insulted.

ZIA:
It was a defining moment.

It was the first time
that the British Muslims

came out as a community
to assert themselves,

but it was also a defining
moment internationally.

On one hand, they
rejected what Rushdie wrote,

they were united
in condemning the book.

But on the other hand
they were also united

in condemning the fatwa.

They realized what
is going on in the West

is not acceptable to them,

but they also
realized at the same time

that certain mechanisms
in traditional Islam

were also not
acceptable to them.

OMAAR:
This incident led the
Muslim community in Britain

to feel that they were part

of a larger international
Islamic community

with Muhammad at its heart.

It would also mark
the start of a clash

between the liberal values so
central to Western identity

and the more traditional
and conservative views

in the British Muslim community.

And at the heart of this clash

was the character
of Muhammad himself

and conflicting opinions as to
whether he was a force for good

or evil in the world.

Whatever the truth
of this event,

in Mecca, Muhammad was locked

into a desperate
battle of ideas

between his new message
of the One God,

and the old tribal
values of the Quraysh.

The Quraysh had by now imposed
even tougher sanctions

on Muhammad and his followers.

From now on no one was allowed
to do any business with them.

They were not
allowed to intermarry,

trade or even buy food.

But in contrast
to some Muslims now,

even when faced with
this extreme provocation,

Muhammad and his
followers resisted

without resorting
to any violence.

RIZVI:
In the earliest
period you could argue

that a violent confrontation
wasn't even feasible.

You know, we were
talking about tens of people,

maybe then
hundreds of people,

but certainly not
more than, say, 200 or so.

And so if there
was a confrontation,

it would have been a massacre

and we certainly wouldn't know
such a thing as Islam now.

OMAAR:
Muhammad's stoic
nonviolent resistance

began to pay off.

The people of Mecca
started to react

against the extreme
measures imposed on people

who had once been
their clan relatives.

A huge amount of social
pressure began to be exerted

on the Quraysh leadership,

and within two years
after they imposed the ban,

they had to rescind it.

But this was by no means

the end of Muhammad's troubles.

What Muslims call his year of
sorrows was about to begin.

A few months after
the ban had been lifted,

Muhammad's wife and the constant
rock of his life, Khadija, died.

Muhammad was devastated.

She had been his beloved wife,
his closest companion

and advisor for 25 years.

She had been the
first to recognize him

as the Prophet of God

and had been the first
person he had turned to

when confronted
by the terrifying

and bewildering
experience of revelation.

She must have been astonishing

in that she was the first person
to accept the revelations.

I mean, you could almost say
that she was the first Muslim

because she believed
in the revelations

before the Prophet himself

and so she had that
instinctive ability to recognize

authenticity and genius.

We see her in the sources
as a very maternal figure,

and this is something the
Prophet had lost himself.

He had lost his own mother.

I mean, he really loved Khadija.

You know, Western critics
often sneer

at the Prophet's sort
of opportunistic marriage

to the wealthy widow.

That's not borne out
in the sources.

He loved her all his life.

His later wives used
to hate the mention of her

because they knew that none of
them could compete with her

in his heart.

OMAAR:
Then a few months later,

Muhammad was hit by
another devastating loss,

the death of his
uncle, Abu Talib,

the man who had protected him
from the worst attempts

of the Quraysh to crush him.

The leadership of Muhammad's
clan now fell into the hands

of his most violent opponents.

Attacks against him increased.

His enemies now gave
him a stark warning:

stop spreading your message or
your life could be in danger.

Muhammad and his
small band of followers

were now at their
most vulnerable.

Half of them had
fled to Ethiopia.

The rest were almost
in hiding in Mecca.

His enemies were
now openly making plans

to crush his
embryonic Islamic movement

and even to kill him.

The next step he would
take would be critical.

It would shape
not only his future,

but the history of the world.

In the next episode,

Muhammad's persecution
by the Quraysh intensifies

and he's forced to leave
his hometown of Mecca.

It also brings him into conflict

with some of the
Jewish tribes of Arabia,

leading to one of the most
controversial events

of his life,

a massacre whose consequences
still reverberate today.

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.