Islam: Empire of Faith is narrated by Academy Award-winning actor Ben Kingsley. The three-hour program tells the spectacular story of the great sweep of Islamic power and faith during its first 1,000 years from the birth of the Prophet Muhammed to the peak of the Ottoman Empire under the reign of Suleyman the Magnificent. Historical re-enactments and a remarkable exposition of Islamic art, artifacts and architecture are combined with interviews of scholars from around the world to recount the rise and importance of early Islamic civilization. Increasingly, scholars and historians are recognizing the profound impact that Islamic civilization has had on Western culture and the course of world history.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7502243539190558658 - Part 2

http://www.pbs.org/empires/islam/

This is tagged politics because as the intro explains Islam in the West is obscured by fear and misunderstanding.

Obscured? Mohammed was the Joseph Smith of the desert.....came at just the right time, to have his very own cult of personality, shepherding his people through the dark ages, to leave then wandering in the wilderness to this day.....

circling the temple 7x....someone in the old testament did that, and he threw in smashing idols with the deal, ala hay-zeus and the money-changers-

Seems that if, if Mohammed would miraculously appear today, and observed the state of affairs of Islam, he would shit a brick the size of the cube in Mecca!


Why could'nt Rumi have started a religion...?

"Seems that if, if Mohammed would miraculously appear today, and observed the state of affairs of Islam, he would shit a brick the size of the cube in Mecca!" - I think the excessive legalism of modern Islam would annoy him and he would be saddened by the large number of Muslims who have little knowledge of the rich intellectual and artistic depth of the Islamic tradition. He would also be angry with those who have exploited people's faith in order to achieve certain political aims, and those who use Islam to justify the killing of innocents.

But at the same time, he would also be sad at the way many people in the West slander Islam and the Islamic tradition without having any real knowledge of it's beauty, depths and complexities. Also - Mohammed didn't see himself as starting a new religion - but as one who reasserted the faith and traditions of Abraham.

One final thing - I agree with you about Rumi - he is perhaps the greatest poet of all times. The epitaph above his tomb reads:

"When we are dead, seek not our tomb in the earth, but find it in the hearts of men."

The problem isn't Islam, but (as is usual with religion) with it's followers. Horrible stuff, utterly contrary to the actual teachings of it's founder, gets perpetrated in the name of the belief.

"The problem isn't Islam, but (as is usual with religion) with it's followers. Horrible stuff, utterly contrary to the actual teachings of it's founder, gets perpetrated in the name of the belief."

True, but only by a small minority of Muslims.

I'm talking about how the admonishment for female modesty became justification for widespread female genital mutilation in Africa and Indonesia, or how Wahabi Islam perverted the concept of Jihad into slaughtering the innocent.

Christianity and Judaism had the same bloodthirsty beginnings as Islamic sharia law, but have moderated the practice. You can't tell me of a single Christian country today that still follows the Biblical instruction to stone the adulterous, but it's standard practice in Saudi Arabia. The practices of entire countries require the mainstream react.

I've tried to educate myself about Islam, and live in an Arab neighborhood, and yes...the vast majority of Muslims are peaceful and friendly people. But there is a significant number of Muslims engaged in, and demanding, practices that are incompatible with and repugnant to, the modern world.

k8_fan, from your comments you seem to echo Ayaan Hirsi Ali, due to your mention of "justification for widespread female genital mutilation in Africa and Indonesia". I dislike Hirsi Ali, while claiming to be a "woman who fights for the rights of Muslim women, and the enlightenment of Islam" she doesn't nothing but insult the religion, and do nothing towards actual reform. You shouldn't let your knowledge be corrupted by people who are pushing for their own agenda in the West.

Furthermore, there are many women of Islamic denomination that question those things, a such as Muslim Author and feminist Asra Nomani and well known female Islamic scholars such as Asma Barlas, Leila Ahmed and Asma Afasaruddin. Falling under the umbrella term of Islamic feminism and as a whole under Islamic reformers. These are the Martin Luthers of the Islamic faith.

The staunchly patriarchal strains of Wahhabi Islam infiltrate Muslim cultures outside the gulf region, many modern Islamic females hate that, and according to a Gallup poll strong majority of Islamic women in Middle East and South Asia believed they have a right to work outside the home and hold positions of power. There is movement towards democratic change in Kuwait females can run and vote, something which is unprecedented in a country that is very heavily religious some info on that here.

Actually, the two most recent books I've read on the subject are Irshad Manji's "The Trouble With Islam" and "The Age of Sacred Terror" by Daniel Benjamin & Steven Simon. I've never read Ali. FGM is happening, and is even happening in the Sudanese immigrant community in Chicago. Women are being made incapable on deriving pleasure from sex, and it has nothing to do with the teachings of the Prophet as far as I can tell.

I don't see the need to lay blame on Islam for the misogyny of some people.

When the misogynists are citing the holy book of the religion as justification, why not? Granted, the Bible has equally misogynistic passages. But both Jews and Christians reject those passages. But there are whole countries that practice sharia law. This is not "some people" - these are entire Islamic states practicing the same level of cruelty as the Spanish Inquisition.

What you are talking about is Sharia Law, this is not Islam, from Wiki I quote.

"Sharia deals with many aspects of day-to-day life, including politics, economics, banking, business law, contract law, sexuality, and social issues. Some Islamic scholars accept Sharia as the body of precedent and legal theory established before the 19th century, while other scholars view Sharia as a changing body, and include Islamic legal theory from the contemporary period.

There is not a strictly codified uniform set of laws pertaining to Sharia. It is more like a system of devising laws, based on the Qur'an, Hadith and centuries of debate, interpretation and precedent.

There is tremendous variance in the interpretation and implementation of Islamic law in Muslim societies today. Liberal movements within Islam have questioned the relevance and applicability of sharia from a variety of perspectives. Several of the countries with the largest Muslim populations, including Indonesia, Bangladesh and Pakistan, have largely secular constitutions and laws, with only a few Islamic provisions in family law. Turkey has a constitution that is officially strongly secular. India is the only country in the world which has separate Muslim civil laws, framed by Muslim Personal Law board, and wholly based on Sharia. However, the criminal laws are uniform. Some controversial sharia laws favor Muslim men, including rejection of alimony and polygamy. Most countries of the Middle East and North Africa maintain a dual system of secular courts and religious courts, in which the religious courts mainly regulate marriage and inheritance.

Saudi Arabia and Iran maintain religious courts for all aspects of jurisprudence, and religious police assert social compliance. Laws derived from sharia are also applied in Afghanistan, Libya and Sudan. Some states in northern Nigeria have reintroduced Sharia courts."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharia#Contemporary_practice_of_Sharia_law

Firstly - the issue of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM). This is an appalling crime, and one that is sadly prevelant in some parts of the Islamic world (I have studied FGM under the leading expert on women's rights in Africa - Dr Fareda Banda). However, it is important to be clear about the position of the Shari'ah with regards to FGM - and to do this I am going to have to provide a detailed explanation of some aspects of Islamic law.

Male circumcision is advocated by Islam - as it is by the Jewish faith. There is no dispute about this. However, there is a great deal of dispute about FGM. There is nothing in the Qur'an which advocates FGM. The most important source of Islamic law after the Qur'an is the hadith - sayings of the Prophet Muhammad. The hadith were compiled about 300 years after Muhammad's death. While some are authentic and beyond dispute, others are not and have been held by scholars of Islamic law to be weak. The only possible justification for female circumcision is the following hadith:

"A woman used to perform circumcision in Medina [Madîna]. The Prophet (peace be upon him) said to her: 'Do not cut severely as that is better for a woman and more desirable for a husband." (Sunan Abu Dawûd, Book 41, #5251.)

It is important to look at the authenticity and strength of this hadith. The hadith is found in the Sunan of Abu Dawud - an important collection of hadith. However, the compiler himself - Abu Dawud - classified this hadith as "weak". A hadith can be classified as weak for a number of reasons - but normally it is because the chain of transmission (isnad) from the Prophet to the compiler is broken or incomplete. When this happens, it is often suspected that the hadith could be fabricated. Consequently, one cannot derive a legal ruling from a weak hadith. Therefore, the vast majority of experts in Shari'ah law believe that there is no justification for FGM in Islam.

However, FGM still exists in parts of the Islamic world, and the above quoted hadith is sometimes used to justify it. What is important to note is that in those countries where Muslims advocate FGM and justify it by reference to Shari'ah law, Christains also practice FGM and justify it by reference to the bible. In reality, FGM is a practice who's origins lie not in the religious texts of the major world faiths but in the barbaric traditions of traditionally male-dominated societies.

Secondly, I will try and qualify what I think Farhad means when he says that "Sharia is no in no way representative of the religion of Islam." Shari'ah in many of its modern manifestations is not representative of the rich traditions of Islam. Much of the rigidity which people associate with Shari'ah law is a relatively recent phenomenon brought about by a number of factors. For example, there was an inherent flexibility in classical Islamic law. For example, there were five schools of law (Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi'i, Hanbali, Zahiri) who differed in their opinions on certain issues, and this gave Shari'ah an inherent pluralism. Judges could choose between the positions of the various schools, and exercise their own judgment in order to reach fair judgments. However, in the 19th Century there was an enormous amount of pressure put on the Islamic world by the West to reform its legal system - either directly, in the form of colonialism, or indirectly in the form of economic/military pressure - to change its legal system in order to facilitate trade with Europe. The result was that the Ottoman empire, during the Tanzimat reforms, instead of working within the rich Islamic legal tradition, simply got rid of Islamic law in many areas and replaced it with European style legal codes. The Islamic law which was kept was that which would be called in Western legal systems the law of personal status - family law, inheritance. But, what the Ottomans did was codify this law - they codified one of the key Hanafi manuals of Islamic law. A similar codification occured in India under the British resulting in what was referred to as Anglo-Muhammadan law.This codification - which has continued in recent years throughout the Islamic world - has removed the inherent flexibility and pluralism in Islamic legal thinking. It has meant that judges only have one opinion to choose, and it has also meant that many judges have stopped practising ijtihad - deriving the law from its sources. All progressive scholars in the Islamic world agree that the Islamic tradition of ijtihad must be revitalized. Scholars must turn back to the sources - Qur'an and hadith - and derive Islamic law which is appropriate for modern times, and which is flexible.

There are some important examples of ijtihad worth mentioning. In the sub-continent, the prevailing legal tradition is Hanafi. Under Hanafi law, the grounds on which a woman could apply for divorce were limited. However in a landmark case, the judges used ijtihad to ensure that women could divorce much more easliy. What they effectively did was adopt a position from Maliki law and extended it. In Tunisia, women have complete legal equality with men - in marriage, divorce, no polygamy, etc. Morocco has also made important advances similar to those taken by Tunisia. In both cases it is important to note that instead of replacing Islamic law, scholars instead embraced the flexibility and pluralism inherent in the classical Islamic legal tradition. They derived new Islamic law - based on the Qur'an and the hadith - which provided full equality for women.

I like the bits about the Islamic Empire as a comparable to the Roman Empire in its influence on science, technology, and arts. But I wouldn't call the Ottoman Empire "great" for the same reason I wouldn't call any other empire great.

This video is overly reverent. It linguistically presumes Mohammad actually received "revelations". The act of a "religion of peace" being founded through forceful conquest of the known world is at best hypocritical.

Rather then re-re-re-interpreting scriptures to re-re-reconcile Islam with the changing moral zeitgeist, I'd rather read great philosophers like John Stuart Mill and Bertrand Russell, and think about ethics as its own subject. A cosmic despot's declaration cannot affect the ethicality of a deed to which he is not a party.

Even to put myself in a theist's shoes, if God declared certain acts good and evil, he must have had reasons for doing so, and we should seek to understand those reasons. If we can, there's no need to rely on fallible scriptures based on fallible memory of fallible oral recitations from a fallible slave-owning illiterate merchant named Mohammad who might or might not have had a revelation.

To treat what was probably mere trickery or hallucination as if it were some unquestionably glorious thing is to me a bit offensive because I value truth above almost everything else. The video devotes only about three seconds to skepticism about Mohammad's alleged revelation in the part about the life of Mohammad and quickly dismisses it with Mohammad's own fallacious argument involving combat victories. This is plainly pro-religion bias.

Peace

Your commentary applies just as much to the resurrection of Jesus. This video explores the origins of the faith helping to those who know nothing about Islam to understand it, its not about critiquing it about whether or not it occurred.

*Promote

Self promoting this video back to the front page; last published Wednesday, February 28th, 2007 11:32pm PST - promote requested by original submitter Farhad2000.

I do not believe in religion any more. I rather believe in the life I have at this moment right now, because there is no way to know the future. Except with assumptions, how can I know there is a god? This argument in itself is negation, if we cannot predict the future in complete accuracy then one cannot prove that god exists.

I am to preoccupied with the problems that we as people face ever day to worry about almighty beings.

I try to believe in mankind...

Yet this may as well be more foolish or even crazier then believing in any white bearded plump guy sitting on a cloud... or to a talking burning bush... or... and so on

even more so that he do believe in this

*dead

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Awarding chingalera with one Power Point for fixing this video's dead embed code.

*findthumb

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