Original subtitles

All of us experience loss.

We are told with hardship. There is new

life. It's not the end of the story.

It's the beginning of another story.

The loss of my father, the greatest love

of my life, sent me reeling. I'm trying

to find solace in my faith. But how can

I make peace with such heartbreak? My

Muslim friends gave me an idea. They

sent me on a quest, searching Islam's

stories of love for answers to questions

we all ask, which unraveled the secrets

of the Taj Mahal, illuminated a little

known story about Malcolm X, and

demonstrated how love can change the

world.

>> Love is not just an emotion, it's a

force.

I've met religious leaders, historians,

and artists who shared their knowledge

and offered insights into these stories,

who might help me reconcile the joy of

love for my father and the terrible pain

of his loss.

What can we learn from Islam's greatest

stories of love?

>> Every heart breaks, and your heart must

break. But what a difference there is

between a heart that merely breaks and a

heart that breaks open.

What does that mean for a heart to break

open?

My father spent his 20ies surfing in

Brazil, where I'm from. Marriage and

children were not part of his plans.

Then one night, he had this vivid dream

about a little girl with a massive curly

hair.

When he woke up, he knew that someday he

would have a daughter. He always said

that I was part of his destiny. We were

very close my entire childhood.

When I was 11, he took me on a trip to

Europe.

He booked a sleeper car. I had the top

bunk. It was fun eating in the dining

car. And at our stops, he would act out

stories about what we were seeing.

It was one of the best weeks of my life.

When our family went through some

difficult times, he was my best friend,

the person I counted on for everything.

He supported my decision to leave Brazil

and study in the US. After I became a

Muslim, many of my friends and even some

family turned their backs on me, but he

stood by me.

always my rock.

He was the best father.

When he was diagnosed with cancer, I

wanted to leave school and be with him,

but he kept reassuring me that he was

doing well, getting better, and we even

made plans for another big trip just

like the one we took when I was young.

I never knew how sick he really was. I

was 5,000 miles away when he died.

I didn't even get the chance to say

goodbye.

When the person you love is gone, could

be because of a breakup, a long absence,

or death,

it leaves you feeling a drift and alone.

For a long time now, I've felt lost. And

worst of all, my faith has been shaken.

So, I've been going to a weekly

gathering with Muslim friends for prayer

and reflection at Harvard Divinity

School, where I'm a student.

I've always found prayer very healing in

all the three different ways that I've

prayed.

I was born Catholic. When I was 12, my

mother converted to Judaism. And then

from then onwards, I was raised in the

Jewish tradition. Later, as an adult, I

learned about Islam.

I love its emphasis on social justice. I

like the rituals, the fasts, the

pilgrimages, the way the daily prayer

engages the whole body. And I appreciate

that Islam expresses itself not as a

rejection, but as a continuation of the

monotheistic tradition of Judaism and

Christianity. Being a Muslim just feels

like a natural step in my spiritual

journey.

>> So, I'm going to start. I also cherish

the sense of community I feel with this

group. They were there for me when I

really needed the help. When I found out

about my dad, I remember texting an John

and he just answered, "We're coming."

And I didn't know what we meant. And I

certainly didn't know that we meant 30

people who all came, who dropped

everything just to sit in my tiny living

room, who could not fit everyone,

praying with me,

while I figure out my tickets to go plan

my father's funeral, while I cried.

As I talked again about receiving that

terrible news, they saw that even months

later, I was still struggling.

And when I shared that hardly a day had

passed that I didn't break down crying,

they sent me on a quest.

There are stories from the Islamic

tradition of other people who have loved

and lost.

They said I might find what I need by

exploring some of them.

Of course, they would suggest doing

research. After all, we're a bunch of

graduate students.

So, for the last several months, I've

been searching some of these stories for

the answers to the questions we all ask.

What is love?

Why does it end? How can we make love

endure?

What can we learn from Islam's greatest

stories of love?

The first love story I explored was a

tale about two teenagers, a girl named

Leila and a boy called Majun.

It's a very old story originally from

Arabia. It was part of the oral

tradition of Arabic poetry retold around

campfires long before Islam.

But though its origins aren't Islamic,

it has inspired centuries of Muslim

poets, artists, writers, and

philosophers to look to it to explore

the meaning of love. So I decided to

start there.

The story still excites imaginations all

over the world. From Morocco to India,

Turkey to Azerbaijan.

There are films, annual festivals, and

live performances celebrating it.

But I discovered that I could find it

much closer to home.

In 2016, the renowned dance

choreographer Mark Morris collaborated

with Yoyo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble

for a dance presentation of this story.

>> The stories are very wellknown. You can

pick up any of these books and they're

thrilling and beautiful. They're

Bollywood movies that are on this story

and I found online of course full

productions of this piece. The

production is so interesting and so

strange. So I thought well this is

really kind of fabulous. So I agreed to

take on this piece and really I it

turned out to to me to be sort of

miraculous in the way that this show

worked.

You know, people just sort of glibly

call it the Romeo and Juliet of Islam or

something like that, which it's not.

I've done Romeo and Juliet and it's not

the same story. It's it's very very

specifically

simple.

Harvard University's art museums are a

short walk from the Divinity School.

Their many exhibits feature art from all

over the world, including paintings that

illustrate the story of Leila and

Majnon.

There I spoke with Dr. Aishin Yol

Yildim, the museum's curator of Islamic

and later Indian art.

>> The Leila and Majnoon paintings she

showed me, some of them hundreds of

years old,

>> tell a heartbreaking story.

>> It begins as many young romances do

>> in school.

Mnun was very handsome.

And then Leila, who is one of the most

beautiful girls in her tribe, was also

brought to school. Here we have one of

the moments that artists illustrate a

lot when they first meet at school. As

soon as they see each other, they they

fall in love. Um, but they can't almost

say anything. They are so kind of um um

taken by each other. Both of them are

trying to go to school every day with

excitement. The other students uh

realize that something is different

because Menon who was a very good

student all of a sudden starts not

paying attention to anything else but

just Leila.

>> What I love about Aisha is that I find

it very relatable. I find the story of

of school love and not being able to pay

attention to your school work because

you're in love like exactly at that

point when you start finding out what

love is.

He goes out to the bazaar and starts

chanting Leila's name.

>> Unfortunately, Majnoon's constantly

going out like this and especially

telling these poems about Leila in the

bazars.

>> Uh this is considered quite shameful and

angers Leila's father. So th this is

basically what starts the whole kind of

separation. Uh he removes Leila uh from

school and puts her in that in her tent.

She can't leave.

>> Their love is forbidden. They're

separated physically and they're dying

of heartbreak before your eyes.

>> They're kind of

>> Dr. Yilded explained that the kind of

artwork used in these manuscripts is

often referred to as miniature painting.

Not many painters still practice this

art form today,

>> but I met one artist who wants to keep

the tradition alive.

So, I mean, what was it about miniature

art that made you want to pursue it?

When I saw them for for the first time

up so close, I was just mesmerized by

the aesthetics and the beauty, you know,

like the the intricate mark making, the

narrative, the colors, you know, they

just like whole a big world in within a

small little space. It was just pure

sheer love at first sight kind of thing.

There was one painting I remember where

um Majnu in the desert is um met up by a

caravan and it shows that the people in

the caravan are kind of more from like

elite class and that is the caravan that

Leela's family and where she's in

the name Majinu which refers to madness

when you're madly in love with someone

that kind of a love where you have lost

lost that consciousness of you know how

you look to the world you're only

thinking about the love

Ila also feels exactly the same but this

is the kind of discrepancy between the

two lovers while Mun almost cannot stop

from telling u poetry about or words

about Leila Leila on the other hand

cannot say anything so She leaves

everything inside.

Majnoon's poetry for Leila trembles with

such yearning, such aching descriptions

of her beauty and grace that men from

far and wide fall in love with her too.

They travel to her father pleading for

her hand.

A rich man named Iben Salam finally wins

him over with his lavish gifts.

Leila's father forces her to marry this

stranger and declares that the story of

Leila and Majnun is over.

It is not.

>> At night when Ibin Salam wants to take

her as his wife uh Leila says stay at

arm length. I'm not going to let you.

I'm devoted only to me. Kill me if you

like, but I'm not yours.

They're in love and they're forced not

to be together. How horrible is that?

And she's alone in her tower with some

husband that she was, you know, given

to.

They know the other one is there

somewhere trying to get in contact and

it doesn't really happen.

Mean is really unhappy. He says that's

it. And he starts living, you know, in

the desert. And then one day he sees a

wounded gazelle and there's a hunter who

is actually ready to kill the animal but

Majun says please don't kill him and the

hunter says well what do you offer and

uh Majun gives all his clothes and uh he

saves the gazelle.

>> In the bright sunlight I saw a gazelle

grazing in the meadow. I thought for a

moment that it was Ila. I dream of us.

Two gazels grazing in a far away land.

My life, your life, finally together.

>> And he moves in cave with animals in the

desert, you know, and he's writing poems

or songs or whatever.

>> Leila hears these poems through others

who come and tell her, and she also kind

of writes u poetry as well. and her

words are uh taken by others to measure

them.

>> So, it's all pining away and never

really

being in any way satisfied or gratified.

So, they won't love anyone else because

they needn't.

>> Leila's husband dies. Everybody thinks

uh she is mourning for her husband

whereas Lelay is actually mourning for

me.

>> Because of this grief, she realizes that

she's not going to live very long.

She tells her mother, I would like to be

buried like a bride because after this

in the other life I will meet with

Mashnon.

And yes, Leila dies and Majun comes to

her grave and he stays there for a long

time and um Meanon kind of disappears

into dust.

His tribesmen come and collect the bones

and make another grave next to Leila. So

the two lovers join in the afterlife.

The greatest love of my life has been my

father. And when I lost him

>> a year ago,

everything kind of stopped making sense.

I'm really trying to understand this

whole story. Like I don't know what we

learn about love through this like very

tragic

um sad story of two lovers ever meet.

you know, just talking to you, you know,

you about these stories really makes me

kind of come to this conclusion about

love.

All love stories have pain. Maybe the

yearning for each other is the purpose.

Love connects our past with our future.

You pick up these pieces and then you

move forward and and keep making your

own story. This is about making your

story.

Mount Auburn Cemetery is a short walk

away from my campus. Dating back to the

early 1800s, it's one of the most

visited cemeteries in the US.

The gravestones are a reminder of loves

and cherished relationships that once

were

husbands and wives, parents and

children. Many of these markers have

been standing here for more than a

hundred years

which made me think of something else.

Amrin said

>> it's not the love

the love it's what the love

uh makes you do and then how you

translate it transform it into something

else.

I came across a book about one such

transformation,

a transformation of love into something

truly extraordinary.

I traveled to Washington DC to meet the

author.

Dr. Michael Calabria is an Arabic and

Islamic studies scholar at the St.

Bonaventure University in New York. I

also discovered that he's a Franciscan

frier.

Almost from the moment it was finished,

the Taj Mahal gave rise to many myths.

According to Calabria's book, the true

story of the world's most famous

building is written all over it for

everyone to see.

Father Michael, I am so excited to

finally get to meet you and I have so

many questions

starting with how did you come to write

a book like this? And I was asked to

develop a course on Islamic art and

architecture. And I had spent a lot of

time in the Middle East and was familiar

with the art and architecture of that

region, but I didn't know very much

about Islamic culture in South Asia. And

so I traveled for the first time to

India in 2009 and of course went to the

Taj Mahal.

When I arrived for the first time and

stood before the Taj,

it was a transcendent experience for me.

It's perhaps the most spectacular work

of architecture ever created by human

hands.

As a professor of Arabic, I was

particularly aware of this beautiful

calligraphy that is inscribed on various

parts of the Taj complex on the gateway

to the Taj on the mausoleum itself both

inside and out.

For the first time, I understood

that this wasn't simply a work of

architecture.

This was text.

We are encouraged to read the Taj as a

text, as a holy text, as a text of

faith.

>> But a text for whom? The words are from

the Holy Quran. So yes, they are for

Muslims though not just for Muslims.

The Quran expresses its message in

universal language meant for the entire

world. But Dr. Calabria thinks that the

text is also there for the sake of a

single shattered man. Shajahan the fifth

Muslim emperor of India.

He said that to really understand this

you must know the love story between

Shajahan and his beloved wife Mumaz

Mahal.

Dr. Supria Gandhi of Yale University

helped tell the story. What do we

actually know about the relationship

between Shajaha and his wife Mumas

Mahel? It's certainly a famous love

story that is attested in at least one

historical chronicle.

>> They're quite young when they meet, 14,

15 years old. And according to the

chronicles, they fall immediately in

love,

>> but they have to wait 5 years to get

married. And that's partly because you

know Mumas Mahel's um kind of family was

in a bit of political trouble at that

time.

>> In the meantime, Shajahan

enters into a political marriage. That's

what he has to do as a prince and would

be emperor.

But the chronicles are clear that Mumaz

is the love of his life.

>> Finally, they marry.

She's 19. He's 20. He gives her the pet

name Mumas Mahal, meaning the jewel of

the palace, which she's been known by

ever since.

And she possessed the requisite sort of

aristocratic lineage to be married to a

noble prince. But would he become

emperor? There were so many others who

were also competing for the throne.

>> Shajahan is favored to succeed his

father as ruler. But his father's chief

consort, who historians say was the real

power in the court, wants the throne for

her son-in-law,

who also happens to be Shajahan's half

brother.

She succeeds in turning Shajahan's

father against him.

>> Now he must fight for the throne.

>> Shajahan gathers soldiers loyal to him

and flees the capital. The Imperial army

follows in pursuit. Now that Shajahan is

an open rebellion, his life may be

easily forfeited. Mumaz could have

stayed behind in safety, but she chooses

to go with him as they are hunted from

one end of the empire to the other.

There were periods when his prospects

didn't look very bright at all and often

he had to flee or fight with limited

resources. Everything looked very

uncertain,

but his wife was with him helping him

out, and they never left each other's

side.

Their bond is already strong, but the

shared dangers seal their relationship.

She witnesses the horrors of war with

him and still does not leave his side.

The conflict stretches into his third

year. Both sides are exhausted. There's

a temporary armistice. But when his

father dies, Shajahan acts quickly and

without mercy to eliminate all rivals.

>> And that involved the execution of two

of his brothers, two of his nephews, and

two of his cousins.

Now that he is the undisputed ruler of a

vast empire, he turns his attentions

back to his precious wife.

Even the usually restrained court

chronicles take note

and I'm just going to read a quote in

English translation.

So their mutual friendship and raor

reached such a height as was never found

between any husband and wife in all the

classes of sultans or other people.

But their happiness is short-lived.

While giving birth, something goes

terribly wrong. Mumaz begins to

hemorrhage. The frantic labors of the

doctors cannot save her. She knows

before they do that she is dying.

She calls her eldest daughter to her

bedside to tell her to go get Shajahan

to bring him to her so she could say

goodbye to him.

>> According to Dr. Calabria. He blames

himself for her death.

>> He completely shut himself off from his

subjects for a week. They said that

because of his excessive crying, he

would need to wear spectacles

afterwards.

>> Oh god.

>> His beard turned gray. He is absolutely

griefstricken.

>> He demands that his court wear white,

the color of morning at that time. He

forbids entertainments on Wednesdays,

the day she died.

>> He wore this pendant

which is supposed to help cure heart

palpitations and it was inscribed in the

year after Montaz died.

Even 5 years later, he can't bring

himself to enter the palace fortress

where she took her last breath.

He reached out to holy men, to spiritual

figures because he wanted to abandon his

rule so that he could lead a life of

prayer and seclusion.

>> A temporary mausoleum is made for her.

>> The chronicles report that he went there

often and recited it over and over the

opening chapter of the Quran.

It begins with the words, "In the name

of God, the most merciful, the most

compassionate."

Words he may now be relying on for his

own salvation.

Here they were at a time of their life

when they should have been enjoying

themselves. Here he is the emperor. She

is the empress of this great empire and

she dies. How did he make sense of that?

I think it's possible that he saw

Mumaz's death as a kind of punishment

by God for the actions he took to come

to the throne.

The plans for the Taj happened rather

quickly to have a monument built for

her.

There is no Mogul monument that has a

inscriptional program

the extent that we have at the Taj

Mahal.

We have 14 complete chapters

taken from the Holy Quran. Over 241

verses inscribed on the various parts of

this complex. this complex that covers

42 acres.

Together,

they address

the most essential teachings of Islam.

The belief in the one God, the belief in

divine revelation,

the divine revelation that is given to

the prophets,

the reward of the righteous,

as well as the punishment of the sinful.

And I think the inscriptions at the Taj

were his way of expressing his earnest

desire for God's forgiveness.

So many of the texts have this

magnificent reassurance to them.

Once you enter into the complex, you

come into a large courtyard and there is

a prominent gateway

and it is there that we encounter the

first sort of inscribed at the Taj.

It begins

by mentioning examples of arrogant

people from the distant past, including,

for example, Pharaoh of Egypt.

Then

midway through the chapter, the

attention turns to us.

And what about you? Have you taken care

of the poor? have you taken care of the

orphan and the vulnerable of society?

And I remember reading it for the first

time

and tears

filled my eyes

because I was forced to ask myself what

was being asked of me. What have I done

to alleviate

the sufferings of the vulnerable?

But that's not where the chapter leaves

us.

God extends this beautiful invitation.

Enter my garden. Enter among my

servants. And so if you do that, as you

pass through the gateway, you get your

first glimpse of paradise because this

whole complex

is meant to be an earthly reflection of

paradise.

Of

course, scholars have had different

views on this. The late scholar Wayne

Begley made um a detailed case for how

the Taj Mahel is not a monument to love

and in fact you know it is really a

monument to Shah Jahan fashioning his

own persona as a powerful emperor.

But then we have an alternative view uh

by the scholar Eb who argued you know

quite persuasively that we should also

take seriously the idea that it was also

a monument to love.

>> The inscriptions are so powerful and if

you know the meaning you can't possibly

walk past them. They are compelling.

One particular part of the of your book

that really touched me was the chapter

that talks about in hardship comes ease.

>> And to see that that was something that

was inscribed in such a monumental place

is also something that I walk around

inscribed to this day that my best

friend gave to me when when my father

passed. And to know that for

generations, for millennia, we have

sought answers actually to the same

questions.

The very text that you mentioned is

written above the gateway as you are

exiting meant to be seen as visitors

leave. We are told

with hardship

there is comfort, there is ease.

new life.

It's not the end of the story. It's the

beginning of another story. All of us

experience loss. The texts of the Taj

are meant to carry us through those

difficult times.

>> I would give a lot to have one more day,

one more hour with my father. Shajahan

was trying to have an eternity with his

beloved.

Shajahan ruled for many more years,

commissioning more great buildings

covered with Quranic inscriptions, many

with the same expression of hope for the

sinful.

He marries again to cement political

alliances.

As old age weakens him, violence wrecks

the empire again. In the struggle over

who would next take the throne,

Shajahan's favorite son is killed by

another of his sons who then grabs

power.

Shajahan spends his last years confined

to a private apartment, ensuring that he

cannot rally support to reclaim his

position.

The daughter who brought him to Mumaza's

deathbed performs another service for

her father by remaining by his side

until the end. He dies isolated and

alone.

Who can say if he'll meet her in

paradise? But they're at least together

in the earthly paradise that he made for

her. He lies beside her tomb, which

occupies the center of the Taj Mahal.

The more I read, the more I realize that

these stories are kind of changing the

way I think about things.

Has that happened to you as you do your

research? Has it changed the way you

think about love?

>> You know, I think one thing that really

uh uh stands out is just the how

ubiquitous love is and how complex love

is. So I think you know there are a

remarkable window into the difficulties

of love, the complexities of love and

the different ideas of love.

Dr. Calabria helped me see that many

verses in the Quran reassure us in times

of difficulty.

And I was launched on another journey

to learn about the men who utter them,

the men Muslims call the messenger of

God. And there I discovered another

story of love, one that changed the

world. I started this quest because I

had a very difficult year. I lost my

father very suddenly.

My faith was very shattered. And what

has been helping me so far is to kind of

go back into my own tradition, the

Muslim tradition, and try to see what

can we understand about love.

>> I'm sorry, by the way, I never got a

chance to say that. I'm sorry to to hear

that.

>> There are many stories of love from our

our tradition. Uh and I think it starts

with the story of the prophet himself

peace be upon him and his interaction

and relationship with his with his wife

Khadijah which is permeates really his

entire prophetic mission

and the whole world is listening Yeah.

When Muslims say the name of the

prophet, they often follow it with the

words, "Peace be upon him." This is a

sign of respect that Muslims also pay to

other revered figures, including Moses,

Jesus, and Mary, peace be upon them all.

also out of respect and because of

Islam's prohibition against idolatry,

Muslims don't depict religious figures

in artwork.

This is why Muslim artists over the

centuries have painted a veil over the

face of Muhammad.

>> When you look at the history or the life

of the prophet peace be upon him, it's

very easy to want to begin when he first

received revelation. But it begins when

the prophet was born and the type of

life that he had in pre-Islamic Arabia.

He lost his father before he was before

he was born and he lost his mother

shortly thereafter. So he essentially

grew up as an orphan.

>> He tends sheep as a child. When he

matures, he becomes a trusted caravan

leader.

>> He stood out. He was known as the the

honest person. That was his, you know,

nickname. He was the honest one. And

that says a lot, right? because a

society in which there was a lot of

dishonesty uh a lot of uh shady

financial dealings.

>> The traditional Arab virtues of

frugality and helping the stranger are

abandoned in the quickly urbanizing

Mecca. Class structures that never

existed in the town before take hold.

Meccan society is now made up of winners

and losers. Some at the top and most at

the bottom. Many are enslaved and

women's lives are severely limited. So I

find it remarkable that one of the

wealthiest businessmen at the time

is a woman

was one of my favorite professors at

Harvard.

She's a scholar of the Quran and a

student of the life of the prophet and

his wife Khadijah peace be upon them

both.

She was married twice, had children and

both husbands died and she inherited

from them and she took that wealth and

invested it. She will give it to a

merchant to go to Syria and buy goods

and sell. Most of the merchants she was

giving her money to were cheating her

many of them.

So she was looking for someone honest

and trustworthy to to employ. Kadija had

a sister called Hala. When Hala heard

her sister Khadijah looking for someone

to employ, she suggested to her why not

you employ Muhammad.

>> And everybody says the same thing. He's

extremely trustworthy. He's very good.

He's honest. So, Khadijah hires him. She

sends him on this mission on a caravan

to go to Syria.

Afterwards, she asks one of the people

who had journeyed with Muhammad what he

thinks of him.

>> He was full of praise. He kept talking

about him to Khadijah, telling her how

honest he was, how gentle, how kind, how

truthful he was. And Khadijah started to

have feelings for Muhammad. peace be

upon him.

>> So she asked her friend, "What do you

think of Muhammad?" And she said, "Oh,

you mean you know that this is a man

that would interest you?" And she says,

"Yes, can you find out his interest?" So

you can imagine like, she's a little

embarrassed. What you know, I'm widowed.

I have four children. He's never been

married. Would he be interested in me?

So her friend when she asked him, "Oh,

Muhammad, uh, how is it that you're

still not married?"

>> So at that time he was about 24, 25

years old, he said, "Um, but who will

want to marry me? I'm the poor orphan."

She said, "Oh, then why not my friend

Khadijah?" And he said, "Khadijah,"

you know, I mean, he's so stunned that

somebody like Khadijah would even be

interested

to send an offer.

Why will Khadijah want me? All she

wanted to know was that uh Muhammad

peace be upon him didn't have anything

against marrying Khadijah. She went back

to Khadijah and told her and then

Khadijah proposed.

>> He accepts the offer and they get

married.

And the marriage is is in the home

and surrounded by Khadijah's cousin and

family and relatives and children. And

there's Khadijah and she's wearing this

beautiful onyx necklace and he respects

her so much for the fact that she's so

cultured and she's so refined that the

love just blossoms blossoms like right

away. He's moved into her into her home

because he doesn't have a home to offer.

But now the day he lands there, he's

already a stepfather to Khadisa's four

children. And he has real business

acumen that's hidden because he has

never been given a responsibility. And

she realizes that he has so many skills

that she didn't even know he possessed.

Because of his reputation for honesty,

many merchants choose Khadijah's caravan

to take their goods abroad.

And it said that when the caravans left

Mecca, the the caravan of the people

was, you know, this long and her caravan

of her stuff was the same length.

>> The business keeps growing and growing.

Meanwhile, they begin to have a family.

So the first child is a son, Kasum. And

Muhammad who's an orphan cannot believe

that he has his own family. And in a

society that values sons so much, he

feels like he's somebody now. He's

Muhammad, the father of Kasim.

But then within one year, Kasim dies

and then they have another son and then

that son also dies. So within the span

of four to 5 years, they've already lost

two children.

They had to bury their children

themselves, which is probably one of the

most traumatic things, you know, for a

parent. He and Khadijah did that

together. They were there for one

another.

>> They bear with the loss.

And then they have four beautiful

daughters.

Now they have four daughters and four

children already. And then he brought

his cousin Ali into his own. You can

imagine this couple is surrounded by

nothing but children. So how vibrant

must this home have been? And they are

honored by everybody except Muhammad is

mocked by some people in society because

you don't have a son. So you don't have

a lineage because in Mecca a son was

everything. A son was the carrier of

your name. A son was your heir.

>> He was a mechan by every sense of the

word. He was fully integrated in his

society. But at the same time there were

many things that he didn't like about

the community. He never liked idolatry.

He he hated detested that concept. He he

loathed the economic disparity between

people.

He's financially secure but there's

something nagging inside of him. He's

looking for greater meaning in life.

So he goes on the outskirts of Mecca on

this mountain called Mount Hira and he

goes and he contemplates in a cave.

Khadijah is very supportive of his

search and she is sending food with him

cuz he's gone for long periods of time.

And then one night everything changes.

After days and nights of prayer and

fasting, he's awakened by an

overwhelming presence that fills the

entire sky.

It commands him to repeat the first

words of the Quran. Recite, for your

Lord is most generous and has taught by

the pen, taught humanity what they did

not know.

>> He thinks he's going mad. And so he runs

home and burst the door open. And

there's Khadijah standing. He's sweating

and he's shivering. And all he's saying

is, "Cover me. Cover me. I think I'm

going crazy. I think I'm going crazy."

She cannot believe that this is her

husband.

>> And she physically takes a blanket and

she covers him.

>> But I can imagine he probably relayed

everything to her.

>> I think about like how would I have what

would I have done? You know, because

sometimes like people will say certain

things and we're now bound to think that

like oh maybe they're not okay, maybe

they're crazy, maybe. But no, she was so

steadfast.

>> Exactly. You know, she could have said,

"Oh, why do you go to the cave, you

know, to Hira and seclude yourself? Why

do you leave us, but instead, you know,

she she reassured him."

>> She doesn't say you're crazy or wacky to

calm down, take deep breaths. No, she's

like, "You're right. This is true

because you're an honest person. You

come to the aid of the disenfranchised.

You help those who need uh who need to

be helped. You you know, your home is

open to the stranger. this is a true

vision. So she validates him completely.

>> She has a cousin whose name is Varaka.

He is a Christian monk and she says

let's go to him and let's find out what

experience you've had. And they go and

so Waka sits down listens to him.

Varaka has studied Christianity. He

knows about the biblical prophets and he

said you are going to be the prophet of

God. But then he warns be careful your

life is going to be in danger and

imagine you are the wife of a prophet

now and now you have to protect your

husband because you know that there are

going to be all these enemies who are

going to come after you. So she places

her hand in him and she says I am your

first follower. So Khadijah is the first

one that says I believe in you and she

becomes the first Muslim

>> and now they are a a partner in this

endeavor. So her role even though it's

not outfront leading it's equally

important because she's a buttress for

this for the for the early mission. She

funds it. She supports him.

>> Her home is that is that first

sanctuary. He brings the noble people of

Mecca and he brings all the enslaved

people who have put their put their hand

in his and so he takes them all and he

puts them in a circle

>> to show people that nobody is above

anybody else.

Human equality is going to be the

defining feature of Islam. It shakes up

a lot of people because Mecca is very

much a hierarchical society.

Mecca's main industry is idol worship.

People from all over Arabia flock to the

city, bringing trade and lucrative

offerings to the many idols there, which

the Meccan elite are happy to pocket.

Muhammad threatens the business model of

the rich and powerful by declaring that

there's only one god, a god too great to

be depicted as an idol. too exalted to

be bribed by offerings of gold and

silver. So they reject his message and

the opposition begins. The first thing

that happens is his daughter is married

to a polytheist man

and his family tells the son divorce

her. And when Khadijah and Prophet

Muhammad hear that their son-in-law is

being forced to divorce, Muhammad is in

shambles because he loves his daughter

so much. And he begins to think, "What

is going to happen to my daughters? If

this is the impact on my children, what

is my message going to do to the rest to

my family? Khadijah consoles him and

tells him, don't worry, everything will

be fine. This is just one of many

attacks he experiences. The honored

businessman becomes the object of

ridicule and intense hostility.

More distressing, the heavens are

suddenly silent. Months pass with no new

revelations. He fears that God has

abandoned him. Just as he begins to lose

hope, a revelation comes, one that Dr.

Calabria pointed to on the walls of the

Taj Mahal.

>> On the great gateway that leads to the

Taj, there is a chapter from the Quran.

God has not abandoned you, nor does he

hate you. Did he not find you an orphan

and care for you?

>> The revelations resume. With Khadijah's

wealth supporting the growing Muslim

community, he begins a new phase of his

mission.

Now he's publicly preaching and then you

have some of the you know most important

sons of the bigger tribes coming and

joining the prophet.

>> And the heads of the tribes get really

angry and so they decide to attack him

through his finances.

In other words, his wife Khadijah, she

funds the early venture of Islam

completely,

totally and entirely.

>> So they decide that the ultimate way to

now get back at him is to place

sanctions on them. They decide not only

to stop trading with them, but they

decide to throw them out of Mecca and

send them to another little distant area

where they are cordoned off. There's no

food, no water allowed, nothing. So the

only people that take food in are people

that love Khadijah and prophet. And all

the wealth that she has begins to

dwindle. There's hardly anything left.

So much so that her cousin comes and he

says, "Khadijah, please, you're going to

starve. Your people are going to

starve." He begs her. He said, "Please

divorce Muhammad."

And he even has a plan. There's a very

rich man. Marry another guy. And

Khadijah looks at him and says, "As long

as there is a breath passing my lips, I

am not going to leave Muhammad.

The small band of Muslims are without

food or easy access to water. Starvation

weakens them all, especially Khadijah.

Her strength es by the day.

It was a very difficult period for the

ali Muslims. And at some point, you

know, she was living on leaves.

>> Leaves.

>> Yes. Leaves. Exactly. Yeah. She was

eating leaves and becoming sick. She was

slowly dying.

And when she died, it was like something

inside the prophet also died. His

companions said they will hear him weep

during the night.

>> That's the lowest point in the prophet's

life that it was just so overwhelming.

Not only was it sorrow for him, but it

was sorrow for the community because she

was the first, you know, the first in

everything. The first to believe, the

def the first to fund, the first to

support, the the the first to to to uh

cheer on this effort. Shortly after her

death, Muhammad's enemies try to

assassinate him. He barely escapes.

At this point, the prophet has to leave

and he has received an invitation from

Yatri, which is today's Medina, to come

and be their leader. Yatri is more

friendly to him because people in Yatri

are monotheist.

>> So he goes to Yatri and his next phase

of life begins there.

The prophet never had any other wives

when he was married to Khadija.

>> It was one of the few monogous marriages

as I've said in Mecca. It was you know a

polygamous society where it was very

common for men to have multiple wives.

after he migrated to Medina,

he did marry women for uh reasons of

creating alliances from the various

tribes because he realized when he was

with Khadijah, his fiercest enemies were

these tribal leaders. So how do you

create alliances with the tribes is you

marry into the tribes. All these women

except one were in their 50s, you know,

40s, some even had children. He married

many widowed women because he also

wanted to show

his followers that it was important to

take care of widows and orphans. Women

without the protection of men were

basically without security.

He is far from his enemies in Mecca. But

he's a bigger threat than ever. Now he's

on stable ground and has the support of

a major city. They start sending scouts

to fight with him. you know, because

they have huge armies. They galvanize.

They bring the armies together. And so

the prophet is fighting wars with these,

you know, mechan armies.

>> The eldest daughter of the prophet

Zanab. She gets married to a man before

Islam and he was a pagan. This guy gets

involved in the battle against the

prophet and he's caught and he's a

prisoner of war. But Zanab is still in

love with him and and is trying to free

her husband.

The prophet gets a messenger and the

messenger has a gift for the prophet and

he opens up this gift and it's the onyx

necklace of Khadijah the necklace that

she wore on the wedding. It's a gift

from his daughter

begging for the release of her husband

in exchange for the necklace.

>> The prophet breaks down and starts

crying. He asks his people, "Should I

release him?"

And they all say yes because they see

the emotion. So he releases his

son-in-law and then gives the necklace

back to him and says, "Tell my daughter

never to sell this necklace."

>> Muhammad loved Khadijah and Khadija

loved Muhammad. He says to his

companions, "She believed in me when no

one believed in me. She supported me

when no one supported me. She gave me a

home when my own people wouldn't give me

a home. God never gave me anyone as good

as Khadijah.

>> His revelations continue. They spell out

societal reforms. They warn of

punishment on the day of judgment for

those who oppress the weak and neglect

the poor.

Women are granted rights unheard of for

the time. People are urged to free the

enslaved in a society wrecked by

violence. Peace becomes a sacred value.

The message begins to take hold in that

troubled society. First a trickle, then

a stream, and finally a river of people

embrace his message.

In just a few years, an area about the

size of Western Europe is unified.

Even his Meccan enemies accepted. For

the first time, the Arabian tribes who

previously raided one another and

practiced vendettas that lasted for

generations are unified.

He returns to a Mecca that is no longer

a capital of idolatry. It is a Muslim

city, a monotheistic city, and the

center of Islam.

When the Muslims entered Makkah, many

people were eager, you know, to, you

know, to have the prophet stay with

them. And what did he do? He went to

Kadesh's grave and he said, "Yeah, said

attendent for me." Next to her grave

and that's where he stayed.

He's now in his 60s. Not long after

unifying Arabia, he dies after a short

illness.

He rests beneath the green dome in his

adopted city, Medina.

Khadijah is buried in Mecca along with

some of the other first Muslims.

And it's almost impossible for us to

conceive of the prophet and what he

accomplished in his life, whether it was

before Islam or after Islam, without the

presence of Khadijah in his life. She

becomes the anchor for him to begin this

incredible 23-year journey that changed

the face of history.

A religion that began with just two, a

husband and a wife, has grown to two

billion.

This was a love that changed the world.

I'm meeting with Selini Ibrahim. She's

the counselor for Muslim students at my

school. She was there when I began this

journey and I've been checking in with

her during my quest.

I have so much to catch up with you

about. It's so wonderful to be here.

We're overdue. I know. I know. And in

your honor, look at the shirt I wore.

Fatima Khadijah Mariam

>> I was like I'm going to see today I must

wear wear this.

>> Did you actually find it? Did you have

it made? So you know it was I'm trying

to gather my thoughts. I'm trying to

like wrap my head around all the things

that I've learned that love is love is

sacrifice. Love is believing in each

other even in the worst of times. Love

means keeping each other's memory alive

even when they're gone. I want to

understand from your perspective how you

contextualize some of these stories.

There's an element of trust to love. And

I'm just thinking of

>> Khadijah and and the prophet peace be

upon them both. She's the first one to

trust him that he actually is this

messenger of God who sent with this

message that that is the Quran. And so

much she put on the line.

We also have in the Quran Moses's own

mother who gets this revelation to her

heart to throw her child into the river

which you know this is what she has to

do to save him and and she has to trust

the mother of Moses has to trust that

this is from God and that she needs to

listen to it and so she puts baby Moses

in this floating basket.

>> There was also a story about um Moses's

sister, right? She was also very

important.

>> She's the one who saves him essentially.

>> Wow.

>> So she's this really wonderful heroine

of So he's floating down the river and

actually towards the palace. So she the

mother of Moses says to her daughter,

"Follow him." So out of a sense of

loving her brother and wanting to save

him, follows this basket all the way

down.

>> Oh my gosh. So she followed the whole

way there. Now, keep in mind this is a

time when when Pharaoh's armies are

slaughtering the Hebrew children.

So, she is tremendously brave to be able

to, you know, approach the palace as a

young girl. And then when Moses's basket

gets pulled out of the river, you could

just imagine he must be crying. And what

do you do when you have a crying baby?

to try to feed the baby. But so Moses's

sister is seeing this and she sees that

she has an opportunity. And so she

approaches the palace and says, "Shall I

show you a house where he can be raised,

where that where they'll take care of

him?" And with that, Moses gets returned

to his mother just like God had

promised. And again, trust

as I'm trying to conceptualize love, I

see a lot of these stories where it

moves people to do things that maybe

they wouldn't do otherwise, right? This

bravery that you were talking, right,

about Moses's sister to put herself in

the line for the love that she has for

her brother. not that different from a

lot of the stories that I've been seeing

and it made me think about the the love

of Shajahan and Mumaz and how it was

about you know it was his love for her

Shajahan's love for Mumaz that made him

more of a believer you know what I mean

and maybe Shajahan wants to change his

life and take it in a new direction he's

you know he's in a state of grief he's

in a state of loss but perhaps also this

monument is you know his way of reviving

himself into a better version whether

it's Shajahan in in India or as you

think about moving through the phases of

of your own adjusting to to life without

your dad live with a with the feeling

it's a it's a gift it will help you grow

it can take us out of that state of

brokenness and again trust trust that

you will find that love you go looking

for it a

>> I want to ask you Have you ever had your

heart broken?

>> I think I was more of a heartbreaker.

Tomorrow

we're shaking.

Wake up.

See the sun come make it. A new year

and colors.

A new year.

Wake up.

Wake up.

I think we'll walk together.

The story of Moses and his sisters

stayed with me and it led me to the next

stop in my journey to another story of

love between a brother with a famous

name and his older sister whose name I

didn't know at all. Yet, she saved him

in every way that's possible for one

person to save another.

6:30 news program here on channel 13. We

presented a five-part series which we

called the hate that hate produced. A

study of the rise of black racism, of a

call for black supremacy among a small

but growing segment of the American

Negro population. You must realize in

advance what's good news for you might

be bad news for somebody else.

What good news for the sheath might be

bad news for the world.

The Hate that Hate produced was a

documentary in the late 50s that

introduced the Nation of Islam and

Malcolm X to the American public for the

first time and through the lens of

hatred. But if you look at Malcolm, it's

a love story, an untold love story. In

order to really be uh able to understand

who Malcolm is, you have to understand

that Malcolm was shaped and formed by

love.

Malcolm X's love for his daughters and

his wife Betty is wellknown.

Less is known about the roles his

siblings played, especially his

halfsister, Ella Collins, who was the

daughter from his father's first

marriage. She was 11 years older than

Malcolm.

>> Malcolm X is born Malcolm Little and the

family experiences firsthand a lot of

the brutalities of racism at that time.

His father is eventually murdered early

in Malcolm's life. As a result, his

mother actually suffers a nervous

breakdown.

She's committed to a mental institution.

The state places young Malcolm into

foster care.

Malcolm was kind of like struggling. He

was getting in and out of trouble in the

school systems. So much to the point

that uh his older sister uh Ella Collins

actually sent from Malgum to live with

her in Boston.

Ella was pretty established. She lived

in the uh upwardly mobile section of

Roxbury at the time and she Ella had big

plans for Malcolm to do well.

She wants more for Malcolm than what he

wants for himself. She understands that

he's been given a short hand, that he,

you know, he didn't have the the mother

and father watching out over him the way

every child ought to. She brought him to

Boston to have like a better life. But

when Malcolm first got to Boston, he's

this kind of like this country bumpkin

who has has been in a sheltered life

being exposed to this urban life.

jazz and swing and um dancing and the

nightclubs and the zoot suits, the

fashion, the clothes, the women. He's

completely drawn in. Eventually, Malcolm

gets into what we would call the

underground economy. drugs, by his own

account, pimping, stealing, burglary.

Ella saw this firsthand. But as much as

she was dismayed about the direction

that he was going in, she never put him

out. She never um disposed of him. She

This was her brother. This was her

little brother, and she loved him.

So when he he was born, we expected

great things of Malcolm

after my father's death and um his

mother's having gone to a hospital. I

felt that it was my duty

uh to let him feel that life was the

life that God gave him belonged to him.

He didn't have to pay homage to anyone.

This is how I guided him.

She's constantly pushing for him to be

the best version of himself.

Ella is there to remind Malcolm of not

just who he is, who their father was,

what their legacy is, and that um he

ought to be making better decisions for

himself.

>> But her guidance can save him from

himself. At only 20, he's arrested for a

robbery spree and sentenced to 8 to 10

years.

>> It would be hard for anyone who's just

an older sibling to stay with someone

when they are that committed to um being

the worst version of themselves. And

that's the part where I think you really

can see that um the the connection is

there, but there's something bigger than

the that the connection is based on love

because she doesn't give up on him. In

prison, I was able to

really direct him into accepting facts

as a guideline to to life.

Malcolm was able to see this and accept

life from a realistic uh point of view.

He would I think all of the illusions

that he may have adopted in his youth uh

from environment.

I think he lost it in prison.

>> When Malcolm was in prison, Ella didn't

abandon him. She visited him regularly.

In fact, Ella helped advocate for

Malcolm to be moved to the Norfol prison

colony, which had the huge library that

would become so consequential to his

self-education. Ella was someone who had

that deep love for and in and belief in

his possibility. Those bars did not

remove his humanity or their

relationship that was so important to

his development. And I think Malcolm

knew that Ella was always there and

always going to be there. And she was.

While in prison, Malcolm's older

brothers introduced him to the Nation of

Islam and to its leader, Elijah

Muhammad. Ella is not a member, but she

has known Elijah Muhammad since

childhood when their families lived in

the same small corner of Georgia.

Uh Elijah Muhammad gave him a chance to

excel.

Uh had not it been for Elijah Muhammad,

I would have had to find possibly

another field to project him through.

But Islam gave Malcolm a chance to

really excel and build the Nation of

Islam.

Much of the Nation of Islam is Malcolm.

It gives me great pleasure and an honor

and a privilege at this time to

introduce to you and present to you the

messenger of Allah, your my beloved

leader and teacher, the most honorable

and humble Elijah Muhammad.

I heard him speak for the first time in

the summer of 1962

and became an instant supporter.

Wherever he spoke in the New York area,

I would go and uh if he mentioned a book

that he I would try to find the book and

read it cuz I'd never heard anyone talk

about race and white supremacy in this

country the way he did. He was the first

person in my life that I heard talk

extensively about psychological warfare,

a war on the mind.

>> I've interviewed so many

African-American Muslims who came into

Islam through the Nation of Islam in the

early 50s. And when I asked them, you

know that seinal question, why did you

join? They credit Malcolm, but they're

not just crediting Malcolm as a person.

Yes, they were in love with Malcolm. I

mean, it's a love story all around.

There's no shortage of love, but they're

crediting what Malcolm awakened in them.

So, they're saying, you know what,

Malcolm came in there and he told us to

love ourselves.

>> I began to think back growing up in

Tuskegee, Alabama, and Tuskegee was

about 90% black at that time. So, I

hardly ever saw white people except when

we go downtown to go to the movies.

Every Saturday, we'd be in there like

from about 10:00 in the morning till

about 2 or 3:00 in the afternoon. And

they showed a lot of Tarzan movies. And

a theater full of black kids would be

sitting there cheering for Tarzan and

Cheetah and laughing at the Africans and

regarding them as stupid. So, we would

laugh at them and call them dumb. I

mean, when I was growing up in Tuskegee,

you could call somebody a no good, you

know what, a low down you know what, an

ugly, you know what, a dirty you know

what. But if you call them an African or

a black, you know what, you going to

fight. Now, with the other names, you

may fight. You call them black or

African, you will be fighting cuz those

are considered, you know, like a curse

word to call somebody African or black.

the Nation of Islam gave him a chance to

recognize the lack of knowledge uh the

masses contain.

>> Brother Malcolm was the one more than

anyone else I think who got a whole lot

of us out of that realm. He awakened us

to the on the fact that our minds not

only have we been physically attacked as

a people we had been psychologically

attacked. you please. Who taught you to

hate the texture of your hair? Who

taught you to hate the color of your

skin to such extent that you bleach to

get like the white man? Who taught you

to hate the shape of your nose and the

shape of your lips? Who taught you to

hate yourself from the top of your head

to the soles of your feet? Who taught

you to hate your own kind? Who taught

you to hate the race that you belong to?

So much so that you don't want to be

around each other. No. Before you come

asking Mr. Muhammad, does he teach hate?

You should ask who yourself who taught

you to hate being what God gave you.

Malcolm primarily

was focused on getting black people to

love ourselves.

He understood that you could not engage

in a freedom project with people unless

you had unlocked their capacity for

self-love and love within their

community. And so justice and

um the work for justice was very much

dependent on Malcolm teaching this

self-love, love aesthetically, the love

of black people aesthetic, the love of

black spirituality, the love of black

political life, the love of black

communal life to lift up blackness was

not just an act of love but an act of

radical love.

What's happening at this time is

actually radical. That whole

transformation of the notion that you're

dark skinned makes you inherently

inferior to this is a badge of honor or

pride. You are no longer just someone

who came from a slave plantation and who

had no identity. You're connected to

this long illustrious heritage. They are

told being told to wake up and come

alive to their true selves, to their

true identity. And so when we think of

love, I think a lot of people might

think of love in this really narrow

sentimental way of like romance novels.

And for Malcolm, love was much deeper

than that. Now, he had his romantic

moments. Um there's this part in his

diary where he's traveling and he's like

wisfully saying like, "I miss Betty."

Right? So it's clear that Malcolm had

that love capacity. But for Malcolm,

that love went deeper. It was a love of

black people. It was a love of freedom.

It was a love of justice. Um, it was an

understanding that you can't carry out

justice without love.

Malcolm's message of self-love strikes

accord with black Americans. Membership

in the Nation of Islam jumps. Many join

after his speeches, but there remains

one hold out.

There's this um quote I remember when

Malcolm talks about how he was trying to

win converts to the to the Nation of

Islam and he said he's like it would

take Allah himself to convert Ella like

cuz you know she was so um he understood

her to be so strong willed

>> but after one of his talks in Boston she

surprises Malcolm when she rises with

the others and joins the Nation of

Islam.

As I journey further in the story, two

things about Ella Collins are becoming

clear. She was a woman of strong

opinions and she did not hold them back.

She ended up joining in the Boston

mosque. Um and

she didn't stay very she didn't stay

long. Malcolm in fact had to mediate a

dispute she had with the leadership of

the mosque and she ended up leaving the

nation. and she's still very supportive

of Malcolm as a minister.

>> Ella turns her energies to studying the

Quran and aligns herself with the

practices and beliefs of the broader

Islamic community. She saves her money

to go on the annual pilgrimage to Mecca,

which is the dream of every Muslim.

Malcolm also becomes disillusioned with

Elijah Muhammad and leaves the movement

to embrace traditional Islam just like

Allah had done before him. And like

Ella, he wants to make the pilgrimage to

Mecca, but going on the pilgrimage costs

more money than he has.

When he goes off his own way, he doesn't

have the means to to make the Hajj. And

this is something that Ella has actually

been saving up for herself. So, it's

something that's important to her. And

remember, Ella's gone into mainstream

Islam before her brother. But still, she

says, "No, Malcolm, this is important."

and she gave up her one shot

so that Malcolm can make that journey.

That is a significant sacrifice.

>> While in Mecca, he famously ate and

prayed with people of all races and he

came face to face with something more.

>> Some people say God is love. It is the

point of origin. It is the end all and

be all. That is the source of love. That

is love itself. That meeting with the

source was symbolized in his Haj.

Ella later said that he returned from

Mecca. A new man with the new name Elhaj

Malik al- Shabbaz.

>> Spiritually revitalized. He begins

speaking publicly again and launches a

new organization.

I was working at Time, Inc. in 1962

and one day I met a a young black woman

about my age. And so we we started

talking. She said to me, "Um, would you

like to be a part of a new

organization?"

And I said, "Yes." She told me to meet

at a it was a motel up near up near uh

153rd Street in Harlem. After I've been

there maybe about 20 minutes in walks

brother Malcolm

almost fell off my chair cuz I did not

you know it never occurred to me that he

was going to be I was going to be a part

of a new organization formed by him

became the organization of Afroamerican

unity the OAU. You know, brother

Malcolm's goal with the OAU, besides

helping us organize ourselves, was to

take the United States before the United

Nations Commission on Human Rights and

accusing of being either unable,

unwilling to protect the lives and

property of black people in this

country.

And Sister Eller was supporting that

concept. Whenever he was doing anything

really important,

he would go to her to get her reaction

to it.

It wasn't like she decided everything he

did. I don't I definitely want to give

that impression because that's simply

not true. But he wanted her opinion. He

wanted to know what she felt about

something. He wanted to know uh uh and

she cuz he knew one thing about her her.

She would tell him straight up the

truth. She's one of the few people

actually that brother Malcolm didn't

mess with.

He he when you saw him around her boy,

he was I used to laugh and say, "Boy,

when he was around her, boy, he's a

whole different person. You saw he'll be

the little brother to his big sister.

Not only did he love her, he respected

her.

>> Crisscrossing the nation, his travels

ring him back to Ella's home.

>> He walked into my house.

He told me he was going to speak at

Harvard that night. He spoke at Harvard

Law Firm forum.

After he came back to the house, I gave

him a diploma.

Tonight, Malcolm, you're a man. From my

point of view, he said, "I traveled

hard, didn't I?" I said, "Yes, you did,

but you made it. You're a man."

He was ready.

He raised his hand and uh a Muslim

greeting. Salam alalaykum. At that

point, uh,

I I heard a rumbling behind me, and I'm

sure everyone else did, too. And I

turned around in my seat to to see what

it was. And, uh,

then we saw like I saw two guys standing

up. And the next thing, my next

impression, it all happened very rapidly

as you can understand, is of the

gunshots. And I saw Malcolm had his hand

up. He had said he said, "Stay cool,

stay calm," or something like that. And

uh just then the gunfire went off and

his his hand was up. I remember this. I

turned around quickly and the next thing

I saw was Malcolm falling back in a dead

faint.

>> When she learned of Malcolm X's

assassination,

Ella was with his family to identify the

body.

>> After the assassination, she made an

attempt, you know, to keep the OAU

going. I went to uh after about I guess

three weeks after the assassination

somewhere around in there I went to a

meeting but I was still in such a state

of depression that I I just kind of

dropped out away and and many most of us

did

>> 10 years later Elijah Muhammad dies his

son W Muhammad loved Malcolm as Dr.

Fenusia said it's a love story all

around. He takes charge of the nation

and leads most of its members to

mainstream Islam, a path laid by Malcolm

and Ella. It was the largest mass

conversion in US history.

>> I think Malcolm understood right up to

his final moments that he had Ella in

his corner. Uh he had Ella in his corner

before he was Malcolm X. He had Ella in

his corner when he was Malcolm Little.

this little country bumpkin wearing

oversized suits. He had Ella in his

corner when he was an incarcerated

person and with people that are often um

disposed of by society is having no

future. He had Ell in his corner when he

was Malcolm X.

And he had he had Ell in his corner when

he was Alhaj Malik Shabbaz.

>> Mrs. Collins.

>> Yes.

>> Alex Haley says that you

are so much more than Malcolm's sister.

He said you were Malcolm's protector,

his confidant.

Tell me about your relationship with

Malcolm X.

>> I was thinking about him last night.

I felt responsible for Malcolm

from the beginning

as a sister.

Then I we went along further and I

became his mother.

>> That's about a sign.

Radical love that certainly describes

the stories of Leilen Majnoon and the

Taj Mahal. And in the same way that

Malcolm exhibited radical love for his

community, Muhammad peace be upon him

also expressed this love for his.

Muslims will say that they still feel

that love today. What remains for me is

understanding how I can express such

love in my life.

Well, I met a ghost one time.

and he became my only friend.

And we laughed and we cried,

hiding

in the cracks of fallen bones and broken

glass.

Speak slow

so I know you can hear me. This flow is

a float where the spirits be. It forms

in my throat and it stares me.

>> On the porch of my village home, I sit

alone. The sky strings an orchestra of

pink pastels.

The language of love enters me through

poetry.

As the sun begins to set, I will ask one

of these children to name its colors.

But stop them at every response. If you

won't say it like my husband would, then

why do you have his mouth?

>> Love is invisible.

At least this I know

secrets are beautiful.

Hold hands with the ghost.

>> Thank you very much.

>> Three of the poets who performed are

Muslim. I learned that Marjan Naderi's

family is from Afghanistan and she was

Washington DC's 2020 youth poet laurate.

Sadi Bashir is a well-known spoken word

artist and Zakadia is Chronomer is a

musician and poet who's developing a

model for sustainable farming

>> to be able to let yourself feel love

from people. There's a degree of

vulnerability necessary. Maybe it's not

even people. I'm a farmer,

>> you know, by day at least. And I I've

never owned land that I'm farming on.

I've experienced the loss of land. You

know, I've experienced the loss of a

relationship to something I really love

deeply. Um and the question then is can

you still love be in a loving kind of

interaction or inter relationship with

something when you know that there's an

end?

>> Yeah. You can actually love the idea of

the end, right? Because sometimes the

idea that you know this moment is going

to end, right? Kind of makes me love the

process even more, love the experience

even more. For me, I look to my mother

and the world that she's come from war,

turmoil, Taliban, whatever it may be.

And when she's in her bouts of

hopelessness, you know, I always

challenge her, is my own love not

enough? and true be like, "Of course,

like you're the only thing that matters

in this life anyway. It's my offspring."

>> Actually, the fact that we are here is

evidence of the love of our ancestors.

Literally, not poetically.

>> Love it. It's not just an emotion. It's

a force.

>> If you want to know more about love, you

turn to Roomie. For me, he's like a

poetic ancestor, right, of teaching me

how to write about love in these ways

that are so just fantastic and amazing.

Roomie, whose full name is Jalaladin

Muhammad Roomie, was a 13th century

Muslim poet and spiritual teacher.

Centuries later, he's beloved around the

world and is one of America's

best-selling poets.

>> I was first introduced to Roomie by one

of my undergraduate mentors. And I asked

him, why are we reading this

700-year-old poet? And he said to me,

read him and find out.

And it was transformative. And why he is

so influential I think is because he has

a life of transformation himself.

>> Can you feel it now?

Can you feel it now?

Can you feel it? Now,

>> a lot of people don't realize that

Roomie himself was a scholar of the

Quran. And when we think of scholars,

you know, it's the people in the

library. And I say this as an academic.

We don't talk to other people. We just

sit there and read our books. And that

is who Roomie was. One of the stories

that we have of Roomie is that he's

walking through the market with a stack

of his books in his hand and he's bumped

by this man called Shamset the Breeze.

when they bump into each other room, he

drops all the books on the floor and he,

you know, just gets really angry at

Chams. He says, "Do you know how

valuable these books are? How much

knowledge is in these books?" And Cham

says, "Did you find God in these books?"

And Roomie says, "No, what type of

question is that?" And he picks up his

books and he walks off in a huff and he

continues walking through the bazaar.

And in these old bazaars, in these old

markets, you had like a book seller

section, you had a rug sellers section,

and you had a metal worker section. So

he's walking through the metal workers

section. He's hearing the tuck tuck

tuck. And he's hearing these tac tac

tac. And he's hearing these three, four

different rhythms. And he's hearing

something that he's never heard before,

which is not just the rhythm of these

hammers. And I want you to do something

for me. Can you take your two fingers

and just put it right here on your neck

until you find your pulse?

>> I got it.

>> Do you find your pulse there? And you

feel that rhythm?

>> Yeah.

>> In the Quran it says, "God is closer to

you than your jugular vein." And Ruby

would know this because he's a scholar

of the Quran. When he's hearing this

rhythm in the market, what he's hearing

then is his own heartbeat. And then he

starts hearing the divine. And it's that

that causes him to enter into his first

moment of ecstasy where he starts

dancing and uttering this poetry.

It's said that Roomie sometimes compos

his poetry while whirling, a meditation

practice intended to draw a person

closer to God.

Salam. How is everybody? This is in

celebration of Roomie's birth. I would

like to thank all of you for coming. We

celebrate his birth with beauty with

beauty and love really. So let's welcome

Lita Seden. She's worked 27 years now on

a magisterial biography on Roomie. So I

have asked her to read a short poem of

Roomies.

Roomie's knowledge was so vast but still

with all the knowledge there was a

vacuum in his soul that he needed

a spiritual companion.

Roomie approaches Shams and says I am a

spiritual seeker. Be my guest and come

and live in my house.

Champs accepts

and it seems that

in the first days

he sat in front of Roomie

and observed his daily engagements.

He taught at four different colleges,

had thousands of followers.

So he was constantly busy.

Shams told Romy, "You got to leave all

this.

You have to stop the teachings.

You have to stop the writings.

You have to stop seeing all these people

and we need to go into a solitary

retreat."

A lot of their time was spent not in

speech and discourse. It was spent in

silence.

And then Roomie says, "Please don't

deprive me of the talk of the secrets of

the universe. Speak." And Sham says it's

not a matter of talk or speech.

It's a matter of realization.

Sh silence.

One of the things that Roomie does so

well in his poetry is that he'll build

up this big big idea and then he'll end

with the word silence.

And the way he we understand him under

ending with silence is that there is a

point where you can't understand anymore

through words. So you have to follow his

ascent of ideas and then figure the rest

out yourself.

They leave the retreat.

Roomie is suddenly a mystic poet with

poems

streaming,

pouring out of his mouth already

composed.

Not a word needed to be changed.

It's like Mozart, you know. Mozart said,

I do not compose.

It already comes to me already composed.

All I have to do is write it down.

Roomie wrote about love. You know, he

wrote about love of of God and above all

things. The poetry of Roomie is an

expression of the type of love that

Islam and indeed the prophet himself

came to teach us. And his poetry is a

very accessible way to for you to

experience what that type of love in

your heart can do. How you end up

looking at the world.

It's it's beautiful.

It's colors and it's diverse.

But it all goes back to the same source.

Shems is able to unlock into room in

room a dimension that perhaps just

needed a little bit of like a a push.

He starts a spiritual order that

continues till now. We refer to them in

English as the whirling dervishes. This

is the way that they have physically

sought to inculcate in themselves these

meanings.

Room's transformation from the serious

scholar to the joyful poet of love

changes everything for him. And his

legions of admirers are thankful that it

did.

But in Room's day, some are not so

thankful. They blame Sheams for taking

away their teacher and scholar.

One day goes to meet Shams and cannot

find him. He's simply gone. No note, no

parting words of wisdom, not even a

goodbye.

No one knows for sure what happened. It

is likely that he was driven away. Some

scholars even think that he was killed.

Others say he may have left on his own

accord, worried that he was becoming a

roadblock to Roomy's growth. But one

thing is certain, the love Roomie felt

for Shem's defined his path both in

Shams's presence and in his absence.

So, so, so what's the lesson? What can I

do with this overwhelming pain at my

father's absence? I can't build a Taj

Mahal. I'm not going to lay on his grave

and turn to dust like Majun. What is the

secret of enduring love?

Yearning for you.

I'm restless day and night. How can I

let day and night be? Day and night.

Like a camel, I'm under a load. day and

night.

>> For a while, Roomie is so griefstricken

that he can barely function. He offers a

reward to anyone with information about

him.

>> People come to Roomies, they're like,

"Oh, yeah. We we know where he is. He's

in China." And he gives him the money.

And people are like, "They're lying.

We know like there must be lying. They

have no clue. And Roomie says, "I know

they're lying, but they said Shamsa's

name in front of me."

>> Searching for meaning, Roomie's

heartbreak takes him to the same story

that started my journey. The story of

Leila and Majnon.

>> So Leila and Majnon is one of our great

great love stories. It is so popular and

pervasive that there's probably 500

different versions of it in Arabic, in

Persian, in Turkish, in Udu. There's

hardly a Muslim language which doesn't

have a Leila Machinon story. And the

most famous story of Leila Machinon that

we have is the version that Roomie tells

and a few other poets tell as well which

is that the Khalifa the ruling head of

the whole Muslim community

keeps reading these poems that Majnoon

has composed for Leila right she's a

girl of unp unsurpassing beauty and

without her I don't breathe well and all

of that. And so he's like, "Any girl who

would inspire such extraordinary poetry

is someone that I got to know." And just

in case there's another one who's like

maybe even more beautiful, he's like,

"Bring all the women to the court." The

day comes and he's just like tingling

with excitement.

And he goes to the court and 100 women

come in and and he looks and he looks

and he looks and no one woman stands out

above the rest. So he finally turns to

the crowd and he goes, "Is one of you

all Leila?" Leila comes forward.

She looks just like the rest of them.

And he goes, "You like

you are Leila? you're that this Leila

and she says I am Leila

but you

are not majun the spiritual path in

Islam isn't about transforming our

senses in order to see the beauty of

Leila you have to look through the eyes

of Majnoon so the cultivation of majun

eyes is really one of the goals of of

the path and that's the defining feature

of he sits with the pain he sits with

the suffering

until he says today I became free from

the love of shams

and people say does it mean you don't

love him anymore he said no that shams

which I used to see outside

now I see inside of myself I found the

beloved inside of me.

So he starts by actually asking you to

look deep deep deep within yourself and

to sit with the source of your pain

with everything that you are separated

from.

For some it's your loved ones, maybe

someone who came into your life and

left. And then for some people it's a

sense of separation from God. Like is

anyone out there? Is anyone listening?

And probably the most painful one is

when people are separated from

themselves. They had hopes and

aspirations of how life was supposed to

go and it just hasn't. He asks you not

to block that out, but to sit with that

pain.

But his is not a message of despair.

Every heart breaks

and your heart must break. But what a

difference there is between a heart that

merely breaks and a heart that breaks

open.

>> What does that mean for a heart to break

open?

>> One who can see love in everyone and

everything. He calls it seeing the one

beloved in a thousand disguises.

It's not the love, it's what the love

makes you do.

It's love that transforms. It's that

internal fundamental change and

transformation.

Love should make you feel

and that feeling should then be

something that makes you act in the

world.

Love is not a sentiment. It's not an

emotion.

>> It's a force.

How am I supposed to practically

understand the world through these

stories? Me. Me. Not just anyone. Not in

theory. Not in theory of what love looks

like,

>> but really like what do I make of it?

the loss of a human being in your life

who cared and nurtured for you. I mean,

I have an idea without ever having met

him of the enormity of his love for you

and on a practical like basis like you

you're his future. Like he's still here

because you're here. It's not um an

abstract matter. This is concrete. I've

never met him and I feel like I know

what's most important to him because I

know you. Because I've met you.

>> Your dad's future is in you and from

what I see, you're giving your father a

beautiful life.

>> No, that's really Yeah.

>> I really appreciate you saying that.

>> I appreciate you. Yeah. Oh,

>> give me a hug.

I see you.

I loved my father so much and it still

hurts when I feel his absence. But these

stories have taught me that love does

not have to end with the passing of a

cherished relationship. It can be

transformed.

I think it's even meant to be

transformed into something good,

something greater.

Love has inspired great architecture,

artwork,

unforgettable literature,

immortal poetry.

Love gives us fresh insights into

familiar stories

and it has changed the world.

More importantly, it connects us to each

other, to those with whom we are sharing

this time with. It even connects us to

those who have lived and loved before

us.

It even connects us to the source of all

love.

Love is much more than an emotion. It is

indeed a force.

From my readings, I came across this

line from a book called The Secrets of

Divine Love.

Love.

It is the reason there is something

instead of nothing.

It is from the soil of love that all of

existence blossoms into being.

Love is why we're here.