Original subtitles

(TURKISH MUSIC)

This is the untold story

of the making of the modern world.

A fresh perspective,

charting the spread of civilisation across the globe.

From the dawn of mankind

and the first cities and empires...

to the belief in one God.

(Sings the call to prayer)

We follow the flow of civilisation

from the Middle East.

An extraordinary place that has been a vital link

between the continents of Asia, Africa and Europe for millennia.

An economic, scientific and cultural centre of the world.

(DRAMATIC MUSIC)

This is an epic journey of discovery...

from the east

to the west.

(MUSLIM CALL TO PRAYER)

Mecca - the holiest city in the Islamic world.

According to Muslim tradition,

this is the city where the Prophet Muhammad was born,

the city where he first received God's message,

the city which gave birth to Islam.

For over 1400 years

no non-Muslim has been allowed to enter Mecca,

while it's been the duty of every able-bodied follower

to pilgrimage here and pay homage to God

once in their lifetime, performing the hajj;

one of the five pillars of Islam.

(Man sings prayer)

In the last month of the Islamic calendar

over three million Muslims still perform this pilgrimage each year,

worshipping around the Kaaba,

the black stone which marks the Muslim direction of prayer.

(Man sings prayer)

In the 21st century

Islam is the fastest-growing religion on earth.

Over one and a half billion people,

23 per cent of the world's population,

following the words of the Prophet Muhammad.

This is the story of the events that began this amazing global following.

Exploring the cultural heritage of its first converts,

the nomadic Arab tribes,

who before Islam, had conquered the desert

but had yet to change the wider world.

Under Islam, they were united under one banner,

transforming not just the Middle East,

but the rest of the globe, forever.

Every year during the hajj

Pilgrims make an extra journey to the outskirts of Mecca

to climb Mount Noor,

following the footsteps of their prophet Muhammad.

According to Muslim tradition, for the first 4O years of his life

the Prophet Muhammad, then simply a merchant citizen of Mecca,

made the journey here to reflect and escape,

disenchanted by the sinful lifestyle

of the urban populace below.

And it was here, 1400 years ago,

that his piety was rewarded when God first revealed his message to him,

an event that would change the world forever.

As he rested on top of the mountain,

the angel Gabriel appeared to him,

three times instructing the Prophet to recite the following words...

With this revelation the call to Islam had begun.

The first of many which the Prophet Muhammad would receive

throughout his life.

Revelations that would become the basis of the holiest book of Islam,

The Koran.

It was following this revelation

that the Prophet Muhammad began his mission

to spread the word of Islam,

sowing the seeds that would bring the Arab tribes together

under one banner for the first time ever.

(Men speak Arabic)

1400 years ago, they were united under a new religion -

Islam.

For the first time, this gave them the opportunity and drive

to become a global power.

(Speaks Arabic)

This incident is one of the most momentous

in the history of world religion,

an event that would begin to transform the cultural make-up

of the Arabian Peninsula forever.

(Speaks in Arabic)

Before Islam, for thousands of years,

the native inhabitants of this desert region, the Arabs,

had lived as separate groups of nomads,

governed by tribal rules and laws.

The first time the Arabs appear in any sort of historical record

is in the victory inscriptions of the Assyrian kings.

The Assyrian kings are the great warrior kings of northern Iraq

from about 1000 BC onwards.

And the great thing about the Assyrians

was that they put up monuments and wrote about what they'd been doing

in this cuneiform writing that we see here.

And in this one Shalmaneser Ill in about 850 BC

is writing about his conquests and he's writing about his allies

and people who fought with him.

One of these is Gindibu the Arab,

named as such with 1000 of his followers.

We don't know anything more than that about them

but this is the first time the name “Arab"

appears in the historical record.

If we go on about 100 years

we actually get the first visual images of Arabs

to be found anywhere.

This is part of a frieze, it dates from 728 BC,

and it depicts a triumphant procession of prisoners.

This time the Arabs are on the wrong side

and here are the Arab prisoners, definitely prisoners,

they've only got little sort of skirts on,

they've been stripped of their clothes,

they're bearded, they've got long hair,

all these things are probably accurate.

Look at the way they've got their wrists tied behind their backs.

These people are not having a good time.

And here... we see the sort of things

that the Assyrians were taking from these Arabs.

And the first thing are the camels,

the classic one-humped camels of the desert that you still see today.

This is the chief sort of booty that the Arabs have to offer.

It's interesting that what the Arabs are contributing is their livestock.

There is no mention here of fine textiles,

there's no mention of precious gold and silver or anything like that

and there are no representations of any buildings and castles.

They offer the simple products of a pastoral lifestyle.

And even today, nomadic Bedouin tribes still inhabit the desert,

living a remarkably similar lifestyle to their ancient Arab forefathers.

(Urges camel on)

Although it wasn't until the birth of Islam

that the Arab tribes began to establish a unified culture

and make a global impact,

this tribal way of life, travelling in small nomadic groups,

bonded by tribal laws and loyalties,

had enabled them not only to survive,

but to flourish, on the limited resources which the desert offered.

The desert looks to us to be incredibly harsh and inhospitable,

but properly managed by people who knew what they were doing,

it could be a land of opportunity.

Caravans could be organised to go through the desert

passing from one tribal territory to another,

and to bring profits to the people who organised them.

So it was a land of economic opportunity.

For thousands of years

before Arab Muslims began to expand their territorial domain,

the Arabian desert was already a key trade route between East and West.

The region was perfectly placed to profit from the passage of goods

between India, China, Arabia and Europe.

It gave rise

to one of the most remarkable cities of the ancient world,

on the edge of the Arabian desert -

Petra.

Today, Petra's ruins give us a glimpse

of how the Arabs began to capitalise

on these lucrative trade opportunities

and reveal their early attempts to create an enduring civilisation.

What makes Petra unique

is that it combines two seemingly paradoxical characteristics.

It's both hidden,

ringed by this huge range of mountains that you see around you,

and it's also very accessible.

When you pass out to the east, one enters a narrow passage

that takes you then to a junction of trade routes,

through which one can access markets to the north, Syria and beyond,

to the east, Iraq and Iran, to the south, Yemen,

and also to the west through a gap in the mountains here,

on to Gaza and the Mediterranean.

The Nabateans, an Arab people

who pastured herds of sheep and camels in the eastern deserts here,

gradually took control of these trade routes.

The first records of the Nabateans date from over 2300 years ago.

Whilst they were still a nomadic tribe

they established Petra as a city tor their dead,

carving out over 800 tombs from the rocky ravines.

But within 200 years, their fortunes would change

as they accumulated vast wealth from their monopoly

of the lucrative trade routes.

The Nabateans became wealthy

in particular because of one product, namely incense.

Frankincense is only found in Yemen.

(LIVELY WIND MUSIC)

It was used very much for dedications to the deities,

cremations...

Famously, Nero threw 3O pounds of incense

on the funeral pyre of his consort Poppaea when she died.

By the time the frankincense gets to the markets of the Mediterranean

you have to pay a fortune,

six gold coins for each pound of frankincense.

A gold coin is something

an average person couldn't dream of earning in a whole year.

The Nabateans cream off a lot of the money from this.

With the revenue, the Nabateans transformed Petra

from a city of the dead into a living, bustling metropolis.

And as thousands of traders from different cultures

passed through the city,

Petra drew on the cultural traditions of its foreign visitors.

Its architecture combined Greco-Roman influences

with designs from Ptolemaic Egypt,

and Babylonian styles from ancient Mesopotamia.

In many ways this is the uniqueness of Petra,

bringing together of different traditions and ideas

from so many peoples.

The Nabateans had created a cosmopolitan society,

drawing on the many cultures they encountered through trade.

They were the first Arabs to establish an empire.

But while their nomadic culture had enabled them to conquer the desert,

they would never conquer the wider world.

Despite their riches, the Nabateans were never the masters,

always the servants.

Theirs was a commercial empire,

and in terms of politics and power they were never fully in control.

1900 years ago the Roman Empire spread east

and gained control of the region.

The Nabateans' fate was totally in their hands.

So when the Romans redirected the trade routes away from Petra,

the Nabatean glory days were over.

But their demise didn't crush the Arabs completely.

As the new trade route wound its way through the desert

another tribe took control of the commerce.

With the wealth it brought them

they not only created a new, equally lavish kingdom

but this time one with real ambitions of power...

Palmyra.

Like Petra, Palmyra grew into a thriving metropolis

with theatres and colonnades influenced by the classical world,

which it had encountered through trade.

For the first time in history

the world would get a brief glimpse of a real Arab empire.

Superficially, it looks Greek and Roman like Petra before it.

But Palmyra retained its distinctly Arab and eastern identity,

revealed by the huge temple complex at its heart...

not a temple to Greek or Roman gods,

but to the ancient Arabic god Baal, the god of the sun.

Palmyra had entered a golden age.

And driven by its queen, Zenobia,

it had dreams of becoming an empire to rival Rome itself.

But Zenobia underestimated

both Rome's determination to control trade

and the strength of its legions.

(DRAMATIC ORCHESTRAL MUSIC)

The Roman forces invaded the city

and took Zenobia back to Home

where they paraded her as a symbol of their victory.

(MUSIC REACHES CRESCENDO)

Palmyra lay in ruins.

Its days as a thriving trade centre had ended.

At both Petra and Palmyra

the Arabs had proved that they could create great kingdoms

off the back of trade through the desert.

But in both cases they had failed to make a lasting impact.

And it would be another 300 years

before the Arabs' fortunes would begin to change forever

at another city on the caravan route...

Mecca.

Following the revelation of God here,

the Prophet Muhammad began his mission to spread the word of Islam,

sowing the seed that would unite all the Arab tribes.

And the Koran created further unity

with a strict set of doctrinal rules

governing every aspect of Muslim lives

and giving them a common goal.

At its heart are the five pillars of Islam.

By 630, Islam had gathered together over 10,000 followers

but this was only the beginnings of what would shortly become

a vast global following.

The desire to spread God's message

was central to this burgeoning religion.

It was this that would help fuel the early expansion of the Muslim empire.

Just two years after the death of the Prophet Muhammad

this desire resulted in the Arab Muslims' first major victory,

the taking of Damascus.

The manner in which they won over both the city and its citizens

would set the style for lslam's spread

over the next 100 years.

Damascus is said to be the oldest continuously occupied city

in the world.

Its busy souk reflects its origins as a thriving centre of commerce,

the terminus of trade with Mecca,

linking the Far East with the Christian Byzantine west.

Damascus was the emporium, the rich city in the minds of the Arabs.

And conquering Damascus

was probably a symbolic act in terms of conquering Syria.

In 634 the Muslim army arrived at the city's gates.

But taking this ancient capital would be no mean feat.

Only 12 years after the birth of the Islamic state

the Arab Muslim force was still in its infancy.

(RAPID PERCUSSION MUSIC)

Yet it was about to be pitted against a force

that had dominated the ancient world for over 800 years.

We know that the Arabic army that came into Syria

was made up of 12,000 soldiers,

ill-equipped, not having enough horses, not having enough swords.

The Arabs not only faced a formidable Byzantine army,

but one entrenched in a heavily fortified city.

With the odds stacked against them

their generals were split on how to take the city -

either by the sword or through negotiation.

The military approach was personified by Khalid lbn al Walid,

a warrior whose fearsome reputation in battle

had already gained him the title “The Sword of Islam...

He began to lay siege to the eastern gate.

Khalid lbn Al Walid is a man of action,

is really the very famous hero of the Islamic armies

in the early years of the conquest

and he and his division were here

at the eastern gate of the city of Damascus.

Khalid lbn Al Walid was very keen

on conquering the city with his sword.

But while Khalid lbn Al Walid was spoiling for a fight

at the eastern gate of the city,

at the opposite gate his fellow general,

Abu Ubaidah al Jarrah, had different plans.

Abu Ubaidah al Jarrah entered into negotiations on the other end,

probably with the patriarch of Damascus,

and ultimately signed a treaty or a truce

whereby the army was let into the city peacefully

from the western gate of the city.

And the story goes that half of Damascus was conquered by war

and the other half was conquered by peace.

The ancient city,

that had been under the dominion of the most powerful force in the West,

was now ruled from the East by the East.

The old order was gone and the balance of power had shifted.

Damascus had become home to a new form of government

that would change the world.

(SERENE MUSIC)

Remarkably, although spreading Islam was a prime motivation

for territorial growth,

the new Islamic rulers didn't simply impose their beliefs

on the city's inhabitants,

most of whom were Christians.

There's evidence for this

in the history of one the city's oldest religious buildings.

But when the Muslims conquered the city in the seventh century,

they didn't take over the church immediately

and build the Umayyad Mosque we see today.

For many decades after the conquest, it remained a church too.

Amazingly, the Muslims decided to share it with the Christians.

Religious and cultural tolerance, as well as military strength,

had characterised the Arab Muslim conquest of Damascus

and it would continue to do so as they maintained their expansion...

even when they set their sites on another city

of major importance in the region.

It was a place of little strategic value

but of huge religious significance for every faith group in the region,

including the new Islamic state -

Jerusalem.

According to Islamic tradition,

this was where the Prophet Muhammad was taken

on the night journey by the angel Gabriel,

where he led the other prophets in prayer and met with God.

Jerusalem was the Muslims' third holiest city after Mecca and Medina.

The night journey in itself is important

in Muslim practice and belief

because at that night the Prophet Muhammad

according to Muslim views, point of views, performed a prayer.

He was the Imam, the leader of all the prominent prophets

like Isaac, Abraham, Jesus, Moses.

But at the beginning of the seventh century

Jerusalem, like Damascus, was ruled by the Byzantines.

As Christians they considered it to be their holiest of cities,

at its sacred heart, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

We are in front of the Holy Sepulchre.

And according to Christianity,

Jesus Christ was crucified and buried here, inside here,

in the middle of Jerusalem.

(Priests sing)

Just three years after the fall of Damascus,

in 637 the Arab Muslim forces arrived at the city's walls.

And as the Byzantine forces had already been routed from Damascus,

Jerusalem couldn't rely on any military backup.

Although Jerusalem held out for four months,

its ruler, the patriarch Sophronius,

knew that his city's fate was sealed

and decided to surrender.

Sophronius had taken a huge gamble.

What would happen to the Christians' most important city

once it was claimed by a force who also held it so sacred?

Omar lbn al-Khattab came to the Holy Sepulchre

because the patriarch wanted to show him the church.

Then it was the time for Muslim prayer

and he wanted to pray,

so the patriarch asked him to pray inside the church

and he refused.

He refused because he told him that in the future,

the Muslims will start saying

that Omar lbn al-Khattab prayed here

and then they will claim the place

and they will change the church to mosque.

Recognising the importance of the church to Christians,

the Muslim leader, the Caliph Omar,

decided to find another location to pray,

finding his own place of worship

within just a few metres of the Holy Sepulchre,

establishing the mosque that today bears his name.

The Muslims were now in possession of one their holiest cities.

And they could set about celebrating the location

where the Prophet Muhammad was taken on the night journey,

today marked by the oldest surviving Islamic monument in the world -

the Dome of the Rock.

(UPLIFTING MUSIC)

When ordinary Muslim visit the Dome of the Rock

the first act they will do,

they will do a prayer following the steps of Prophet Muhammad.

So that really is so important

in Islamic creed and Islamic belief.

After the conquest of Jerusalem

the Christians were again allowed keep their churches

and the Jews, who under the Romans and Byzantines

had been banished from the city for centuries,

were now allowed to return.

(Monk sings prayer in Latin)

Religious tolerance was core to Islamic belief,

but it was also key to the future success of the empire.

Acceptance into the new Islamic state came at a price.

In return tor protection,

non-Muslims such as Christians and Jews

had to pay a poll tax.

The taxes gained through conquest

not only ensured that the empire could continue to grow,

but that it would have the financial wealth to last.

And like the development of every empire in history,

the direction of expansion was very much motivated

by the potential riches on offer.

Nowhere in the world offered greater rewards than their next conquest -

Egypt, the breadbasket of the region.

In 639, the Arab Muslim forces arrived in the country.

The speed of their advance was amazing.

They quickly gained control of the Nile,

overcoming its heavily guarded defences,

before advancing on its capital Alexandria.

This was the port which had been the main hub between East and West

for over 1000 years.

Within two years

Egypt was completely under Arab Muslim control,

the Byzantines banished from the region forever.

The Islamic state now set out to maximise the riches

it could gain from the country.

One of the first buildings they made

wasn't dedicated to religion.

It was designed to calculate tax

and therefore fund their empire.

This is then Nile-ometer,

and this is probably

the oldest Islamic building in Egypt.

The Nile-ometer is a device that measures the water of the Nile.

Every year the Nile used to flood.

The water would come in from this hole there

and the space that we're standing in would be filled up

and the column has all these measurements.

The unit of these measurements is the cubit.

So every cubit, you can see there's a section there,

and people would be recording this all the time.

And this has to be monitored every day

because it should always be compared with the year before

and the years before.

If it gives you good Niles, good level,

then everything will be okay.

You'll have good irrigation, you'll have good crops,

you'll sell well, you'll do good business,

people will pay taxes, no problems.

By monitoring the levels of the Nile,

the Islamic state could evaluate each year's potential harvest

and therefore how much they could tax the population,

maximising their financial rewards.

Because this wasn't a smash and grab raid.

The Islamic state wanted to create a lasting empire

and make sure that Egypt

would become the jewel in that empire's crown forever.

The Arab Muslim army, who were still mostly nomadic tribesmen,

now had to settle down to make sure their presence was permanent.

And a few hundred metres from the site of their first victory,

archaeologists have discovered evidence

of the Muslims' very first settlement in Egypt.

These brick buildings are the remains of the houses

of the earliest Islamic settlement in this area called Fustat.

This was originally the site where the Arab army was based

and probably where their camp was.

And these garrison towns are a kind of making permanent

of the army military camp.

One of the first things done

was the foundation of the congregational mosque,

which was the key place for the bonding

and the communal interaction of this new religious community.

The rest of the city was laid out by means of plots of land,

which were given to the different tribal units.

And they were allowed then to build up

their own areas of settlement, their own facilities, their houses.

Smaller neighbourhood mosques were built up within these plots

to serve the needs of each tribe who settled at Fustat.

Basically the whole of Fustat is a new settlement,

it didn't take over any pre-existing settlements,

there was nothing here before,

a very unusual development in the history of urbanism.

The Arab Muslim forces had built a totally new capital

completely from scratch.

And what started off as a small settlement, Fustat,

would eventually become Cairo,

today the biggest Arab city in the world...

the city of 1000 minarets

with a predominantly Muslim population

of around 15 million people.

As the Muslims' territories grew,

new distinctly Arab Islamic towns began to evolve -

Baghdad, Basra, Mosul,

Fustat and Kairouan,

reshaping the landscape of Arabia and North Africa completely.

Even today, the layout of towns like Fez in Morocco

still reflect the character and culture

of its early nomadic settlers.

(RHYTHMIC PERCUSSION MUSIC)

Fez captures the very essence of what is an Islamic city.

When the city was first built

it was organised into a number of neighbourhoods

and usually there are a number of things

or a number of reasons behind this organisation.

I would think tribal, ethnic, or even religious affiliation.

Each neighbourhood is self-sufficient

in terms of its basic needs - for example, there is a fountain,

usually used for the population of the neighbourhood

to fetch their water.

But this is also an act of piety, to provide water for passers-by.

It would have a mosque.

Usually the mosque in the neighbourhood

is smaller than the mosque in the heart of the city

because it's used for the five daily prayers

and usually on Friday the people of the neighbourhood

would have to go to the main mosque of the city.

A kuttab, which is basically a place for learning for children

to teach them the very basic of religion.

A number of shops but when I speak of shops I'm talking

mostly about basic needs, like convenience stores.

Usually each neighbourhood would have an oven

for baking the bread oi the neighbourhood.

These structured neighbourhood units were the core of the new cities

which sprang up across the Islamic empire.

The labyrinthine maze of streets that linked them together

was quite different from the open, gridded city planning

of the classical world that had gone before.

The urban landscape of the Middle East and North Africa

was changing forever.

By the late seventh century

the Islamic empire covered vast territories

and it was now that their rulers began to make a conscious effort

to create a single imperial identity

that would be needed to ensure a lasting civilisation.

One of the first things they did was to unify the language.

Arabic had always been the language of Islam

but at first it wasn't used as the language of administration

and each of the conquered territories were administered

in their local tongue.

Now Arabic became the official language of the empire.

As a consequence, today it is spoken by over 280 million people.

(Man speaks Arabic)

Only 6O years since the birth of Islam

the Islamic state had spread its own language,

culture, and architecture

over a huge area stretching from Persia

right through North Africa.

And now the Umayyad rulers created the ultimate symbol

of their far-reaching power -

the first imperial mosque.

The Muslims stopped sharing the building with other worshippers.

Christians were given an alternative place to pray

and this ancient religious site

was transformed into the mosque we see today.

The architecture and layout of the Byzantine church

had formed the basis of the first-ever imperial mosque.

Even the decoration on its walls was inspired by the Byzantines.

But the architects had also created something totally new,

a model for all future great mosques...

a grand courtyard where worshippers could gather...

fountains where they could wash before prayer...

and prayer halls focused on the mihrab,

the niche denoting the direction of worship towards Mecca.

Architects and craftsmen from across the empire

were instructed to visit so that they could copy the design.

Further mosques began to spring up,

built not just as places of worship

but as lasting symbols of the Islamic empire.

By the early eighth century

the empire now covered the whole of the Middle East and North Africa

and it was about to spread even further west.

Just eight miles off the coast of Morocco,

across the straits of Gibraltar,

lay a whole new frontier for the Islamic army... Spain.

Like Egypt before,

Spain's fertile lands offered a new opportunity

to amass wealth for the Islamic empire...

and it was in a state of political turmoil.

In fact, it was ripe for the picking.

Spain at this stage was suffering

what seems to have been a short-term political crisis,

but a political crisis nonetheless.

And the king, Wittiza, had died

and there was a struggle for succession.

And this seems to have been one of the reasons

why Spain performed so badly when faced with what was probably

a much smaller number of Muslim troops.

In 711 the Muslim army conquered southern Spain

and the Umayyad caliphate set up their capital at Cordoba...

in the new province they called Al-Andalus.

They now set about stamping their identity on the West...

building an imperial mosque

as magnificent as any they'd created in the East.

This mosque is a mixture

of the Damascus Great Mosque, the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus,

as well as the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem,

not only in plan but as well as in elevation.

But the similarities to the great imperial mosques of the East

weren't just structural, they were also in the details.

The walls of the magnificent edifice

were covered with glittering mosaics

taking their inspiration from designs

originating in the Great Mosque in Damascus.

The decoration of the first part of the mosque is very scarce.

It is not preserved of course.

But what is preserved are the columns of the mosque...

this authentic forest of columns.

The effect oi this Islamic monument on the Spanish population

was so profound

that even when Spain became Christian again, 500 years later,

the new Christian rulers chose

not to destroy the Islamic presence completely

but instead build their cathedral right in the heart of the mosque.

Instead of demolishing the mosque,

the cathedral was established in the middle of the mosque.

The people of Cordoba didn't want the mosque to disappear

because they considered the mosque

the symbol, the emblem of Cordoba.

And that's how the representation of Islam

became in fact the representation of the people

of Cordoba and of Andalusia.

Islam had changed the face of the globe forever.

The early Muslims had not only conquered the desert,

they had conquered the East.

They had not only transformed the West,

they had begun to transform the world.

Arab people had sown the seeds of a religion and culture

that would touch every country

and every corner of the earth to this day.

And in the 21st century

over 1.5 billion Muslims, 23% of the world's population,

still pray towards Mecca,

the birth place of the Prophet Muhammad.

The speed and ease of this expansion was remarkable.

Within little more than 100 years

Islam had already spread across vast territories,

creating one of the largest empires in history,

an empire that was built almost overnight

but whose legacy would endure to this day.

Subtitles © SBS Australia 2012