Arabia 3D Page #2

with a thirst for knowledge.

Mohammed was born in Makkah

around the year 570,

but he lived much of his life

here in the city of Madinah.

The Prophet's mosque

in Madinah is huge.

Yet you can almost feel

his presence here.

The Quran, our Holy Book,

contains God's revelations to

the Prophet Mohammed in Arabic.

Just like Christians and Jews,

Muslims believe in one god,

the god of Abraham.

And we also revere the biblical

prophets, Abraham, Moses and Jesus.

The Quran urged followers

to read and gather knowledge.

This simple instruction

to understand the world

had a huge impact and led

to a second Golden Age.

The tribes were unified

by their belief in one god.

Once they stopped fighting each

other, they became a potent force.

They conquered more territory

than the Romans

in about half the time.

While much of Europe lapsed

into its dark age,

lslamic scholars translated the works

of the ancient Greeks and Hindus.

The first seed of the Golden

Age was sown on Arabian soil.

Soon, the new thinking spread

from Persia to Spain,

eventually reaching

lndia and lndonesia.

By weaving together many ideas, Islamic

scholars came up with algebra.

The foundation of science was strengthened

when Ibn al-Haytham came along.

His theories of gravity and momentum

preceded lsaac Newton's work

by 700 years.

In over 200 books, he

revolutionized physics and optics.

Ibn al-Haytham built the

world's first camera obscura.

He was the first to explain

how the eye sees.

And his pioneering work in optics led

to telescopes and cameras like mine.

Lbn al-Haytham

conducted experiments

to find out how things

really work.

He has been called the father

of the scientific method.

In the world's

first universities,

hundreds of scholars explored

the boundaries of science.

After Jabir ibn Haiyan

cooked up chemistry,

Abu Rayhan Muhammad

ibn Ahmad al-Biruni

calculated the circumference of

the Earth with great precision.

These innovative scholars

were the catalyst

that ignited the European

Renaissance centuries later.

There has never been anything quite

like this Golden Age of lslam,

which lit up three continents for 800 years

and changed our understanding of the world.

But invading armies and dwindling

trade chipped away at the empire

and led to the slow decline

of the Golden Age.

When the empire collapsed,

Arabia lapsed into an age

of stagnant isolation.

Well into the early 1900s, Arabia was

a patchwork of quarreling tribes,

but one man changed all that.

His name was

Abdul Aziz ibn Saud.

With a skillful blend

of force and diplomacy,

Abdul Aziz united all

the towns and tribal lands

and created the kingdom

of Saudi Arabia,

named for his own family.

In the 1930s, when the new king invited

the Americans to explore for oil,

they found the largest deposits on

Earth, 25% of the world's reserves.

After only 13 years as king,

Abdul Aziz met with President

Franklin D. Roosevelt

and formed an alliance

that endures to this day.

...Saudi Arabia to a

conference with President Roosevelt.

The Saudi Arabian king

and American president

discuss mutual problems of trade

and relations with Saudi Arabia.

Near Riyadh, I visited the king's

ancestral village as it was being restored.

I felt the weight of history

in this mud palace.

But in the 50 years that King

Abdul Aziz has been gone,

a lot of things have changed.

Nearby, in our

capital of Riyadh,

the old ways are getting increasingly

comfortable with the new.

The discovery of oil changed

not just Arabia's economy,

but the economic balance

of the entire world.

Today, oil is our frankincense.

And it gives us a chance to make

education our first priority,

much like it was centuries ago.

Recently, King Abdullah started a

revolutionary university of science,

with the sixth largest

endowment in the world.

When I left for the U.S. seven

years ago, this was unthinkable.

I photographed the king

at the dedication ceremony

where he introduced the faculty,

the best and the brightest

from all around the world.

This university will be a think

tank of creativity and innovation.

It will emulate the spirit of the

Islamic Golden Age of science.

Drawing students from all over the

Middle East and around the world,

men and women will study and

carry out research side by side.

It's a huge leap forward.

Education is a source

of hope for many Saudi women,

like the celebrated poet,

Nimah Nawwab.

Poetry here harkens back to

our deep-rooted oral traditions.

Because Bedouins moved from

grazing area to grazing area,

they couldn't carry

books with them.

So our stories and history were memorized

and often told through poetry.

Nimah loves horses.

They inspire her to write.

The Arabian horse is one of

the oldest breeds on Earth.

With their small noses and arching

tails, they're magnificent creatures.

Women here are

balancing the old and the new.

Over the years, tribal ways of

life impose restrictions on women.

As Nimah can tell you, 60 years ago,

women rarely attended school here.

But today, more women

than men earn college degrees.

We've seen quite

a lot of progress.

The king, for example,

has recently promoted women

to higher levels

of his government.

But for some,

the changes are too slow.

We follow a strict code of

conduct, especially in public,

when we're expected to convey our

modesty by wearing an outer cloak,

known as the Abaya.

But we have more serious

and vital issues to address.

Until recently,

women were not able

to travel or study without

gaining male consent.

While we have a long way to go as

women, what gives us hope is our faith.

Muslims don't worship idols

or objects. We only worship God.

We pray directly to him and it's

not through a priest or anyone.

Near Makkah, this huge

tent city offers hospitality

to pilgrims from 160 nations.

For three days, three million

pilgrims converge on Makkah

to reaffirm their faith,

during the holy rite

known as the Hajjj.

It's a lifelong dream

for many Muslims.

Here, religion

is a family affair.

The Quran states that one time in our lives,

we should all try to perform the Hajjj.

It is by far the largest annual

gathering of people in the world.

Makkah is the heart of lslam.

Over a billion people

all across the world

turn to face this spot five

times a day when they pray.

The Hajjj opened me up to all my

fellow Muslims and worshipers.

It just made me more accepting

of them and their ideas.

We're told that our sins

are forgiven during the Hajjj,

so we come out reborn.

Here where the temperature sometimes

soars above 120 degrees,

shade can feel like

the soothing hand of God.

For Muslims, the Ka'ba

or the cube, is a holy magnet.

The very first house of God.

Muslims believe it was built by Abraham,

patriarch of the three religions,

Muslim, Christian and Jewish.

Nimah has written

something that I really love,

it says that we're all

sons and daughters of Adam,

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