Islam: The Untold Story Page #6

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The Koran is in Arabic,

the Koran is full

of characters from the Bible.

But if the book

came out of the desert,

how did these characters get there?

We have nothing.

We have this one book,

out of nothing.

We don't have the key

that can unlock the tradition.

But maybe that's the point.

We're not supposed

to unlock the tradition.

God's message comes to a prophet,

the prophet lives in a desert.

There is no room for anyone else.

It's remote.

It's remote, it's uncontaminated,

it's pure.

It's a place where

we can rule out that Muhammad

got his ideas from others than God.

It's interesting that the history

is very weak

in being able to provide

causes for certain effects.

Not being able to know something

is no proof that it doesn't exist.

You begin by looking in the record

and all you find is emptiness.

And you end up in the desert

and all you see is emptiness.

But perhaps the emptiness

is the answer.

Maybe Mecca gave Islam

what it most needed,

a blank sheet...

..where Muslims

could put their prophet,

beyond the reach of history.

BELL RINGS:

Professor, do you think that what

I am doing

is complicit with the brute fact of

Western imperialism,

Western hegemony?

No. Not necessarily.

As long as you're a man

aware of what you're doing.

If you come as a Western

scholar or historian,

and in all honesty present what your

world-view is, and this says,

"When I look at the Islamic world

from this paradigm,

"this is what I see",

and bring out why this is different

from how Muslims see themselves,

that, I think,

is a very honest effort,

and is a good effort.

But if you try to

act as a doctor to a child,

"Take this medicine,

it's good for you.

"You don't what you're eating,

the wrong thing.

"This is how it should be."

That's where the problem begins.

And the Muslim world is not

going to accept that.

The days when the British would bring

scholars from England

to teach Indians how to be Hindus

and Muslims are finished.

It's finished.

BELL RINGS:

It's true, before I began,

I did have preconceptions.

I was brought up a Christian,

but I was also brought

up in an environment

that questions everything.

Studying ancient history is

a process of paint-stripping,

tearing away stories that you want

to believe the literal truth of.

This is supposed to be Mount Sinai,

where Moses saw the burning bush,

where God gave him

the Ten Commandments,

but there's no historical

evidence for any of this.

Christian monastery, Roman

fortifications,

the old partnership, God and Empire,

between them,

they turned this place into Sinai.

In my heart, I want to believe it,

but my head won't let me.

We believe that there is a living

tradition kept by the people here,

that this is where God had revealed

himself in an extraordinary way.

How much would it matter

if it turned out that this wasn't

the place where Moses had received

the Ten Commandments?

The spiritual encounter with God

is more important.

The reality is there,

even if your eyes aren't open to

see things in actuality.

God is always present,

but you're not aware of his presence.

Ultimately, the City of God matters

more than the City of Man.

Yes.

But as a historian,

I have to presume that the City

of God was built by man as well.

I wanted to map the human

past in human terms,

to make a map that fits the facts.

But I travelled to places where

the maps revealed a heavenly plan,

sacred lands,

sacred places,

a world where you don't have to

believe in God

to feel the power of God.

This is the Promised Land.

Some call it Israel,

some call it Palestine,

a land where Muslims, Christians

and Jews still fight over

the story of a promise made by God

to Abraham thousands of years ago.

Was there really a promise?

It's not for the historian to say.

But the world believers make

in the name of God,

that is what history is about.

Even today, more people

die for visions of heaven

than they ever do

for historical facts.

Stories that never happened

can be infinitely more powerful

than stories that did.

I set out to write the story

of the beginnings of Islam.

If you're a Muslim,

then there's no problem,

everything is explained by God.

But I'm not a Muslim,

and I don't think that civilisations

appear like lightning

from a clear blue sky.

What I think now

is that Islam emerged

from a whole range of circumstances,

from the religions and the empires

and the convulsions of the world

that witnessed its birth.

And yes, of course,

it is still the case,

the black hole that surrounds

Islam's beginnings

doesn't give up

its secrets easily.

But maybe we are getting somewhere.

The search for the historical

Mohammed,

for the origins of the Koran,

for the whereabouts of the first

sanctuary,

for the way Islam evolved

out of the Arab Empire,

these are pieces of a whole

new story.

Red Bee Media Ltd

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