Islam: The Untold Story is a documentary film written and presented by the English novelist and popular historian Tom Holland .[1] The documentary explores the origins of Islam , an Abrahamic religion that developed in Arabia in the 7th century; it criticizes the orthodox Islamic account of this history, claiming that this traditional story lacks sufficient supporting evidence. It was commissioned by the British television company Channel 4 and first broadcast in August 2012. Its release followed the publication of Hollands In the Shadow of the Sword: The Battle for Global Empire and the End of the Ancient World (2012), which also discussed the rise of the Arab Empire and the origins of Islam. Adopting the controversial theories of academic historian Patricia Crone as a basis, Holland asserted that there was little hard evidence for the origins of Islam and asked why it took several decades after the death of Muhammad for his name to appear on surviving documents or artifacts. Arguing that there was little evidence for how the faith was born, he suggested that the city of Mecca may not have been the real birthplace of Muhammad and Islam, and – while not clearly disputing Muhammads existence as a real historical figure – posited that much of the Islamic origin myth was later developed in the early years of the Arab Empire. The documentary proved controversial. Mainstream media reception was mixed, but it provoked criticism from figures within the United Kingdoms Islamic community who argued that Holland ignored evidence supporting the orthodox account of early Islamic history. Government-approved regulatory authority Ofcom and the broadcaster Channel 4 received an estimated 1200 complaints regarding the program. [2] Fearing violent retaliation from militant Muslims, Channel 4 cancelled a public screening of the documentary at their London headquarters. Background Possessor of a bachelors degree in English and Latin from the University of Cambridge, Holland is an English novelist and popular historian who has published a trio of best- selling histories of the ancient world: Rubicon: The Last Years of the Roman Republic (2003), Persian Fire: The First World Empire and the Battle for the West (2005), and Millennium: The End of the World and the Forging of Christendom (2008). In 2012, Hollands fourth work of history, In the Shadow of the Sword: The Battle for Global Empire and the End of the Ancient World, was published; it explored the collapse of the Roman and Persian Empires , as well as the rise of the Arab Empire and the accompanying Arabian religion of Islam. [2][4] Raised into a Christian family, Holland was not a Muslim. In an interview with The Spectator , he rejected the Islamic belief that the Quran constituted the direct word of God, stating that he believed it to have been very clearly written by a human being during Late Antiquity . He highlighted the lack of sources that were available with which to analyse the origins of Islam, and that all religious movements come to construct their own back story, in doing so erasing alternative accounts and interpretations of their history. [3] It was on the basis of In the Shadow of the Sword that Channel 4, a commercial television company based in the U.K., commissioned Holland to produce a documentary on the subject of Islams origins. A spokeswoman for the company publicly announced that the documentary constituted a part of their remit to support and stimulate well-informed debate on a wide range of issues through challenging established views and providing access to alternative perspectives and information. [2] The films screening came a month after the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) aired the first episode of television sitcom Citizen Khan . Revolving around the life of a British Muslim of Pakistani descent, the show had been co-written by its star, Adil Ray , himself a British Muslim of Pakistani descent. The BBC received 200 complaints regarding the content of the episode, including accusations that it perpetuated stereotypes about British Asians, ridiculed Islam and disrespected the Quran; some of these criticisms would be echoed in the furore regarding Hollands documentary. [5] Synopsis In Islam: The Untold Story , Holland deals with the origins of the religion Islam. Traveling to Saudi Arabia, he visits Arabian bedouins to hear their orthodox Islamic accounts of the religions origins. Holland then talks to Seyyed Hossein Nasr , a practising Muslim who teaches Islamic studies at the George Washington University, Washington D.C. , and Patricia Crone , a non-Muslim historian of Islamic history at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton. The former defends the orthodox Islamic account of the faiths history, citing its development within oral history , but Crone challenges the reliability of oral history, and therefore the traditional account. Holland suggested that Mecca (pictured) was not the home of Muhammad. Holland looks at the earliest evidence for Muhammad, Mecca and Islam in the first century of the Arab Empire, pointing to a lack of evidence in the historical record to support the traditional account. Highlighting that very little Muslim testimony from the 7th century exists, he considers it suspicious that 30 years after Muhammads death, Muawiyah I became leader of the Arab Empire in Jerusalem despite showing little sign of being Muslim, and that no mention of Muhammad or Islam can be found in any of Muawiyahs inscriptions, coins, or documents. Holland proceeds to note that with the exception of a single ambiguous reference in the Quran, there is no mention of Mecca in any datable text for a century after Muhammeds death. He points out that in the Quran, the Prophet appears to address farmers and agriculturalists while his opponents are described as keeping cattle and growing olives and vines. This appears to describe an environment foreign to Mecca, where there was no agriculture; thus Holland posits that the location attributed to Mecca in the Quran more closely fits a city in the Negev desert, in what is now southern Israel. Holland suggests that under the reign of Arab Emperor Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan, by which time the Empire had become largely Muslim, Mecca was intentionally yet erroneously portrayed as Muhammads home and the birthplace of Islam in order to provide the religion with Arabian origins. Holland argues that in doing so, the faith was unassociated from the Jewish or Christian heritage that would have been self evident at a location in the Negev. Reception Mainstream media
Posted on: Sat, 15 Nov 2014 16:57:06 +0000
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