Islam: Empire of Faith
The purpose of this essay is to review the documentary video; Islam: Empire of faith from different perspectives. We are going to discuss the credibility of its content, the level of audience engagement and the sequence of information narration, coming at the end to an overall rating for the document. The documentary is divided into major three parts; the first demonstrates the history of Islam and Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), while the second and the last ones narrate in details, the expansion of the Islamic Empire and the ups and downs that it has faced through different centuries.
The documentary perfectly illustrates the Islamic fundamentals at the beginning; the core of the religion, the pre-prophetic life of Muhammad (PBUH) and the outlines of the cultural life that took place in the Arab peninsula way before the Islamic message came. This gives the viewer an insight about the conditions of this nation before being introduced to Islam. The documentary narrates the major events in the prophetic life of Muhammad (PBUH) such as, how he became a prophet? His social life before and after becoming a prophet, his immigration form Mecca to Madina and how he managed to spread the world of Islam and fight his enemies back.
A very interesting part in the documentary is explaining how Islam was spread; Islam was spread due to its powerful ideas such as social justice, equality and much more that people who suffered from oppressors back then welcomed them. This corrects that misconception that is widely spread in the US and other Western cultures that Islam was spread by the sword.
The documentary then moves on to how the Islamic golden ages affected the Western culture, which was living its darkest ages. It highlighted how the advancement of Muslim scholars in different fields such as Astrology, Medicine, Optics and other fields were the seeds of the renaissance later on in the Western culture. Baghdad was called the House of Wisdom and the city of Cordoba was the light beacon in Europe. It also demonstrated the advancement of the Islamic Empire in architecture, irrigation and agriculture during this period.
The documentary also tackled the crusaders and how they infiltrated the Islamic Empire to take over Jerusalem. The documentary actually mentioned the Christians in many occasion throughout the documentary; the crusaders and how the Pope initiated a religious armed crusade, the Byzantine Empire and how the Muslims took over it later. The most important part is that the documentary highlighted the most basic Islamic fundamental, which is Islam is a religion of peace; it admits the presence of previous religions (Christianity & Judism) and it encourages coexisting, which eliminates another misconception that is widely spread in the west that Islam supports violence against people from other religions.
However, the documentary has some negative sides too; the chronological order is not precise, some of the information presented are not accurate too; such as the reason behind building the dome of the rock mosque where until this day there are several debates, whether it was the place where Abraham was about to sacrifice his son, or it was the place where prophet Muhammad (PBUH) ascended to heaven (Lewis). Also, the documentary is kind of static and doesn’t involve high audience engagement. In addition, it covers the outlines only of certain events. Therefore, more reading should be performed to understand the whole story. Last but not least, the documentary didn`t contain any linkage between Islam and the contemporary Western civilization.
Conclusion
All in all, I totally recommend this documentary as a brief to the Islamic Empire, yet more reading is required to provide you with a better insight towards this era.
Works Cited
Islam: Empire of Faith. Dir. Robert Gardener. PBS. 2000. Documentary.
Lewis, Elizabeth. The Dome of The Rock. Khan Academy. Web. 11 Apr. 2016.
