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PBS (channel 17) Shows on Islam on May 8 !!
jannah
04/20/01 at 11:00:13
Don't forget to set your VCR's on Stun...err I mean Record!! Islam in the Capital Region - May 8 10:30pm Religious beliefs and customs of the Albany area's Muslim community are explored. The Messenger / The Awakening / The Ottomans -May 8 8:00pm "The Messenger"--This episode introduces the dramatic story of the rise of Islam with the extraordinary life of the prophet Muhammad and his simple but revolutionary message. The episode covers the revelation and early writing of the Koran, the creation of the first mosque, the persecution suffered by the first Muslims and the major battles fought by Muhammad and his followers to establish the new religion. The rapid religious, cultural and political expansion of Islam overwhelms the empires of Persia and Byzantium, creating a new empire larger than Rome. "The Awakening"--Episode two examines the flowering of Islam into one of the great civilizations in history. Culture and goods flow freely throughout a large empire. Islamic principles and influence are spread further, affecting the intellectual development of the West. Arabic becomes the language of learning, and achievements in art, architecture, science and medicine flourish. The episode also tells the story of the Crusades and describes the recapture of Jerusalem by Saladin the Great. The program ends with the devastating invasion of Islamic lands by the Mongols. "The Ottomans"--The final program reveals the dramatic transformation of Islam resulting from the Mongol invasion. Nomads enlisted by Muslims to fight the Mongols stake their own claims and become known as Ottomans. The Ottomans transform the Islamic world, creating a new empire that expands westward into Christian territories. Suleyman the Magnificent shapes the Ottomans into a military powerhouse and an empire of extreme wealth and sophistication, which threatens the great power centers of Europe and the empire of the Persian Safavids to the east, before falling victim to enemies from within.

Re: PBS (channel 17) Shows on Islam on May 8 !!
Kathy
04/20/01 at 21:36:31
Shukran lak!

Re: PBS (channel 17) Shows on Islam on May 8 !!
jannah
05/08/01 at 00:41:41
Reminder: This is today!!!

Re: PBS (channel 17) Shows on Islam on May 8 !!
jannah
05/09/01 at 01:14:51
[slm] what did everyone think? i thought it was very good. the imagery and filming was spectacular.. the beauty of the buildings they showed were amazing... the only thing i didn't like was the ending where they went into sulaiman's life etc.. who the heck cares about roxanne or whoever and what's up w/insinuating he was gay or something???! it just seemed odd to cover 900 years of islamic history in brief and then spend the last half hour concentrating on the strange intrigues of a sultan who, as depicted in the film, killed his half brother, best friend?, and son. what does that have to do with islam at all? or even the islamic empire really? in the meantime i caught a brief 10 minutes of a peter jennings special nightline on jerusalem where of course all the jewish side was highlighted and shown in detail. what i can't understand is how deluded the american public is.. can't they see bias when it is right there?? turn off the sound and watch... 5 israelis come on in different guises...an archeaologist, builder, professor..all speaking perfect english, some acting as though they are neutral and voicing both sides but insiduously leaving out or making certain non-objective points, and one rabbi saying that anyone who denies any part of their jewish history story is denying aushwitz(sp)!! etc and then they put some weird shaikh guy on who only speaks arabic on for the 2 minutes he denies something they then have said professor guy say is a "proven fact". don't they even have journalistic ethics anymore. anyway i think i need a vacation!!! ack

Re: PBS (channel 17) Shows on Islam on May 8 !!
bhaloo
05/09/01 at 01:22:29
slm I missed it, but isn't it in 3 parts?

Re: PBS (channel 17) Shows on Islam on May 8 !!
jannah
05/09/01 at 12:44:12
wlm, nope all 3 were shown last night.

Re: PBS (channel 17) Shows on Islam on May 8 !!
AbdulBasir
05/09/01 at 14:23:50
[slm] I would have to agree that, given the background of the people who made it, and the media's horrendously poor record on portraying Islam, the documentary was perhaps one of the best I've seen in comparison. There are some inaccuracies now and then, but for the most part, it was pretty well done. The cinematography was fantastic, the shots of the masjids over the world were unbelievable. What struck me the most though were the people interviewed. They were all Western, non-Muslims professors, with the exception of one perhaps, yet there were no Bernard Lewis types that drive you nuts. For the most part they were pretty fair, given that they were speaking from an "outsider" standpoint, and some made some insightful comments you usually don't hear from these educational "elite". By the way, a bit unrelated, but the documentary had some poor dubbing. Sometimes people are talking and you can really see the lack of association between the words and their facial movments. It reminded me of a badly dubbed kung-fu movie sometimes. :) Throughout the program, I was thinking to myself where Karen Armstrong was; alas, she would have been good in this program. Carol Hillebrande was there already, so I suppose they didn't need another Crusades "expert", but Armstrong brings more to the table than just her knowledge of Muslim history. (Maybe that label of her being too biased [i]towards[/i] Islam coming into play?). Anyways, I could have done with less of the historian of Islamic Art, she got too much air time. One guy who was on early on, Michael Selis from Haverford, impressed me somewhat (again when I say impressed, I say so in relative terms to what we usually expect from these educational "elite" ). He made some comments about the Qur'an and Tawheed which were dead on. For example, he explained how the [i]kalimah[/i] is not only saying that there is one God, but how it means much more; you are thinking about only God, and not about wealth, or power or anything else, you are not worshiping any "intellectual idols", as he put it. And some of his remarks about the Qur'an and its description of the universe, i.e as he said, "power and tenderness" are juxtaposed, and the reader of the Qur'an is made to feel the intimacy of the cosmos. When speaking of the issue of poetry and the Qur'an and Rasulallah[saw], he shrewdly quoted the Qu'ran which pointed out clearly that the Qu'ran was not poetry, but something else. These were pretty profound comments in my opinion. What also distinguishes this documentary is that unlike most others, in its portrayal of Muslim civilization it attempts to give some airtime to its origins with Prophet Muhammad[saw]. I can't remember anything I've ever seen before which spoke about the Prophet[saw]'s for a good 40 minutes like this documentary did. I have some qualms with those 40 minutes, but in general it was good. They spend much of the time describing the social context of the time. Some things that were said that were well done (again relatively speaking): -describing some of the Prophet[saw]'s qualities, including his title of Al-Ameen. -how the ethical and spiritual teachings of Islam appealed to all different segments of society and challenged the status quo of idolatry and ancestral tradition. -how the concept of Afterlife was impossible for the enemies of Islam to comprehend. -how the stage was set, given the revolutionary nature of the message, for conflict, beginning with the torture and murder of the Muslims and leading to armed conflict. This was perhaps the most important thing "said" in the first 40 minutes. Given that the West, and the Western "elite", have attacked Islam and the Prophet[saw] as violent from the start, I believe the viewer of this program has a better idea of the reasons behind the armed conflict and sees the Quraysh, not the Muslims, as the aggressors and sees these battles as simple self-defense on the part of the Muslims. For this to be in a Western documentary, in my opinion, is shocking, because a core belief in Orientalist accounts of the Prophet's life was his initiative and propensity towards violence. In addition, they spend a great deal of time detaling Fath Makkah and how compassionate and merciful the Prophet[saw] was. A few of the qualms I had with the first 40 minutes: -Despite the aforementioned account of Fath Mecca and explanation of the necessity for armed conflict, I was disappointed (and I think you could say this about some Muslim accounts of the life of the Prophet[saw]) with its insinuation that the years following the Hijrah were times of constant battle and as the documentary puts it, "the Muslims fight for survival". This is true to an extent, but nothing was said of the real [i]fath[/i], which was the treaty of Hudaybiyah. This was the true victory for the Muslims, and of course the Qur'an tells us this. It was more crucial to the survival and growth of the Muslims than perhaps anything else during the Prophet's lifetime. Given, the detail to which they were talking about early Islamic history, I was hoping that this would be addressed, but it wasn't. I suppose that's not a surprise, given that many Muslims forget about the importance of Hudaybiya themselves, and that from the documentary people's point of view, there is so little time to make your point, and talking about battles is probably much more exciting than talking about peaceful preaching. (BTW just a random comment, but I think the Hudaybiya part in "The Message" is really well done because you see it through the eyes of Khalid ibn Walid and Amr ibn 'As as they move towards conversion; my favorite part of the movie :) ) -My other major problem with the account, and this was by far the worst part of the first partiof the documentary in my opinion was when Rasullah[saw] dies. You see all this weird mourning stuff and people who are looking and acting more like the people of [i]jahilliyah[/i]. It goes on for an excruciating few minutes, with all these depictions of just weird stuff that made me crazy. Moreover, I don't thing any of that was necessary, but again, from a spectacle point of view, maybe they thought that would be more exciting for the viewer or some other dumb reason. -Hey anyone notice that they were doing tawaf backwards??? Anyways, so there's my take on the most "important" part of the documentary. The second part, however, was definitely the best, both from a visual and information perspective. The depiction of the growth of Islam, and particularly the scientific achievements of the Muslims was superb. I think Muslim viewers themselves would be astounded by some of the things that were described (I'll be the first to say that I didn't know Ibn Rushd is in Raphael's painting of the great thinkers of time or that a lot of the Renaissance paintings of Maryam AS have her in these fine garments (which were made in the Muslim world) with the [i]shahada[/i] and other Arabic calligraphy embroidered in them, which you can still see in the paintings!). And I  think any viewer from any background cannot help but see that and be left with feelings of awe, admiration and respect for Muslim civilization. I can't think of anything I've seen which showed how advanced the Muslims were in comparison to the West, with maybe the exception of the recent A&E "Crusades" documentary or (on a lighter note), the depiction of the fictional Azeem and his encounter with Robin Hood and his merry morons. :) Unforunately, after the scientific portion of the documentary, it begins to lose steam, and focus. It tries very hard to look at medieval Muslim civilization from "within", and in doing so, makes one of its major mistakes, in terms of historical accuracy, in its segment on the Crusades. The Crusades have always been of course described from a Western view, and indeed it must be if one wants to understand the motivation for the layman European leaving behind his family and farm to go fight on the other side of the world. Unfortunately, this viewpoint has neglected the goings-on of the Muslim world at the time. Therefore, in my opinion, the documentary tries to consciously explain the Crusades from the events going on in the Muslim world, and in doing so, oversimplifies and generalizes the reasons behind the Crusades. It suggests that the Crusades "began" with al-Hakim's actions, who, in opposite to the general tolerant norm of the Muslim rulers, burned the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and committed injustices towards the Christian inhabitants, which instigated the West's rage towards the Muslims. What it fails to mention (though one interviewee calls him a likely "madman" ) is that he most likely was extremely psychotic (he wandered into the desert one night and disappeared forever after a string of bizarre actions) and attacked the Muslims under his rule as well. I am not saying that al-Hakim's actions were not contributory to the initiation of the Crusades, they undoubtedly were, but the viewer of the program, who knows nothing about real Crusades history, would think that that alone stirred up everything. And this is the major problem with any documentary which seeks recount a complex event like the Crusades in a simplistic way. There is no mention, for instance, of the feudal warfare in Northern Europe of the time, Alexius' appeal to the Pope for some minor military assistance for defense of Constantinople, both of which contributed to Pope Urban's pleas and propaganda (who more than anyone, was more responsible for the Crusader campaigns than al-Hakim or anyone else). I am digressing here, and in the light of everything else, this is a minor flaw, but I just think that the filmakers were trying too hard to approach the Crusades from a Muslim perspective, and having found a "Muslim" to talk about in al-Hakim to help explain why the Crusades were initiated, they goofed. The reason I mention this part is because they still can't help but "revert" to the outsider perspective because after this they spend a great deal of time talking about Krak de Chavelier and the Christian Crusader state, which just didn't fit! Anyways, this "review" is getting way too long. One more positive comment and one negative comment about the rest of the documentary. It was a pleasant surprise to hear their assessment of the Mongol devastation of the Muslim world and its consequences. It is all too forgotten that the conquerors became conquered, not by any military force, but by the message of peace, the message of Islam. There are very few episodes in history, where the conquered inevitably were subdued by the creed of the people they had conquered. This was beautifully summed up in one line by the narrator (Ben Kingsley), where he says something like, "within ten years, the Mongols had gone from building towers of human skulls and bodies to building massive and magnificent mosques to glorify God". Subhanallah. The negative comment is basically the entire "third" part of the documentary, about the Ottomans, which was already addressed by Jannah. Here the documentary goes haywire, loses focus and becomes excrutiating to watch. The documentary is entitled "Islam:Empire of Faith", but the third part about the Ottomans, the documentary should be simply called "Empire", because that is all it is. There is no longer the rich sweeping storytelling of Muslim civilization that characterized the second part but rather a boring, painful account of an empire, and the Islam/Muslim part of the documentary is forgotten. It is simply an account of an empire which so happened to have arisen from a Muslim people; it was no different from something you'd see on the Roman Empire or the Ta'ng Dynasty or whatever. And it goes into some nauseating, irrelevant detail (I wish they had given this much time and detail to the Crusades or Salahuddin or basically anthing else; I agree Jannah very bad that they whisk through 900 years and suddenly focus on this in painful detail). It degnerates into a story about the soap opera that was the Sultan's court. Completely unnecessary, irrelevant, and a tarnish on the previous two parts of the documentary. Anyways, there is my (long) take on this documentary. Throw away the "Ottomans" section but by all means keep the first two parts, because who knows if you'll see another Western documentary on Islam that is this good. (again speaking in relative terms here in context of the usual media norm!). While I was watching this documentary I thought about Michael Wolfe's project to make a documentary about the Prophet[saw] for network television. Inshallah if they can get the funds (2-3 million), it has the potential to be something great. [slm]

Re: PBS (channel 17) Shows on Islam on May 8 !!
jannah
05/09/01 at 14:25:25
Since there are two threads now on this topic, this thread is locked and will continue in the other one in the Media Center inshaAllah. [url=http://www.jannah.org/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl/YaBB.pl?board=media&action=display&num=2991] here.[/url]
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