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Empires – Islam: Empire of Faith Streaming.
Movie Title: Empires – Islam: Empire of Faith Empires – Islam: Empire of Faith is available for streaming or downloading. Click Here to Stream or Download Empires – Islam: Empire of Faith |
This video gets five stars and I highly recommend it because:
* it’s beautifully filmed and narrated
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* it has a wealth of information in it
* it’s a respectable overview of the birth of Islam and the Empire that was built by the Muslims from the 7th to the 16th centuries.
* it’s totally hard to finish watching once you initiate!
However, please stamp that the title is misleading: This is not about Islam. In fact, aside from the view in one God, the beliefs of Islam are not discussed or explained at all. That’s okay — but the video doesn’t gain distinct the distinction between Islam and the Islamic empire.
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It’s like the dissimilarity between the Holy Roman Empire and Christianity. The ones ruling were Christians, but that doesn’t mean that all their practices followed the tenets of Christianity. Similarly, although this is about the Islamic empire (including the Ottomans), not everything that the rulers did was Islamic (killing anyone for the sole reason that he has a claim to power is destroy in Islam, but this is something some Ottomans did, anyway) . So in watching this, please support in mind that this video is describing an empire that was based on the Islamic faith, but which contained suitable and unpleasant elements, unbiased like any other empire in the world. Most of all, please do not recall that all that happened in history was sanctioned by Islam. Most rulers throughout the centuries have belonged to some religion, but it doesn’t mean that they always complied with that religion.
That’s my only quibble — that the distinction is not made positive. Otherwise, this is an obliging source of information, the best video I’ve seen, about early Islamic culture and achievements. I do recommend it highly.
First the agreeable. This DVD is incredibly aesthetic and Kingsley’s direct is absolutely great, he should portray more documentaries. The ample sweep of Islamic history is presented in a succinct and eloquent manner, with accompanying visuals that are absorbing. The epic begins in the 6th century CE with the message of Muhammad’s strict monotheism. Struggling to regain a foothold in Arabia, he eventually is victorious, conquers Mecca and gains thousands of followers. In one of the most spectacular rises of civilization in the history of man, Islam spreads its faith for thousands of miles from Western Europe to Central Asia. Muhammad’s message is simple and profound, he unites the various Arab tribes into one cohesive group under the banner of one God, smashing idols and reciting God’s words along the intention. Muhammad co-opted one of the greatest innovations of man: the spacious power of monotheism and its ability to unite disparate groups of people under a approved polity and society. The original Arabic empire spreads snappily throughout the peninsula, the Levant, Egypt, the Maghrib, Spain, Persia.
There is absolutely no doubt that Islamic civilization during the Middle Ages was spectacular, rich, and more advanced than European civilization. They preserved Greek philosophy and expanded upon it, developed geometry and discovered trigonometry, and adapted Indian numerals to a decimal system, greatly advancing mathematics. Art and architecture under the empire was simply elegant, breathtakingly exquisite. Muslims also developed an anatomy that was customary for centuries afterward by Europe, discovered inoculation and formed the precursor to current hospitals. The Islamic empire was so rich and noteworthy it became a spacious threat to Christian Europe, who responded with the Crusades. Over one hundred years of conflict ensues in the Levant, until Saladin re-conquers and ends the Crusading campaigns. The memoir of the Crusades is short, and not historically complete. It is also quite biased in its presentation of details.
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The rise and spread of the Ottoman Empire is narrated in the third installment. Their power, spread into Europe, their mammoth architecture, and their antagonism with the Iranian Safavid Empire are all included. By far the best fragment of this DVD is its telling of the life of Suleyman the Exquisite. He was certainly an incredible ruler and he receives his due attention in this documentary.
Now the dreadful. This production is quite biased, sometimes subtly in its choice of pictures, other times not so subtly in its choice of language. What you will not hear about is the shocking nature of the Arabic conquest. While, according to this documentary the Muslims were led by a generous faith in God, the truth is many people were slaughtered in the conquests. Many thousands of Zoroastrian Persians were slaughtered; the People of the Book (Jews and Christians) were allowed to enjoy their faith, but were subject to a special Muslim toll tax that did not apply to Muslims. They also were not allowed to proselytize, and their moral testimony was not as suitable as their Muslim overlords. Many people were given only three options: conversion, death, or slavery. All peoples have conquered and slaughtered the Other; neither Muslims nor Christians are exempt from such behavior. Nonetheless, some Christians received more toleration than they had had under the Byzantine Empire. But the fact of the matter is that unusual religious toleration was birthed in the European Enlightenment, not in the Middle East or West Asia. Muslims did invent mighty philosophy and learning, however many of the scholars working in Cordoba and Baghdad were Jews and Christians, albeit studying in unruffled cooperation with the Muslims. Paper was discovered via Chinese slaves brought into the empire, and the slave trade formed an integral section of the economy of the Muslim lands. Although Muslims did not fabricate slavery, which has been around since the dawn of civilization, they did innovate the African slave trade. Several times we hear about Europe “languishing in the Gloomy Ages”. No serious historian uses the term Murky Ages anymore, as the past decades have revealed a grand more complex and intellectually attractive history. The term has been abandoned for the more appropriate Middle Ages, being as it is the bridge between the frail and original worlds.
A sizable oversight is its short shrift of Iran. Iran is one of the centers of Islamic civilization, the center of Shiism, and a complex and challenging culture. The glory of the Safavid Empire and the beauty of its capital Isfahan are briefly mentioned, but there is no word on Shah Abbas, Iran’s ruler at the height of this empire.
Also, this DVD focuses on politics, not religion. You will not fetch a deep opinion of the myriad forms of Islamic faith in this documentary, certainly a key point of interest for some individuals. The Sufi dervishes were only very briefly mentioned, which is a shame because Sufism is a spicy expression of Islamic mysticism, looked at with astronomical suspicion by more conservative Muslims. Neither will you hear powerful detail about the schism between the Sunni and Shiites. The roots of this split are told, but the theological differences are not discussed. It was the development of Shiism that was a immense impetus for the conversion of the Zoroastrian Persians to Islam, as it incorporated Zoroastrian ideas, merging the Saoshyant with the Hidden Imam to be revealed in later times.
So, it’s biased, but extremely pretty and informative. This could have been a four or five star documentary, but because of its political correctness it gets three.
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