How Islam Began - In Ten Minutes

[Music] how Islam began in under 10 minutes not a problem we've started okay so traveled back in time with me to a land far far away and long long ago Mecca and Arabia about the year 570 Mecca is important for two reasons one the cabba is there an ancient temple built to worship God and two Muhammad peace be upon him was born in Mecca Now problem I can't shame Muhammad cuz it wouldn't be right I'll tell you why in a bit but in the meantime here's his name in Arabic nice back in the day Mecca

was a lawless place the only way to be safe was to have backup lots of Rich big brothers who beat up anyone who got in your way so the place was ruled by the most powerful families who could do pretty much what they wanted and religion didn't help by this time the Caba had been filled to overflowing with 360 Idols that did nothing to help anyone so it was a tough place to grow up if like Muhammad you were a poor orphan and believ in just one God you couldn't see like the Jews and the

Christians he called him Allah the god in Arabic there Muhammad's dad died before he was even born and his mom died when he was just six so he was brought up by his grandfather Abdul mutalib and then when he died too by his uncle Abu Talib who had the respect of the city's ruling families so Muhammad was safe for the time being Muhammad started out as a shepherd and then became a businessman traveling about buying and selling stuff for rich clients when he did some work for a rich Widow called Khadija she was so impressed

by his honesty and skill that they ended up getting married and for a while it looked like Muhammad was going places well he was but not how you think every year in the month of Ramadan different calendar different names for the months there was a big party around a Caba when people made sacrifices to the idols Muhammad hated it so he'd get out of town and sleep in a cave he'd found on top of a nearby Mountain one night Muhammad's praying to Allah when Wham there's an angel gibrael you might say Gabriel standing right in

front of him read says the angel but Muhammad couldn't read no schools you see jibrail keeps on at him three times he says read then he grabs hold of Muhammad and Wham again it's that Muhammad's learned the words off by heart so he recites the message out loud read in the name of your lord who created man from a drop of blood read for your lord is most generous he who taught by the pen taught man what he did not know it was a message from Allah God was speaking to him just like he'd spoken

to the prophets in the Jewish and Christian holy books which meant he was a prophet too the messages continue for the rest of Muhammad's life Allah gave him the words to say and the prophet recited them the words were written down by his friends and years later they were collected together and became the Muslim holy book the Quran which means recitation because Muhammad recited it you see anyway that was much later so back to the Knight of power Muhammad tells his family then his friends and eventually everyone about Allah that he's the one and only

God that he wants everyone to be treated fairly and long story short it didn't go down well with the ruling families of Mecca who like things just the way they were thank you very much you see Islam means obedience to Allah and Muslim means someone who obeys Allah and the ruling families didn't want anyone obeying anyone else but them so the people who believed in Muhammad's message the Muslims were given a hard time some were even tortured and killed a few of them managed to escape to abisinia Ethiopia but most were stuck in Mecca Muhammad

also had to cope with the death of his wife and then just a few weeks later his uncle to feeling very down he went to the carpet to pray to Allah one night then the weirdest thing happened jbel turns up sits him on a winged horse called alarak and flies him all the way from Mecca to Jerusalem he prays with all the prophets who have ever lived then he's taken up to the Heavens to chat with some of the prophets and then into Paradise itself where Allah tells Muhammad to pray five times a day and

to stay strong he's returned to Jerusalem and then flies back to the cabba in Mecca we call it the night journey and Muslims still argue whether it was a real experience or a vision but whatever it gave Muhammad a much needed boost and just as well because there were more tough times ahead so there was this other city called yth the people there heard about Muhammad and his message and invited him and his followers to join them a few at a time the Muslims left Mecca and made a dangerous journey across the desert to yri

it's known as a Hijra which means migration you know like birds do Muhammad and a few of his friends stayed in Mecca until everyone had got away and then made plans for their own Escape but the ruling families wanted to kill Muhammad while they still could so seven sons one from each family was sent in the middle of the night to stab the prophet while he slept but he was way ahead of them and when they burst into the house Muhammad was gone trackers was sent out to hunt him down Muhammad and his best friend

Abu Baker took a roundabout route to try and shake off the pursuit but the trackers were too good and slowly gained on them so Muhammad and Abu Baker hi the cave and prayed that no one found them The Trackers found the cave all right but they didn't bother going into search there was no way Muhammad could be inside they thought there was a spiders web over the mouth of the cave and a nesting bird at the entrance he must have given them the slip so off they went leaving Muhammad and Abu Bakr protected by a

spider and a bird Muhammad made it safely to YB which was renamed Medina Al Nai the city of the Prophet but most people just call it Medina but Muhammad's worries weren't over yet there were three big battles between the Muslims and the mechans first the Battle of B when Muhammad and just 33 men faced 1,000 meccan soldiers miraculously the Muslims won then there was a battle of oad which didn't go so well some of Muhammad's men disobeyed his orders and ran off during the battle to raid the mechans camp and so the Muslims were outmaneuvered

then there was a battle of the Tren Medina was protected on three sides by mountains so when the mckin forces advanced in the city the Muslims just dug a deep trench the mckin made camp but the weather was terrible pouring rain put out their fires and Howling winds blew down their tents eventually they gave up and went back to Mecca it was all a bit embarrassing they were losing the respect of the local tribes who were flocking to join the Muslims so a peace treaty was signed at hudia but it wasn't long before the m

broke it Muhammad decided that enough was enough by now he had over 10,000 men so he led them across the desert to Mecca the ruling families realized they'd made a huge mistake but it was too late all they could do was surrender and hope that the musim Army killed them quickly but Muhammad said there should be no more fighting he rode into Mecca and went straight to the Caba he circled it seven times anticlockwise and smashed all the idols rededicating the the Caba to Allah and that's why I'm not going to show you Muhammad the

Muslims wanted to make it totally clear that they only worship the one unseen God so they didn't have any pictures of Muhammad in case anyone thought he was an idol and they didn't have any pictures of Allah because he's like nothing on Earth so it would be impossible to draw him anyway so there you go how Islam began in under 10 minutes how did I do