Historian Tom Holland explores how a new religion - Islam -
emerged from the seedbed of the ancient world, and asks what we really know for
certain about the rise of Islam.
The result is an extraordinary detective story.
Traditionally, Muslims and non-Muslims alike have believed
that Islam was born in the full light of history. But a large number of
historians now doubt that presumption, and question much of what Muslim
tradition has to tell us about the birth of Islam.
As a result, Tom finds himself embroiled in what, for 40
years now, has been an underground but seismic debate: the issue of whether, as
Muslims have always believed, Islam was born fully formed in all its
fundamentals, or else evolved gradually, over many years - and in ways that
Muslims today might not necessarily recognize.
So who was the historical Muhammad, and where - if not from
God - might the Qur'an, the Holy Book of Islam, actually have come from?
By asking these questions, Tom - as a non-Muslim - has no
choice, over the course of the film, but to negotiate the fault-line that runs
between history and religion, between doubt and faith.
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