"In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful ..."
This is how the Koran begins,
text which contains, according to Islam,
the last revelation led by God in Arabic, Allah,
the one God to mankind,
through a prophet named Muhammad or Mahoma.
Islamic doctrine was originated in Hidjaz in the northwestern region of the Arabian Peninsula,
specifically in Mecca and Yathrib, later known as Medina.
There, in the early seventh century, a forty years old merchant, Muhammad,
received a number of revelations from God between 610 and 632,
with a mandate to preach to mankind.
Muhammad began preaching in Mecca,
but the Prophet was forced to move to Medina
with about one hundred and fifty followers.
The exodus in 622, known as the Hijra,
marks the beginning of the Islamic calendar.
In Medina, Muhammad continued to preach and winning converts to his doctrine.
There he created a new community with the followers of his religion,
called umma,
based on the principles of brotherhood, equality, mutual aid and solidarity.
In the next ten years,
Muhammad controlled religion, politics and military
over a new and dynamic community.
0:01:36 In 630, Muhammad had already got enough power to allow him
to make his triumphal entry into Mecca.
At the peak of his authority,
he controlled much of the Arabian Peninsula
and he had sent forces to check the Byzantine defenses in southern Syria.
At the Prophet’s death,
his successors received the title of caliphs,
which means "successor of the messenger of God".
Caliphs, in the next thirty years,
managed to extend the Muslim world to Egypt,
Mesopotamia, Syria and much of the modern Iran.
Especially significant was the capture of Jerusalem,
where the Mosque of the Dome of the Rock was raised.
It was built on the place occupied by Solomon’s Temple,
although the tradition says that they only wanted to preserve the memory
of the Prophet's journey to Paradise.
With this building in Jerusalem, Islam implanted,
along with Medina and Mecca,
a third sacred place,
whose appearance was also competing with the Christian buildings of the city.
0:02:44 Between 661 and 750, the Caliphate was in the hands of a new dynasty,
the Umayyads,
who moved the capital from Medina to Damascus.
With the Umayyads, the Islamic empire reached its greatest expansion,
conquering the Maghreb until the Atlantic, the Iberian peninsula,
part of Gaul, and in the East,
occupying Transoxiana and Sind.
The overthrow of the Umayyads in 750 resulted in a new caliphate dynasty,
the Abbasids,
who moved its capital to Baghdad.
During this period,
Islamic society underwent a major transformation to urban living,
flourishing intellectual activity and trade.
But gradually the caliphs of Baghdad saw their domain reduced to just over Iraqi territory,
due to the formation of various practically independent states.
One of the most important was the Umayyad emirate of al-Andalus.
Abd al-Rahman I, a member of the overthrown Umayyad,
became the owner of al-Andalus,
adopting the title of emir.
One of his descendants, Abd al-Rahman III,
broke all dependence with Baghdad and proclaimed himself caliph.
With the Umayyad,
al-Andalus accepted visits from foreign embassies in search of partnerships,
at the moment of an emerging agriculture and a thriving industry
and the classic books were translated.
The successive enlargements of the Great Mosque of Cordoba
made al-Andalus and its capital the religious light of Islam in the West.
The disintegration of the caliphate in 1031 led to a period of turmoil and division,
called Taifa kingdoms.
Almoravids, in the twelfth century,
and Almohad, in the thirteenth,
succeeded temporarily in unifying al-Andalus.
However, in the end only a small Nazarene kingdom of Granada survived,
which passed on to Christianity in 1492.
However, before the Nazarenes fell,
they left, as a legacy, one of the most amazing architectural wonders of the Islamic world,
the exuberant Alhambra.
Despite the political division,
around 1250 the expansion of Islam continues,
stretching from the south of the Maghreb, the East African coast,
Anatolia, parts of central Asia and India.
Two hundred and fifty years later, around 1500,
the Islamic world has managed to expand throughout sub-Saharan Africa
and the eastern coast,
for southeastern Europe and central Asia,
for India and Indonesia.
However, the period from the eighteenth century to the present day
will witness sharp conflicts in the Muslim world.
Relations with the two other monotheistic religions, Christians and Jews,
will be chaired by the ongoing conflict, if not directly by the war.
At the same time, Islam will seek to end their national division and promote unity,
leading to social reform movements that provide to an extraordinary vitality to modern Islam.
Today, the number of Muslims is over one billion worldwide,
with a majority in over fifty countries
and especially being settled in North Africa, Near and Middle East and Southeast Asia.
The third monotheist religious in order of appearance in history,
Islam means salvation and its followers should be called Muslims,
which means subject or rendered unto God.
Devotees should learn and meet five ritual obligations,
the five pillars of the Islam.
The first is to pronounce the Shahada or Muslim creed,
there is no god but Allah, and Muhammad is his Prophet.
The second is to pray; that has to be conducted at five set times of the day,
after practicing ritual ablutions and cleaning.
The everyday life of regions and districts is interrupted by the call to prayer.
The prayer is carried out from the tower of the mosque or minaret.
The center of Islamic spiritual life is the mosque,
from the Arab masyhyd, place for affliction.
Its most important part is a wall in which center the mihrab opens,
a niche indicating the direction to Mecca.
On the right is the minbar, or pulpit from where the Iman heads the prayer.
Faced with the mihrab is the mica or platform,
where attendees gathered to transmit the position of the Iman,
and the corny or lectern that holds the Koran.
There may also be in the interior some fountains for partial ablution,
and latrines that are used to completely wash
if the devotee has come a long way or has had sex.
The third pillar of the Muslim faith, is the Koran tax or zakat,
which is the obligation to give a charge to the needy.
The fourth duty is the fast and abstain
during daylight hours for the month of Ramadan.
The fifth and final pillar is the pilgrimage once in their life
to the holy city of Mecca,
only if the devotee can afford to travel without leaving debts
to himself or his family.
In the sacred precinct of Mecca
the ritual takes place to make seven circles around the Kaaba,
the God's house.
A cubic structure, built, according to tradition, by Adam
and rebuilt and purified by Abraham.
The daily life of Muslims has some common features
despite the great variety of peoples and cultures that make up the Islamic community.
One of these features is housing,
where the Islamic prescriptions on the seclusion of women
and the central role of the family made the house an enclosed space outside.
White walls are broken only by windows covered by wooden shutters,
which let you see the street from the inside, but they hide it from prying eyes.
The public bath, or hammam, is one of the main centers of social life.
Activity with a ritual character,
the hygienic body is considered an act of religious purification.
However, the bath is also a place of reunion, rest and relations.
Few events in world history have been so transcendent
than the emergence of the Islamic religion.
Islam has not only fostered a spiritual movement
forming a religion followed by millions of believers,
but it has generated, in addition,
an extraordinary intellectual and artistic civilization,
whose contribution to the future of humanity is unquestionable. 00:10:30.840,00:00:00.000