Islam: The Untold Story
| Islam: The Untold Story | |
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Title credits
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| Written by | Tom Holland |
| Starring | Tom Holland |
| Original language(s) | English |
| Production | |
| Running time | 74 minutes |
| Production company(s) | Channel 4 |
| Release | |
| Original network | Channel 4 |
| Original release |
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Islam: The Untold Story is a documentary film written and presented by the English novelist and popular historian Tom Holland. The documentary explores the origins of Islam, an Abrahamic religion that developed in Arabia in the 7th century; it criticizes the orthodox Islamic account of this history, claiming that it lacks sufficient supporting evidence. It was commissioned by the British television company Channel 4 and first broadcast in August 2012. Its release followed the publication of Holland's In the Shadow of the Sword: The Battle for Global Empire and the End of the Ancient World (2012), which also discussed the rise of the Arab Empire and the origins of Islam.
Adopting the theories of academic historian Patricia Crone as a basis, Holland asserted that there was little hard evidence for the origins of Islam and asked why it took several decades after the death of Muhammad for his name to appear on surviving documents or artifacts. Arguing that there was little evidence for how the faith was born, he suggested that the city of Mecca may not have been the real birthplace of Muhammad and Islam, and – while not clearly disputing Muhammad's existence as a real historical figure – claimed that much of the Islamic origin story was later developed in the early years of the Arab Empire.
The documentary proved controversial. Mainstream media reception was mixed, and it provoked particular criticism from figures within the United Kingdom's Islamic community, who argued that Holland ignored evidence supporting the orthodox account of early Islamic history. Government-approved regulatory authority Ofcom and the broadcaster Channel 4 received an estimated 1200 complaints regarding the program. Channel 4 eventually cancelled a public screening of the documentary at their London headquarters after numerous threats of violence.
Possessor of a bachelor's degree in English and Latin from the University of Cambridge, Holland is an English novelist and popular historian who has published a trio of best-selling histories of the ancient world: Rubicon: The Last Years of the Roman Republic (2003), Persian Fire: The First World Empire and the Battle for the West (2005), and Millennium: The End of the World and the Forging of Christendom (2008). In 2012, Holland's fourth work of history, In the Shadow of the Sword: The Battle for Global Empire and the End of the Ancient World, was published; it explored the collapse of the Roman and Persian Empires, as well as the rise of the Arab Empire and the accompanying Arabian religion of Islam.
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