The Message

"In the name of God, the most gracious, the most Merciful.

From Muhammad, the Messenger of God

to Heraclius, the emperor of Byzantium.

Greetings to him who is the follower of righteous guidance.

I bid you to hear the divine call.

I am the messenger of God to the people.

Accept Islam for your salvation.”

He speaks of a new prophet in Arabia.

Was it like this when John the Baptist came to king Herod

out of the desert, crying about salvation?

To Muqawqis, Patriarch of Alexandria.

"Kisra, emperor of Persia.

Muhammad calls you with the call of God.

Accept Islam for your salvation.

Embrace Islam.”

You come out of the desert, smelling of camel and goat.

To tell Persia where he should kneel?

"Muhammad, Messenger of God.”

Who gave him this authority?

God sent Muhammad as a mercy to mankind.

600 years after Christ died,

when Europe was sunk in the dark ages

and everywhere the old civilizations were falling,

Muhammad was born in Mecca, in Arabia.

Mecca was then a rich trading city, ruled by its merchants

whose wealth was multiplied by a unique privilege,

they housed the gods.

Every year, at the time of the great fair,

the desert priests brought their idols

and the images of their gods

into the custody of the Kaaba.

Once, the most holy shrine of Abraham,

the Kaaba had now become a house of idolatry

boasting no fewer than 360 different gods.

Mecca in 610 AD.

Bilal!

Have you had today's count, Umaya?

Not yet, but this year the gods are gold.

When you put the gods and Prophet together,

you sit very pretty between, hmm?

And more gods to place in the Kaaba.

Caravan from Syria.

Hmm, they must have been running.

They'll be thirsty.

Put five more men on the north wells.

How many sheep shall I have to kill for them?

-707? - Give them a hundred.

Mecca must keep her name for hospitality.

And 10 lambs for the leaders.

Shh, shh, shh.

Bread and water,

do the poets have in Hakim's house?

Where verse and prose are nightly put to slaughter.

And, and the bread, I swear in there, is thinner than the water!

Oh, open the space, open the space,

you lovers of poetry,

to Bu-sofyan, willing and rich

patron of the arts.

When Bu-sofyan invites the poet in,

their joy is kit and love is kin.

Where wines and cakes abound,

the skills of verse are found.

All revels and all songs begin,

when Bu-sofyan invites the poet in.

From the silkworms of China, my lady.

Pleasure to the limbs and as my lady can see,

a ravish to the eye.

Yes, seven lengths.

20 dinar.

For Bu-sofyan's wife?

15.

Good, good!

The gods of the Kaaba have their needs, their upkeeps.

Who is that man who stood there,

who looked into my soul?

Carry me away from here.

Why must Muhammad come down here?

Why don't you stop him?

He is your nephew.

- Maybe he'll change. - Change?

He's 40 years old.

It's unnatural.

With a rich wife, he could afford the best of Mecca.

Yet he chooses to sit shivering in a cave.

It is unnatural!

For a man who dares to risk the anger of Al-Uzza,

who keeps our health,

Manat, the god of our prosperity,

Allat, the god of our family and tribes,

and Hubal, Hubal, who starts our caravans

and predicts our fate.

To challenge the gods within earshot

of the gods is dangerous.

- Unreasonable. - Rebellious, blasphemous.

Yes, I'm afraid Muhammad will harm himself.

I'm always sad when the great fair is over.

I might not see the next one.

Abu Talib!

Abu Talib!

Catch your breath, Zaid!

Has Muhammad come down from Mount Hira yet?

He's been up there three days.

No, no, we haven't seen him.

Khadijah hoped he might have come to you on his way home.

Then he's still up there.

Three days.

I'm afraid for him on the mountain,

because I don't know what it means.

Men see the world too well from a mountain.

Muhammad, read!

In the name of thy Lord who created

man from a sensitive drop of blood.

Who teaches man what he knows not.

Read!

He's still trembling under the blanket

but he has spoken.

Zaid!

What happened to my nephew on the mountain?

He was alone, in the cave.

Suddenly, an angel came into him.

The angel said, "Read!"

Muhammad replied, "I cannot read."

The angel commanded again, "Read!

In the name of thy Lord, who created man from

a sensitive drop of blood,

who teaches man what he knows not.

Read!"

Who knows if it was Gabriel?

It could have been a dream.

When Muhammad was coming from the mountain,

he saw Gabriel plainly

in the shape of a man standing on the horizon.

Wherever he looked, upon every turn of his head he saw him.

And Gabriel said to him again,

"I am Gabriel

and you, Muhammad,

are the Messenger of God."

Who has he told about this?

His wife, and Ali,

and his friend Abu Bakr.

And you?

I am his adopted son.

Be careful to whom you talk.

Tell him his uncle who protected him

when he was a child will protect him still.

After all,

they say the God of Moses

spoke to him out of a burning bush.

If you do not restrain your nephew, then we will.

He's dividing the city, hut against house.

He's dividing the generations, child against parent.

The young are listening to him.

He attracts the young.

We are Arabs, we obey our fathers.

Our children cannot be our teachers.

How can we accept that a man

we met in the street yesterday

can be some god's Prophet today?

Dead bones can live again, he says,

because He who created man

can also make man return from the dead, he says!

The Gods might leave us and give their benefits to another city.

Tell him we will give him authority, position,

keys to the Kaaba, and money, what money he wants.

Tell him we will give him anything he wants.

Muhammad, spare yourself and me.

Do not put a greater burden on an old man than he can bear.

In your childhood, you were in my arms.

I cannot now see you hurt.

If you refuse them, they will hurt you.

He said this to me,

"Were they to put the sun in my right hand

and the moon in my left,

I would not renounce my message, which is from God."

When I am dead, you may do as you please,

but whilst I'm alive, you'll obey your father!

Why do you hurt our father?

If I were drunk every day

and played dice every night,

you'd call it high spirits!

You would be more my brother than you are now!

You--you are all my children.

I've given you everything I could,

but it seems not to be enough.

Muhammad gives me more,

he'll give all the world more.

Get him out of here, Father!

It's not Waleed or me, it's our father.

You torture him.

Wait Hudayfa, wait!

How can they say it's an invention, Musab,

when it isn't new?

In Mecca, it's new.

Yet, God has said it all before

to Noah, Moses, Jesus, to all the Prophets,

but people changed it, turned it, forgot it.

Now God says it to Muhammad again

and it is new again.

What is it?

It's Jaafar.