Home :: DVD :: Documentary :: Series  

Discovery Channel
Docurama
National Geographic
Empires - Islam: Empire of Faith

Empires - Islam: Empire of Faith

List Price: $29.98
Your Price:
Product Info Reviews

<< 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 >>

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Pretty lies
Review: Beautiful scenes, pretty colors BUT not a documentary. This is shameless propaganda. Historically inaccurate. Even when historical events are presented, they are sugarcoated, eg., taking healthy male children from Christian families (never to see them again) to raise them as muslim soldiers is justified because they received a "good education". This is a small example of how low the producers of this video went in distorting historical truth to please the muslim viewers. Shame!

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Good video
Review: I first saw this on PBS. Apparently it is a hit with Moslems since my local PBS station used it as a fundraiser largely populated by women in traditional dress. Regardless of your bias, this is an excellent video explaining the background and history of Islam. It reviews the life of Mohammed, the violent expansion phase, the flowering of the civilization, and the subsequent decline of the political empire and the fractionation of the faith. Any two hour video is inherently superficial. This one makes an apparent attempt to be even-handed. I have given it as a gift to a friend.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Islam an empire of faith
Review: This Production really brought out the light and the Spirit, the Core of Islam Succesful widespread.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Bad Content, OK acting
Review: This particular production is, on the one hand, a sugary and nausiating exercise in feeling good and "inspired", and, on the other hand, a shameless philandering toward Muslim sensibilities. OTOH, I liked the acting and the recreations. However, too bad the staff responsible for creating the film didn't bother to do a recreation of, say, the slaughter of over 700 members of the Jewish Banu Qurayzah tribe by orders of Muhammad.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: great documentary
Review: since the beginning of the history, a lot of people rejected God Messangers to continue doing the evil way and listen to their desire and lust. i am not surprised to see a lot of
zionist, infidels, and hypocrites attack on islam and its teaching.

it is very important to further research the truth and not to listen to bunch of paid pens ( people who are getting paid to defame religion, nation, or group)
islam is all about peace and mercy.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A fine documentation on How ISLAM spread in its early days.
Review: I am absolutly fascinated by the manner in which all the details were documented, certainly hats off to the production team for putting together a piece of history. I must say, that It would have been nice to have the present state of Islam also documented to bring about an understanding to the most misunderstood religion in the world.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Finally, The truth is told
Review: Every one should watch this movie, muslims and non-muslims, esspecially at times like today. ones again do every one a favour and get the movie, i can't express that enough.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: accurate film
Review: I saw this documentry for several times and i think it's very good , becasue not many people know about the truth fact about Islam and Muslim , yet some ignorant people will not eccept the facts , that's their problem , the film is backed up with evedince and authentice information , i highly recoomend watching this film

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Rewriting history, P.C. style
Review: This DVD, while containing beautiful images of Islamic architecture, is full of historical inaccuracies and blatant ommissions. If you get your history from this DVD, you will come away believing that the Muslims invented almost everything. We are led to believe that the Muslims invented "Arabic" numerals (invented in India), almost all of math (invented in Greece and India), engineering (used many centuries before Islam ever existed, perfected by Romans), astronomy (studied by Egyptians, Persians, Greeks and almost everyone else before Islam ever existed--our present constellations are Greek in origin), paper (invented in China), gunpowder (invented in China), and the list goes on and on. The Crusades are pictured as a European over-reaction to the burning of the Christian Church in Jerusalem, while ignoring the centuries of Muslim invasions of Europe that preceded the Crusades. There is no mention of the Muslim sacking of Rome in the year AD 846, in which they did considerable damage to the Vatican. There is no mention of the Muslim invasion of France which was halted at the Battle of Tours and Poitiers. There is no mention of the constant Muslim attacks on Byzantium throughout the Middle Ages. All of these things and hundreds more preceded the Crusades, but all we are told is that the Europeans are the evil aggressors while the Muslims are benevolent rulers just trying to unite the world in brotherhood. What a load of bull. Even the life of Muhammed is white-washed. There is no mention of the fact that he owned slaves. There is no mention of his marriage, at the age of 54, to the 10-year old girl Aisha, daughter of Abu Bekr. Abu Bekr would later become the first Caliph of the Mohammedans. In short, get your history lessons elsewhere. This DVD is incredibly biased in favor of Islam. You get all the good (much of it made up) and none of the bad that Islam has done throughout its history. This is Politically Correct history at its worst.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Excellent but incomplete
Review: First, the good news: ISLAM: EMPIRE OF FAITH does an apparently excellent job of what it sets out to do, which is to show the rise, spread, and maturing strength of Islamic faith and culture. It is wonderfully documented and illustrated, giving the viewer a sense of "being there," thereby engendering a true appreciation for these societies and their historical development. If for no other reason than viewing the many pieces of Muselim art and architecture, and being confronted with the intellectual accomplishments of Muslim culture, these videos are worth their price.

Now the less-than-good news: The omissions and incompleteness of the presentation make it almost appear to have been produced for the purpose of trumpeting the superiority of Muslim society over all others. First of all, the small and select group of scholarly commentators and brevity of comments excludes any debate about the relative value of the events and ideas presented and/or other possible interpretations. Secondly, this presentation shows an all-too-obvious condescending attitude toward medieval "Christian" Europe and its "Dark Ages," which were not nearly so long as is often supposed. At the same time, it only very softly admits the fact that Islam was spread primarily by warfare for several centuries, while harshly criticizing the Christian Crusaders who attacked Islamic strongholds intermittently for nearly two centuries.

Thirdly, while concluding the presentation at the height of Ottoman power in Asia and Europe shows a glorious point of culmination of Islam as an empire, it fails to address some important questions: It fails to answer why the Ottomans in particular and Islamic civilization in general fell into extended cultural decline by the late sixteenth century--just when several Western European nations were expanding in strength and commerce. As a result, it fails to address the question of what can happen within a religious group during a period of decline, as has been the case with every religion at some points in time. Finally, it fails to connect the glorious cultural past of Islam to its developments in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, which would be very helpful to modern viewers. But then again, perhaps these matters were beyond the range of the project.

So . . . this is an excellent and helpful video for what it does, but it desperately needs a sequel.


<< 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 >>

© 2004, ReviewFocus or its affiliates