英语听力：Prophet Muhammad 先知穆罕默德 - 2

To Muslims, the life of Muhammad is a story revered in its mysteries as much as its certainties that our beliefs held sacred. Whatever we can tell about the prophet, of course, is screened through the filter of what has been preserved over the centur

英语听力：Prophet Muhammad 先知穆罕默德 - 3

Muhammads clan, like Arabs all across the Arabian Peninsula, would share the stories that had been told and retold for generations. Pre-Islamic-Arabian civilization was largely an oral culture, and with tremendous respect for and admiration for peopl

英语听力：Prophet Muhammad 先知穆罕默德 - 4

Each clan had its own separate gods and totems to water and wind, fire and night. They were kept in the caravan town of Mecca, in a shrine of wood, stone and cloth. It was called, the Kaaba, the Arabic word for Cube. Pre-Islamic-Arabs worshiped a num

英语听力：Prophet Muhammad 先知穆罕默德 - 5

She was so taken with Muhammad, she proposed marriage. Ah, Hadijia, well I think she was a mentor as well as a wife, a very strong lady who had her own business, and Muhammad was helping her out, so it was a wonderful partnership and I'm sure he lear

英语听力：Prophet Muhammad 先知穆罕默德 - 7

Muhammad's following began to grow. They called themselves Muslims for those who surrendered to God. They set out to preserve the message Muhammad had brought. This was the beginning of the Koran. The Koran was revealed orally, but very soon people r

英语听力：Prophet Muhammad 先知穆罕默德 - 8

Rather than a physical image of God or of Muhammad, it is the beauty of the Koran itself that is celebrated in Islam. Islam developed in this context where pictures were not favored. The Koran, as it was revealed, was Gods representation on earth, an

英语听力：Prophet Muhammad 先知穆罕默德 - 9

To the non-believers, the divine reckoning Muhammad invoked wasnt average. His dismantling of their heritage and customs deeply unset them. It was a threat, a threat in several ways, to their social order, to their age-old traditions, and an economic

英语听力：Prophet Muhammad 先知穆罕默德 - 10

For Muhammad's followers, leaving the place of their ancestors, their families and tribes was the ultimate test of devotion. In doing so, they began a new community, a new tribe. For the first time, they were bound together not by blood, but by faith

英语听力：Prophet Muhammad 先知穆罕默德 - 6

And that is the beginning of the prophetic career of Muhammad. The months to come would bring more revelations, powerful words of a lyrical quality, more beautiful than the most exquisite Arabic poetry. Above all, Muhammad was to bear one message to

英语听力：Prophet Muhammad 先知穆罕默德 - 16

This is not something that is fly-by-night. This is something big and important. Islam has come to stay. In just a hundred years, Muhammads vision had transformed the spiritual and political map of the world. And his followers had established an empi

英语听力：Prophet Muhammad 先知穆罕默德 - 11

Praying together is a good thing. It cements the idea of belonging to a movement, to a religion, to an organization, to a community. The result is something very, very powerful, even to watch, even for a non-believer or someone from another religion.

英语听力：Prophet Muhammad 先知穆罕默德 - 15

With Byzantine artisans, they had decorated it with golden mosaics of an Islamic paradise. The Great Mosque of Damascus would become a model for new mosques to come all across the empire. The Arabs transformed their conquered lands, maintaining, impr

英语听力：Prophet Muhammad 先知穆罕默德 - 14

By now, the empire was larger than Rome. It stretched from Morocco in the west to the Indus River in the east where the border of India is today. How had it happened that so small an army could conquer an area so large, so fast, so easily? Islams suc

英语听力：Prophet Muhammad 先知穆罕默德 - 13

But it was not the pagan people Muhammad had come to destroy. It was their Gods. He raised his staff and the tribal Gods of his ancestors smashed into dust. When Muhammad entered Mecca and entered the shrine and destroyed the idols of the shrine, thi

英语听力：Prophet Muhammad 先知穆罕默德 - 12

For three years, the Muslim army held out against staggering odds. As word of the fighting spread, other Bedouin tribes saw God's hand in Muhammad's victories. One by one the peoples of the desert began to join in his struggle. The Muslim army grew a

英语听力：Prophet Muhammad 先知穆罕默德 - 1

In Cairo, a muezzin calls faithful Muslims to prayer. Its the same call that sounds five times a day every day in cities across the world. Nearly a quarter of the people on earth respond to it, bound together by the enduring spirit of Islam. ''God is