This is a much needed documentary especially these days on Islam a religion strongly misunderstood for the ordinary person and a good introduction to the history of Islamic civilisation where you can find rooms dedicated too in all the great Museums of the world. The mostly positive aspects about this documentary is that it covers all the general areas of major Islamic history to get an understanding of the religion and its principles with its contribution to world civilisation and history with easy to follow information and structure on its development dually as religion and distinct civilisation especially the first and second episodes and a good overall conclusion at the end of the series. The critical aspects is that it is also short and should of had an extra episode about the situation of Islam today with the fall of the Ottoman empire and the rise and results of Political Islam in a post-colonial age. The documentary should of also added more social improvements Islam brought to the Arab tribes. The Ottoman episode was good but it should of made a reference to other Mongol states that founded Islamic empires such as the Timurids and explained briefly this new Imperial tradition from its Arab predecessor. For those who think the documentary is a Eulogy or full of anachronisms they are mistaken. It does make references to gripping negative aspects and these are clearly but briefly said you just have to listen and understand in a wider and proper context of the times and not be judgemental which determines your academic understanding and not just a casual interest. The commentators are expert academics mostly non-Muslim so this is not Propaganda to counter the negative politics of today. I highly recommend this documentary for a general understanding to a great civilisation that even Muslims have forgotten.

There are two big problems with this series. First, with only three episodes, this series is far too short to cover the subject properly. Secondly, the series is heavily focused around Islam's interaction with the Christian West, which distorts the history. The episodes cover the early years of Islam, the Eastern Crusades and the Ottoman conquests in the West.Nonetheless, this might still have been a decent introduction - which is clearly what it is intended to be. Unfortunately, this is very much a post 9/11 series which reacts (understandably) against the more indiscriminate rage felt by some Americans at that time (which was also understandable). The result is a very politically correct series that distorts history quite badly. For instance, the series describes Janissaries as Christian boys who were "recruited" by the Turks and "brought into the Muslim faith". In fact, the devshirme process involved kidnapping the young male children of Christians whose lands had been conquered by the Turks, forcibly converting them to Islam and turning them into slave-soldiers. These sort of mealy-mouthed attempts to obscure or excuse away the nastier parts of Muslim history are a constant in the series and totally undermine it; this is politics, not history. I'd recommend Joseph Hogarty's "Europe from its Origins" for a much better view of Islam from a Western perspective.

Every human with a bit of intelligence combined with objectivity will appreciate what was revealed by this documentary. Watch it and search for the rest if not satisfied. There are some things which are not mentioned in the documentary about Islamic civilization at all. For instance, it does not talk about stars named with Arabic names in the first observatory founded by Muslims. This documentary mostly only sketches the Islamic civilization and it does a very good job with that considering the existence of those ignorant people asking "Do Muslim's believe in God?". It is sad but definitely there are lots of people who will benefit a lot from even 10 minutes of this documentary. It was shocking for me to realize the pilgrims' visits which could be considered as a kind of globalization achieved peacefully so many years ago.

I loved every bit of this documentary, I was really eager to know the genesis and the expansion of Islam. I would recommend this movie/documentary for anyone who wants to have an insight on Islam. And i would also recommend it seeing on a big screen TV. Also the narration by Ben Kingsley is phenomenal.Not many people know that Kingsley is a Muslim ( born to an Indian Muslim Father and British Mom).In this present era, with everything thats been said on TV, this is a great eye-opener for the most beautiful religion of the world. For anyone and everyone to know the history and the truth , i highly recommend.