Channel 4 documentary Islam: The Untold Story receives harsh reaction from British Muslims

28 August 2012

In a historical documentary, aired on Channel 4, British writer Tom Holland investigated the origins of Islam and raised doubts about the Muslim version of the history.

The program, shown on the 28th of August, infuriated many Muslim viewers as the documentary entitled Islam: The Untold Story concluded that Islam was not a distinctive religion in the early periods (as Muslims claim) but rather was formed 200 hundred years after the Prophet Muhammad, under the influence of Judaic and Christian heritage.

Many Muslims found the documentary biased and misleading, as Tom Holland did not discuss the topic with Muslim historians as well as non-Muslim scholars who are critical about his theory.

Tom Holland’s documentary sums up the marginal Western scholarship’s view on the origin of Islam and the Qur’an. However, those views have been harshly criticized from within Western academia for their methodological flaws and arbitrary usage of evidence, and sometimes only relying on evidence that was hostile to Islam.

As a result, Ofcom received hundreds of complaints about the documentary and Channel 4 has been called on to apologize to Muslims.

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