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The Story of India: The Meeting of Two Oceans

2007 History

Michael Wood charts the coming of Islam to the subcontinent and one of the greatest ages of world civilisation: the Mughals. He visits Sufi shrines in Old Delhi, desert fortresses in Rajasthan and the cities of Lahore and Agra, where he offers a new theory on the design of the Taj Mahal. He also looks at the life of Akbar, a Muslim emperor wh ...o decreed that no one religion could hold the ultimate truth, but whose dream of unity ended in civil war. Show More

Series: The Story of India

The Virus of Faith

2006 Culture

Dawkins opines that the moral framework of religions is warped, and argues against the religious indoctrination of children. He discusses specifically the idea of religion seen as a virus in the sense of a meme. He begins by explaining how a child is genetically programmed to believe without questioning the word of authority figures, especial ...ly parents – the evolutionary imperative being that no child would survive by adopting a sceptical attitude towards everything their elders said. But this same imperative, he claims, leaves children open to infection by religion. Show More

Series: The Root of All Evil

Unmasking Jihadi John

2019 Culture

This feature documentary tells the story of Mohammed Emwazi's journey from being an ordinary London boy to becoming terrorist 'Jihadi John', and the intelligence operatives' attempts to catch him by the US and British military and intelligence services.
It explores the twisted worldview espoused by ISIS - the richest and most notorious I ...slamist terrorist organization in history - and its propaganda machine which was operated by "Jihadi millennials" who turned social media sites such as Twitter and YouTube into recruitment platforms. Told through extraordinary first-hand accounts of key counter-terrorism and intelligence officials who identified "Jihadi John" and the voices of Muslim community leaders who worked with parents whose radicalized children fled places such as the US and Britain to join ISIS on the battlefields of Syria and Iraq. Show More

Victory and Defeat

2012 History

Dr. Thomas Asbridge explains how in the thirteenth century, after almost two hundred years of Holy Wars, the titanic conflict between Christianity and Islam, known to history as The Crusades, reached a decisive and shocking conclusion – a chapter that despite its drama has been virtually forgotten. He explains how, in the end, the fate of the ... Holy Land was decided not on the hallowed ground of Jerusalem, but in Egypt; and how the ultimate outcome of the Crusades was dictated not by Christians, but by the Mongol successors to Genghis Khan, and by a Muslim slave – a fearsome warrior whose story is now all but lost to western history. Show More

Series: The Crusades

Who is God

2016 Culture

In the third episode of the series, Morgan Freeman examines different faiths' concepts of God, discovering how monotheism began in Egypt and Israel and allowing a neuroscientist to examine his own brain.

Series: The Story of God

Why Islamic State expands so quickly

2015 Culture

The self-proclaimed 'Islamic State' is a jihadi militia active in the north and east of Syria, and in the west of Iraq, which has shocked the world with its cinematic staging of horrific acts of violence and its unexpected advances towards statehood. But why could IS expand so rapidly?

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