East Meets West: The Birth Of Civilization

Years after the death of the Prophet Muhammad, the Islamic Empire had achieved global supremacy. And while it was expanding in territory, its people were expanding their minds. Discover how medieval Muslim scholars saved Greek knowledge from oblivion and generated revolutionary scientific ideas of their own. Join us as we explore their forgotten contribution to world knowledge. Then learn how the Christian conquest of Muslim Spain spurred on a new dawn for intellectual life, kick-starting Europe's emergence from the Dark Ages.

Excavations in southern Turkey have recently uncovered evidence of the world's first sacred temples, providing amazing insights into the birth of organized religion. In this episode, we explore man's creation of a belief system to make sense of our bewildering world. Then we'll reveal how the pantheon of pagan gods that ruled in Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, and Rome were ultimately overthrown by a revolutionary idea: monotheism. Discover the story of how the belief in one God was born in the East and how it came to dominate the Western world.