The Caliph al-Mahdi and Patriarch Timothy I had a famous debate at the height of the Abbasid Caliphate about the differences between Christianity and Islam, over a thousand years ago. It stands as one of the greatest examples of mutual understanding and respect between the two faiths.

One of the first Christian writers to write about Islam was the Orthodox monk, St. John of Damascus. Writing from the center of the Umayyad Caliphate, he offered harsh warnings about Islam in his book of heresies. It was the first of many attempts of Christian Europe to deal with the coming of Islam, but John is still quoted today as an authority.

In this episode, we look at the early biographies of The Prophet Muhammad from his origins to the beginning of his prophetic ministry.

On the eve of Islam, Arabia was a mixture of hundreds of competing tribal gods, monotheism, Christianity and Judaism. Sorting the history from the legends of this pre-Islamic past remains a challenging task.

Like any religion, Islam was shaped by the culture in which it emerged. The rules and values of the Bedouin - from the treatment of women to concepts of honor and leadership - would impact the Islamic society that grew out of Arabia. In this episode, we take a look at that culture to understand what Islam preserved and what it changed.

In this episode, we look at the third of the founding sultans of the Ottoman empire, Murad I, whose victory over the Serbs at Kosovo would be invoked 600 years later as a cause for war.

As a divided Europe fights among itself, the Ottoman state continues to establish itself as the new power of the age. In this episode, we discuss Orkhan I, second of the three founding sultans of the Ottoman Empire.

The great empire that would rule from North Africa to Arabia and threaten the gates of Vienna started from the most humble origins. The leader of a small Turkish tribe escaping the Mongol advance, Osman the First would lay the foundations of the last great empire of the Golden Age of Islam.