Islam's Greatest Stories of Love

MICHAEL: All of us experience loss.

We are told with hardship there is new life.

It's not the end of the story, it's the beginning of another story.

ARIELLA: The loss of my father, the greatest love of my life, sent me reeling.

I'm trying to find solace in my faith, but how can I make peace with such heartbreak?

My Muslim friends gave me an idea.

They sent me on a quest, searching Islam stories of love for answers to questions we all ask, which unraveled the secrets of the Taj Mahal, illuminated a little-known story about Malcolm X, and demonstrated how love can change the world.

ZAKARIA: Love, it's not just an emotion.

It's a force.

ARIELLA: I've met religious leaders, historians, and artists who shared their knowledge and offered insights into these stories, who might help me reconcile the joy of love for my father and the terrible pain of his loss.

What can we learn from Islam's greatest stories of love?

OMID: Every heart breaks, and your heart must break.

But what a difference there is between a heart that merely breaks and a heart that breaks open.

ARIELLA: What does that mean for a heart to break open?

(typing) ARIELLA: My father spent his twenties surfing in Brazil, where I'm from.

Marriage and children were not part of his plans.

Then one night he had this vivid dream about a little girl with a mass of curly hair.

When he woke up, he knew that someday he would have a daughter.

He always said that I was part of his destiny.

We were very close my entire childhood.

When I was 11, he took me on a trip to Europe.

He booked a sleeper car.

I had the top bunk.

It was fun eating in the dining car, and at our stops he would act out stories about what we were seeing.

It was one of the best weeks of my life.

When our family went through some difficult times, he was my best friend, the person I counted on for everything.

He supported my decision to leave Brazil and study in the US.

After I became a Muslim, many of my friends and even some family turned their backs on me, but he stood by me, always my rock.

He was the best father.

When he was diagnosed with cancer, I wanted to leave school and be with him, but he kept reassuring me that he was doing well, getting better and we even made plans for another big trip, just like the one we took when I was young.

I never knew how sick he really was.

I was 5,000 miles away when he died.

I didn't even get the chance to say goodbye.

(typing) (church bell) When the person you love is gone, could be because of a breakup, a long absence, or death, it leaves you feeling adrift and alone.

For a long time now, I've felt lost, and worst of all, my faith has been shaken.

So I've been going to a weekly gathering with Muslim friends for prayer and reflection at Harvard Divinity School where I'm a student.

I've always found prayer very healing, in all the three different ways that I've prayed.

I was born Catholic.

When I was 12, my mother converted to Judaism and then from then onwards, I was raised in the Jewish tradition.

Later, as an adult, I learned about Islam.

I love its emphasis on social justice.

I like the rituals, the fasts, the pilgrimages, the way the daily prayer engages the whole body.

And I appreciate that Islam expresses itself not as a rejection, but as a continuation of the monotheistic tradition of Judaism and Christianity.

Being a Muslim just feels like a natural step in my spiritual journey.

I also cherish the sense of community I feel with this group.

They were there for me when I really needed the help.

When I found out about my dad, I remember texting Anijahn and he just answered "We're coming."

And I didn't know what "we" meant, and I certainly didn't know that "we" meant 30 people who all came, who dropped everything just to sit in my tiny living room, who could not fit everyone, praying with me while I figured out my tickets to go fly to my father's funeral, while I cried.

As I talked again about receiving that terrible news, they saw that even months later I was still struggling.

And when I shared that hardly a day had passed that I didn't break down crying, they sent me on a quest.

There are stories from the Islamic tradition of other people who have loved and lost.

They said I might find what I need by exploring some of them.

Of course, they would suggest doing research, after all, we're a bunch of graduate students.

So for the last several months I've been searching some of these stories for the answers to the questions we all ask.

What is love?

Why does it end?

How can we make love endure?

What can we learn from Islam's greatest stories of love?

The first love story I explored was a tale about two teenagers - a girl named Layla and a boy called Majnun.

It's a very old story originally from Arabia.

It was part of the oral tradition of Arabic poetry retold around campfires long before Islam.

But though its origins aren't Islamic, it has inspired centuries of Muslim poets, artists, writers, and philosophers to look to it to explore the meaning of love.

So I decided to start there.

Where were you when I was lonesome (typing) The story still excites imaginations all over the world, from Morocco to India, Turkey to Azerbaijan.

There are films, annual festivals, and live performances celebrating it.

But I discovered that I could find it much closer to home.

(typing) In 2016, the renowned dance choreographer Mark Morris collaborated with Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble for a dance presentation of this story.

MARK: The stories are very well known.

You can pick up any of these books and they're thrilling and beautiful.

There are Bollywood movies that are on this story, and I found online, of course, full productions of this piece, the production's so interesting and so strange.

So I thought, well, this is really kind of fabulous.

So I agreed to take on this piece and really, I- it turned out to- to me to be sort of miraculous in the way that this show worked.

You know, people just sort of glibly call it the Romeo and Juliet of Islam or something like that, which it's not.

I've done Romeo and Juliet and it's not the same story.

It's- it's very, very specifically simple.

(typing) ARIELLA: Harvard University's Art Museums are a short walk from the Divinity School.

Their many exhibits feature art from all over the world, including paintings that illustrate the story of Layla and Majnun.

There I spoke with Dr. Aysin Yoltar-Yildirim, the museum's curator of Islamic and Later Indian Art.

The Layla and Majnun paintings she showed me, some of them hundreds of years old, tell a heartbreaking story.

It begins as many young romances do - in school.

AYSIN: Majnun was very handsome, and then Layla, who was one of the most beautiful girls in her tribe, was also brought to school.

Here we have one of the moments that artists illustrate a lot - when they first meet at school.

As soon as they see each other, they- they fall in love, but they can't almost say anything.

They are so kind of taken by each other.

Both of them are trying to go to school every day with excitement.

The other students realize that something is different because Majnun, who was a very good student, all of a sudden starts not paying attention to anything else but just Layla.

ARIELLA: What I love about it, Aysin, is that I find it very relatable.

I find the story of... AYSIN: Yes... ARIELLA: School love and not being able to pay attention to your schoolwork because you're in love, like exactly at that point, when you start finding out what love is.

AYSIN: He goes out to the bazaar and starts chanting Layla's name.

Unfortunately, Majnun's constantly going out like this and especially telling these poems about Layla in the bazaars, this is considered quite shameful and angers Layla's father.

So th- this is basically what starts the whole kind of separation.

He removes Layla from school and puts her in her tent.

She can't leave.

MARK: Their love is forbidden.

They're separated physically and they're dying of heartbreak before your eyes.

ARIELLA: Dr. Yildirim explained that the kind of artwork used in these manuscripts is often referred to as miniature painting.

Not many painters still practice this art form today, but I met one artist who wants to keep the tradition alive.

So Ambreen, what was it about miniature art that made you want to pursue it?

AMBREEN: When I saw them for the first time, up so close, I was just mesmerized by the aesthetics and the beauty, you know, like the- the intricate mark making, the narrative, the colors, you know they just like hold a big world in within a small little space.

It was just pure sheer love-at-first-sight kind of thing.

There was one painting I remember where Majnun in the desert is met up by a caravan, and it shows that the people in the caravan are kind of more from the elite class, and that is the caravan that Layla's family and where she's in.

The name Majnun, which refers to madness, when you're madly in love with someone, that kind of love where you have lost that consciousness of, you know, how you look to the world, you're only thinking about the love.

AYSIN: Layla also feels exactly the same, but this is the kind of discrepancy between the two lovers.

While Majnun almost cannot stop from telling poetry about or words about Layla, Layla on the other hand cannot say anything.

So she leaves everything inside.

ARIELLA: Majnun's poetry for Layla trembles with such yearning, such aching descriptions of her beauty and grace, that men from far and wide fall in love with her too.

They travel to her father pleading for her hand.

A rich man named Ibn Salam finally wins him over with his lavish gifts.

Layla's father forces her to marry this stranger, and declares that the story of Layla and Majnun is over.

It is not.

AYSIN: At night when Ibn Salam wants to take her as his wife, Layla says "Stay at arm's length.

"I'm not going to let you.

"I'm devoted only to Majnun.

Kill me if you like, but I'm not yours."

MARK: They're in love and they're forced not to be together.

How horrible is that?

And she's alone in her tower with some husband that she was, you know, given to.

They know the other one is there somewhere trying to get in contact.

And it doesn't really happen.

AYSIN: Majnun is really unhappy.

He says "That's it."

And he starts living in the desert.

And then one day he sees a wounded gazelle and there is a hunter who is actually ready to kill the animal, but Majnun says "Please don't kill him."

And the hunter says "Well, what do you offer?"

And Majnun gives all his clothes and he saves the gazelle.

MAJNUN READING: In the bright sunlight, I saw a gazelle grazing in the meadow.

I thought for a moment that it was Layla.

ARIELLA: I dream of us, two gazelles grazing in a faraway land.

My life, your life, finally together.

MARK: And he moves in a cave with animals in the desert, you know, and he's writing poems or songs or whatever.

AYSIN: Layla hears these poems through others who come and tell her, and she also kind of writes poetry as well, and her words are taken by others to Majnun.

MARK: So it's all pining away, and never really being in any way satisfied or gratified, so they won't love anyone else because they needn't.

AYSIN: Layla's husband dies.

(Ariella gasps) AYSIN: Everybody thinks she is mourning for her husband, whereas Layla is actually mourning for Majnun.

ARIELLA: Mmm.

AYSIN: Because of this grief, she realizes that she's not going to live very long.

She tells her mother, "I would like to be buried "like a bride, because after this, "in the other life, I will meet with Majnun."

And yes, Layla dies, and Majnun comes to her grave, and he stays there for a long time.

And um, Majnun kind of disappears into dust.

His tribesmen come and collect the bones, and make another grave next to Layla.

So the two lovers join in the afterlife.

ARIELLA: The greatest love of my life has been my father, and when I lost him a year ago, everything kind of stopped making sense.

I'm really trying to understand this whole story.

Like I don't know what we learn about love through this, like, very tragic, sad story of two lovers that never meet.

AMBREEN: You know, just talking to you, you know, you- about these stories really makes me kind of come to this conclusion about love.

All love stories have pain.

Maybe the yearning for each other is the purpose.

Love connects our past with our future, and you pick up these pieces and then you move forward and, and keep making your own story.

This is about making your story.

(birds calling) (typing) ARIELLA: Mount Auburn Cemetery is a short walk away from my campus.

Dating back to the early 1800s, it's one of the most visited cemeteries in the US.

The gravestones are a reminder of loves and cherished relationships that once were.

Husbands and wives, parents and children.

Many of these markers have been standing here for more than a hundred years, which made me think of something else Ambreen said.

AMBREEN: It's not the love, the lo- it's what the love makes you do and then how you translate it, transform it into something else.

ARIELLA: I came across a book about one such transformation, a transformation of love into something truly extraordinary.

(typing) I traveled to Washington, DC, to meet the author.

Dr. Michael Calabria is an Arabic and Islamic studies scholar at the St. Bonaventure University in New York.

I also discovered that he's a Franciscan friar.

Almost from the moment it was finished, the Taj Mahal gave rise to many myths.

According to Calabria's book, the true story of the world's most famous building is written all over it for everyone to see.

(typing) (birds chirping) (buzzing) (birds chirping) (wings flapping) Father Michael, I am so excited to finally get to meet you and I have so many questions, starting with how did you come to write a book like this?

MICHAEL: I was asked to develop a course on Islamic art and architecture, and I had spent a lot of time in the Middle East, and was familiar with the art and architecture of that region.

But I didn't know very much about Islamic culture in South Asia.

And so I traveled for the first time to India in 2009, and of course went to the Taj Mahal.

When I arrived for the first time and stood before the Taj, it was a transcendent experience for me.

It's perhaps the most spectacular work of architecture ever created by human hands.

As a professor of Arabic, I was particularly aware of this beautiful calligraphy that is inscribed on various parts of the Taj complex, on the gateway to the Taj, on the mausoleum itself, both inside and out.

For the first time, I understood that this wasn't simply a work of architecture.

This was text!

We are encouraged to read the Taj.

As a text.

As a holy text.

As a text of faith.

ARIELLA: But a text for whom?

The words are from the Holy Qur'an.

So yes, they are for Muslims, though not just Muslims.

The Qur'an expresses its message in universal language meant for the entire world.

But Dr. Calabria thinks that the text is also there for the sake of a single shattered man - Shah Jahan, the fifth Muslim emperor of India.

He said that to really understand this, you must know the love story between Shah Jahan and his beloved wife Mumtaz Mahal.

Dr. Supriya Gandhi of Yale University helps tell the story.

SUPRIYA: What do we actually know about the relationship between Shah Jahan and his wife, Mumtaz Mahal?

It's certainly a famous love story that is attested in at least one historical chronicle.

(birds chirping) MICHAEL: They're quite young when they meet - 14, 15 years old.

And according to the chronicles, they fall immediately in love.

ARIELLA: Mmm.

MICHAEL: But they have to wait five years to get married.

SUPRIYA: And that's partly because Mumtaz Mahal's family was in a bit of political trouble at that time.

MICHAEL: In the meantime, Shah Jahan enters into a political marriage.

That's what he has to do as a prince and would-be emperor.

But the Chronicles are clear that Mumtaz is the love of his life.

ARIELLA: Finally, they marry.

She's 19, he's 20.

He gives her the pet name Mumtaz Mahal, meaning "the jewel of the palace," which she's been known by ever since.

SUPRIYA: And she possessed the requisite sort of aristocratic lineage to be married to a Mughal prince, but would he become emperor?

There were so many others who were also competing for the throne.

ARIELLA: Shah Jahan is favored to succeed his father as ruler, but his father's chief consort, who historians say was the real power in the court, wants the throne for her son-in-law, who also happens to be Shah Jahan's half-brother.

She succeeds in turning Shah Jahan's father against him.

MICHAEL: Now, he must fight for the throne.

ARIELLA: Shah Jahan gathers soldiers loyal to him and flees the capital.

The imperial army follows in pursuit.

Now that Shah Jahan is in open rebellion, his life may be easily forfeited.

Mumtaz could have stayed behind in safety, but she chooses to go with him as they are hunted from one end of the empire to the other.

SUPRIYA: There were periods when his prospects didn't look very bright at all and often he had to flee or fight with limited resources.

Everything looked very uncertain, but his wife was with him helping him out and they never left each other's side.

ARIELLA: Their bond is already strong, but the shared dangers seal their relationship.

She witnesses the horrors of war with him, and still does not leave his side.

The conflict stretches into its third year.

Both sides are exhausted.

There is a temporary armistice.

But when his father dies, Shah Jahan acts quickly and without mercy to eliminate all rivals.

MICHAEL: And that involved the execution of two of his brothers, two of his nephews, and two of his cousins.

ARIELLA: Now that he is the undisputed ruler of a vast empire, he turns his attentions back to his precious wife.

Even the usually restrained court chronicles take note.

SUPRIYA: And I'm just going to read a quote in English translation.

"So their mutual friendship and rapport "reached such a height as was never found between any "husband and wife in all the classes of Sultans or other people."

ARIELLA: But their happiness is short-lived.

While giving birth, something goes terribly wrong.

Mumtaz begins to hemorrhage.

The frantic labors of the doctors cannot save her.

She knows before they do that she is dying.

MICHAEL: She calls her eldest daughter to her bedside to tell her to go get Shah Jahan to bring him to her so she could say goodbye to him.

ARIELLA: According to Dr. Calabria, he blames himself for her death.

MICHAEL: He completely shut himself off from his subjects for a week.

They said that because of his excessive crying, he would need to wear spectacles afterwards.

ARIELLA: Oh my God.

MICHAEL: His beard turned gray.

He is absolutely grief stricken.

ARIELLA: He demands that his court wear white, the color of mourning at that time.

He forbids entertainments on Wednesdays, the day she died.

MICHAEL: He wore this pendant, which is supposed to help cure heart palpitations, and it was inscribed in the year after Mumtaz died.

ARIELLA: Even five years later, he can't bring himself to enter the palace fortress where she took her last breath.

MICHAEL: He reached out to holy men, to spiritual figures because he wanted to abandon his rule so that he could lead a life of prayer and seclusion.

ARIELLA: A temporary mausoleum is made for her.

The chronicles report that he went there often and recited over and over the opening chapter of the Qur'an.

It begins with the words "In the name of God, the most merciful, the most compassionate" - words he may now be relying on for his own salvation.

MICHAEL: Here they were at a time of their life when they should have been enjoying themselves.

Here he is the emperor, she is the empress of this great empire, and she dies.

How did he make sense of that?

I think it's possible that he saw Mumtaz's death as a kind of punishment by God for the actions he took to come to the throne.

The plans for the Taj happened rather quickly, to have a monument built for her.

There is no Mughal monument that has a inscriptional program the extent that we have at the Taj Mahal.

We have 14 complete chapters taken from the Holy Qur'an, over 241 verses inscribed on the various parts of this complex, this complex that covers 42 acres.

Together, they address the most essential teachings of Islam - the belief in the one God, the belief in divine revelation, the divine revelation that is given to the prophets, the reward of the righteous as well as the punishment of the sinful.

And I think the inscriptions at the Taj were his way of expressing his earnest desire for God's forgiveness.

So many of the texts have this magnificent reassurance to them.

Once you enter into the complex, you come into a large courtyard and there is a prominent gateway.

And it is there that we encounter the first surah inscribed at the Taj.

It begins by mentioning examples of arrogant people from the distant past, including for example, Pharaoh of Egypt.

Then midway through the chapter, the attention turns to us.

"And what about you?

"Have you taken care of the poor?

"Have you taken care of the orphan and the vulnerable of society?"

And I remember reading it for the first time and tears filled my eyes because I was forced to ask myself what was being asked of me.

What have I done to alleviate the sufferings of the vulnerable?

But that's not where the chapter leaves us.

God extends this beautiful invitation.

"Enter my garden, enter among my servants."

And so if you do that, as you pass through the gateway, you get your first glimpse of Paradise because this whole complex is meant to be an Earthly reflection of Paradise.

SUPRIYA: Of course, the scholars have had different views on this.

The late scholar William Begley made a detailed case for how the Taj Mahal is not a monument to love, and in fact it is really a monument to Shah Jahan, fashioning his own persona as a powerful emperor.

But then we have an alternative view by the scholar Ebba Koch, who argued quite persuasively that we should also take seriously the idea that it was also a monument to love.

MICHAEL: The inscriptions are so powerful and if you know the meaning, you can't possibly walk past them.

They are compelling.

ARIELLA: One particular part of your book that really touched me was the chapter that talks about "In hardship comes ease."

MICHAEL: Mmm.

ARIELLA: And to see that that was something that was inscribed in such a monumental place is also something that I walk around inscribed to this day that my best friend gave to me when- when my father passed.

And to know that for generations, for millennia, we have sought answers actually to the same questions.

MICHAEL: The very text that you mentioned is written above the gateway as you are exiting, meant to be seen as visitors leave.

We are told "With hardship, there is comfort, there is ease."

New life.

It's not the end of the story, it's the beginning of another story.

All of us experience loss.

The texts of the Taj are meant to carry us through those difficult times.

ARIELLA: I would give a lot to have one more day, one more hour, with my father.

Shah Jahan was trying to have an eternity with his beloved.

Shah Jahan ruled for many more years, commissioning more great buildings covered with Qur'anic inscriptions, many with the same expression of hope for the sinful.

He marries again to cement political alliances.

As old age weakens him, violence wracks the empire again.

In the struggle over who would next take the throne, Shah Jahan's favorite son is killed by another of his sons, who then grabs power.

Shah Jahan spends his last years confined to a private apartment, ensuring that he cannot rally support to reclaim his position.

The daughter who brought him to Mumtaz's deathbed performs another service for her father by remaining by his side until the end.

He dies isolated and alone.

Who can say if he'll meet her in Paradise?

But they're at least together in the Earthly Paradise that he made for her.

He lies beside her tomb, which occupies the center of the Taj Mahal.

(typing) The more I read, the more I realize that these stories are kind of changing the way I think about things.

Has that happened to you as you do your research?

Has it changed the way you think about love?

SUPRIYA: You know, I think one thing that really stands out is just how ubiquitous love is and how complex love is.

So I think they are a remarkable window into the difficulties of love, the complexities of love and the different ideas of love.

ARIELLA: Dr. Calabria helped me see that many verses in the Qur'an reassure us in times of difficulty.

And I was launched on another journey... to learn about the man who uttered them.

The man Muslims call, "The messenger of God."

And there, I discovered another story of love.

One that changed the world.

I started this quest because I had a very difficult year.

I lost my father very suddenly.

My faith was very shattered, and what has been helping me, so far, is to kind of go back into my own tradition, the Muslim tradition, and try to see, what can we understand about love?

TAREK: I'm sorry, by the way, I never got a chance to say that I'm sorry to hear that.

ARIELLA: Thank you.

TAREK: There are many stories of love from our- our tradition, and I think it starts with the story of the Prophet himself, peace be upon him, and his interaction and relationship with his, with his wife Khadija, which permeates, really, his entire prophetic mission.

(singing) (typing) ARIELLA: When Muslims say the name of the Prophet, they often follow it with the words "Peace be upon him."

This is a sign of respect that Muslims also pay to other revered figures, including Moses, Jesus, and Mary, peace be upon them all.

Also out of respect, and because if Islam's prohibition against idolatry, Muslims don't depict religious figures in artwork.

This is why Muslim artists, over the centuries, have painted a veil over the face of Muhammad.

TAREK: When you look at the history or the life of the Prophet, peace be upon him, it's very easy to want to begin when he first received revelation, but it begins when the Prophet was born, and the type of life that he had in pre- Islamic Arabia.

He lost his father before he was- before he was born and he lost his mother shortly thereafter, so he essentially grew up as an orphan.

ARIELLA: He tends sheep as a child.

When he matures, he becomes a trusted caravan leader.

TAREK: He stood out.

He was known as the- "the honest person."

That was his, you know, nickname.

He was "the honest one."

And that says a lot, right?

Because it's a society in which there was a lot of dishonesty, a lot of shady financial dealings.

ARIELLA: The traditional Arab virtues of frugality and helping the stranger are abandoned in the quickly urbanizing Mecca.

Class structures that never existed in the town before take hold.

Meccan society is now made up of winners and losers - some at the top and most at the bottom.

Many are enslaved and women's lives are severely limited.

So I find it remarkable that one of the wealthiest businessmen at the time is a woman.

(birds chirping) (water splashing) Rahina Muazu was one of my favorite professors at Harvard.

(both laughing) She's a scholar of the Qur'an, and a student of the life of the Prophet and his wife Khadija, peace be upon them both.

RAHINA: She was married twice, had children, and both husbands died.

And she inherited from them.

And she took that wealth and invested it.

She would give it to a merchant to go to Syria and buy goods and sell.

Most of the merchants she was giving her money to were cheating her, many of them.

(indistinct chatter) So she was looking for someone honest and trustworthy to- to employ.

Khadija had a sister called Hala.

When Hala heard her sister Khadija looking for someone to employ, she suggested to her, "Why not you employ Muhammad?"

DAISY: And everybody says the same thing: He's extremely trustworthy, he's very good, he's honest.

So Khadija hires him.

She sends him on this mission, on a caravan, to go to Syria.

ARIELLA: Afterwards, she asks one of the people who had journeyed with Muhammad what he thinks of him.

RAHINA: He was full of praise.

He kept talking about him to Khadija, telling her how honest he was, how gentle, how kind, how truthful he was.

And Khadija started to have feelings for Muhammad, peace be upon him.

DAISY: So she asks her friend, "What do you think of Muhammad?"

And she said, "Oh!

"You mean, you know, that this is a man that would interest you?"

And she says, "Yes, can you find out his interest?"

So you can imagine, she's a little embarrassed, you know, "I'm widowed, I have four children, "he's never been married, would he be interested in me?"

RAHINA: So her friend, when she asked him, "Oh, Muhammad, how is it that you're still not married?"

ARIELLA: Mmm!

RAHINA: So at that time he was about 24, 25 years old.

He said um "But who would want to marry me?

I'm the poor orphan."

She said, "Oh!

Then why not my friend Khadija?"

(Ariella gasps) DAISY: And he said, "Khadija?!"

You know, I mean, he's so stunned that somebody like Khadija would even be interested, to send an offer.

RAHINA: "Why would Khadija want me?"

All she wanted to know was that, Muhammad, peace be upon him, didn't have anything against marrying Khadija.

She went back to Khadija and told her, and then Khadija proposed.

DAISY: He accepts the offer, and they get married.

And the marriage is, is in the home, and surrounded by Khadija's cousins and family and relatives and children.

And there's Khadija, and she's wearing this beautiful onyx necklace.

And he respects her so much for the fact that she's so cultured and she's so refined that the love just blossoms!

Blossoms, like right away.

DAISY: He's moved into her- into her home, because he doesn't have a home to offer.

And now the day he lands there, he's already a stepfather to Khadija's four children.

And he has real business acumen that's hidden because he has never been given a responsibility.

And she realizes that he has so many skills that she didn't even know he possessed.

ARIELLA: Because of his reputation for honesty, many merchants choose Khadija's caravan to take their goods abroad.

TAREK: And it's said that when the caravans left Mecca, the caravan of the people was, you know, this long, and her caravan of her stuff was the same length.

DAISY: The business keeps growing and growing.

Meanwhile, they begin to have a family.

So, the first child is a son, Qasim.

And Muhammad, who's an orphan, cannot believe that he has his own family!

And in a society that values sons so much, he feels like he's somebody now.

He's Muhammad, the father of Qasim.

DAISY: But then, within one year, Qasim dies.

And then they have another son.

And then, that son also dies.

So within the span of four to five years, they've already lost two children.

(wind blowing) TAREK: They had to bury their children themselves, which is probably one of the most traumatic things, you know, for a parent.

He and Khadija did that together.

They were there for one another.

DAISY: They bear with the loss, and then they have four beautiful daughters.

Now they have four daughters, and four children already, and then he brought his cousin, Ali, into his home.

You can imagine this couple is surrounded by nothing but children!

So, how vibrant must this home have been?

And they are honored by everybody, except Muhammad is mocked by some people in society, because, "You don't have a son, so you don't have a lineage."

Because in Mecca, a son was everything.

A son was the carrier of your name.

A son was your heir.

TAREK: He was a Meccan by every sense of the word.

He was fully integrated in his society.

But at the same time, there were many things that he didn't like about the community.

He'd never liked idolatry, he hated, detested that concept.

He- he loathed the economic disparity between people.

DAISY: He's financially secure, but there's something nagging inside of him.

He's looking for greater meaning in life.

So he goes on the outskirts of Mecca on this mountain called Mount Hira, and he goes and he contemplates in a cave.

Khadija is very supportive of his search, and she is sending food with him 'cause he's gone for long periods of time.

And then, one night, everything changes.

ARIELLA: After days and nights of prayer and fasting, he's awakened by an overwhelming presence that fills the entire sky.

(water splashes) It commands him to repeat the first words of the Qur'an.

"Recite!

"For your Lord is most generous, "and has taught by the pen, taught humanity what they did not know."

DAISY: He thinks he's going mad, and so he runs home and bursts the door open, and there's Khadija standing.

He's sweating and he's shivering, and all he's saying is, "Cover me!

Cover me!

"I think I'm going crazy!

I think I'm going crazy!"

She cannot believe that this is her husband.

TAREK: And she physically takes a blanket and she covers him.

DAISY: But I can imagine he probably relayed everything to her.

ARIELLA: I think about like, how would I have- what would I have done?

RAHINA: Mmm!

ARIELLA: You know?

Because sometimes, like, people will say certain things, and we're now bound to think that like, "Oh maybe they're not okay, maybe they're crazy, maybe."

RAHINA: Yeah.

ARIELLA: But no!

She was so steadfast.

RAHINA: Exactly.

You know, she could have said, "Oh!

"Why do you go to the cave, you know, to Hira, "and seclude yourself?

Why do you leave us?"

But instead, you know, she- she reassured him.

TAREK: She doesn't say, "You're crazy or wacky," to calm down, take deep breaths.

No!

She's like, "You're right!

This is true.

"Because you're an honest person.

"You come to the aid of the disenfranchised.

You help those who need- who need to be helped."

You know, "Your home is open to the stranger.

This is a true vision."

So she validates him completely.

DAISY: And she has a cousin whose name is Waraqah, he's a Christian monk.

And she says, "Let's go to him, and let's find out what experience you've had."

And they go and so, Waraqah sits down, listens to him.

Waraqah has studied Christianity, he knows about the Biblical prophets, and he said, "You are going to be the prophet of God."

But then, he warns, "Be careful.

Your life is gonna be in danger."

And imagine, you are the wife of a prophet now, and now you have to protect your husband, because you know that there are gonna be all these enemies who are going to come after you.

So she places her hand in him, and she says, "I'm your first follower."

So Khadija's the first one that says, "I believe in you."

And she becomes the first Muslim.

TAREK: And now they are a partner in this endeavor.

So her role, even though it's not out front leading, it's equally important because she's a buttress for the- for the- for the early mission.

She funds it, she supports him.

DAISY: Her home is that- is that first sanctuary.

He brings the noble people of Mecca, and he brings all the enslaved people who have put their- put their hand in his.

And so, he takes them all and he puts them in a circle to show people that nobody is above anybody else.

Human equality is going to be the defining feature of Islam.

It shakes up a lot of people because Mecca is very much a hierarchical society.

ARIELLA: Mecca's main industry is idol worship.

People from all over Arabia flock to the city, bringing trade and lucrative offerings to the many idols there, which the Meccan elite are happy to pocket.

Muhammad threatens the business model of the rich and powerful by declaring that there is only one God, a God too great to be depicted as an idol, too exalted to be bribed by offerings of gold and silver.

DAISY: So they reject his message, and the opposition begins.

The first thing that happens is, his daughter is married to a polytheist man.

And his family tells the son, "Divorce her."

And when Khadija and Prophet Muhammad hear that their son-in-law is being forced to divorce, Muhammad is in shambles because he loves his daughter so much.

And he begins to think, "What is gonna happen "to my daughters?

"If this is the impact on my children, what is my message going to do to the rest- to my family?"

Khadija consoles him and tells him, "Don't worry, everything will be fine."

ARIELLA: This is just one of many attacks he experiences.

The honored businessman becomes the object of ridicule and intense hostility.

More distressing: the heavens are suddenly silent.

Months pass with no new revelations.

He fears that God has abandoned him.

Just as he begins to lose hope, a revelation comes, one that Dr. Calabria pointed to on the walls of the Taj Mahal.

MICHAEL: On the great gateway that leads to the Taj, there is a chapter from the Qur'an.

"God has not abandoned you, nor does he hate you.

Did he not find you an orphan and care for you?"

(birds chirping) ARIELLA: The revelations resume.

With Khadija's wealth supporting the growing Muslim community, he begins a new phase of his mission.

(rooster calling) DAISY: Now he's publicly preaching.

And then you have some of the, you know, most important sons of the bigger tribes coming and joining the Prophet.

And the heads of the tribes get really angry, and so they decide to attack him through his finances.

ARIELLA: Mmm.

TAREK: In other words, his wife Khadija.

She funds the early venture of Islam completely, totally, and entirely.

DAISY: So they decide that the ultimate way to now get back at him is to place sanctions on them.

They decide not only to stop trading with them, but they decide to throw them out of Mecca and send them to another little distant area where they are cordoned off.

There's no food, no water allowed, nothing.

So the only people that take food in are people that love Khadija and the Prophet.

And all the wealth that she has begins to dwindle.

There's hardly anything left!

So much so that her cousin comes and he says, "Khadija, please!

"You're going to starve!

Your people are gonna starve!"

He begs her, he said, "Please!

Divorce Muhammad!"

And he even has a plan!

"There's a very rich man, marry another guy."

And Khadija looks at him and says, "As long as there "is a breath passing my lips, I am not going to leave Muhammad!"

ARIELLA: The small band of Muslims are without food or easy access to water.

Starvation weakens them all, especially Khadija.

Her strength ebbs by the day.

(insects chirping) (wind blowing) RAHINA: It was a very difficult period for the early Muslims.

And, at some point, you know, she was living on leaves.

ARIELLA: Leaves?!

RAHINA: Leaves!

Exactly.

ARIELLA: Wow.

RAHINA: And she was eating leaves and becoming sick, and she was slowly dying.

(birds calling) DAISY: And when she died, it was like something inside the Prophet also died.

RAHINA: His companions said they would hear him weep during the night.

ARIELLA: Ohh.

TAREK: That's the lowest point in the Prophet's life, that it was just so overwhelming.

Not only was it sorrow for him, but it was sorrow for the community, because she was the first.

You know, the first in everything.

The first to believe, the first to fund, the first to support.

The- the first to- to- to cheer on this effort.

ARIELLA: Shortly after her death, Muhammad's enemies try to assassinate him.

He barely escapes.

DAISY: At this point, the Prophet has to leave.

And he has received an invitation from Yathrib, which is today's Medina, to come and be their leader.

Yathrib is more friendly to him because people in Yathrib are monotheists.

So he goes to Yathrib and his next phase of life begins there.

TAREK: The Prophet never had any other wives when he was married to Khadija.

RAHINA: It was one of the few monogamous marriages that took place in Mecca.

ARIELLA: Wow.

Wow.

RAHINA: It was, you know, a polygamous society where it was very common for men to have multiple wives.

DAISY: After he migrated to Medina, he did marry women for reasons of creating alliances from the various tribes, because he realized, when he was with Khadija, his fiercest enemies were these tribal leaders.

So how do you create alliances with the tribes, is you marry into the tribes.

All these women except one were in their 50s, you know, 40s, some even had children.

He married many widowed women because he also wanted to show his followers that it was important to take care of widows and orphans.

Women without the protection of men were basically without security.

ARIELLA: He is far from his enemies in Mecca, but he's a bigger threat than ever.

Now he's on stable ground and has the support of a major city.

DAISY: They start sending scouts to fight with him.

You know, because they have huge armies, they galvanize, they bring their armies together, and so the Prophet is fighting wars with these, you know, Meccan armies.

TAREK: The eldest daughter of the Prophet, Zainab, she gets married to a man before Islam, and he was a pagan.

This guy gets involved in the battle against the Prophet.

And he's caught and he's a prisoner of war.

But Zainab is still in love with him... ARIELLA: Mmm.

TAREK: And is trying to free her husband.

DAISY: The Prophet gets a messenger, and the messenger has a gift for the Prophet.

And he opens up this gift, and it's the onyx necklace of Khadija.

ARIELLA: Ohh!

DAISY: The necklace that she wore on the wedding.

It's a gift from his daughter begging for the release of her husband in exchange for the necklace.

TAREK: The Prophet breaks down and starts crying.

DAISY: He asks his people, "Should I release him?"

And they all say yes, because they see the emotion.

So he releases his son-in-law and then gives the necklace back to him and says, "Tell my daughter never to sell this necklace."

ARIELLA: Mmm.

TAREK: Muhammad loved Khadija and Khadija loved Muhammad.

He says to his companions, "She believed in me when no "one believed in me.

"She supported me when no one supported me.

"She gave me a home when my own people "wouldn't give me a home.

God never gave me anyone as good as Khadija."

ARIELLA: His revelations continue.

They spell out societal reforms, they warn of punishment on the day of judgment for those who oppress the weak and neglect the poor.

Women are granted rights unheard of for the time.

People are urged to free the enslaved.

In a society wracked by violence, peace becomes a sacred value.

The message begins to take hold in that troubled society.

First a trickle, then a stream, and finally a river of people embrace his message.

In just a few years, an area about the size of western Europe is unified.

Even his Meccan enemies accept it.

For the first time, the Arabian tribes who previously raided one another and practiced vendettas that lasted for generations, are unified.

He returns to a Mecca that is no longer a capital of idolatry.

It is a Muslim city, a monotheistic city, and the center of Islam.

RAHINA: When the Muslims entered Mecca, many people were eager, you know, to- you know, to have the Prophet stay with them.

And what did he do?

He went to Khadija's grave, and he said, "Just set a tent for me next to her grave."

And that's where he stayed.

ARIELLA: He's now in his 60s.

Not long after unifying Arabia, he dies after a short illness.

He rests beneath the Green Dome in his adopted city of Medina.

Khadija is buried in Mecca, along with some of the other first Muslims.

TAREK: And it's almost impossible for us to conceive of the Prophet and what he accomplished in his life, whether it was before Islam or after Islam, without the presence of Khadija in his life.

She becomes the anchor for him to begin this incredible 23-year- journey that changed the face of history.

ARIELLA: A religion that began with just two, a husband and a wife, has grown to two billion.

This was a love that changed the world.

(rain trickling) I'm meeting with Celene Ibrahim.

She's the counselor for Muslim students at my school.

She was there when I began this journey, and I've been checking in with her during my quest.

I have so much to catch up with you about.

CELENE: It's so wonderful to be here, we're overdue.

ARIELLA: I know, I know.

And in your honor, look at the shirt I wore.

CELENE: "Fatima, Khadija, Maryam and Asiya," nice!

[laughs] ARIELLA: (laughing) I was like, "I'm gonna see Celene today, I must wear- wear this."

CELENE: Did you actually find it?

Did you have it made?

ARIELLA: So, you know.

it was...

I'm trying to gather my thoughts.

I'm trying to, like, wrap my head around all the things that I've learned.

That love is- love is sacrifice, love is believing in each other even in the worst of times.

Love means keeping each other's memory alive even when they're gone.

I want to understand from your perspective how you contextualize some of these stories.

CELENE: There's an element of trust to love.

I'm just thinking of Khadija and the Prophet, peace be upon them both, she's the first one to trust him that he actually is this messenger of God who's sent with this message that is the Qur'an.

ARIELLA: Yeah.

CELENE: And so much she put on the line.

We also have in the Qur'an Moses's own mother who gets this revelation to her heart to throw her child into the river, which, you know, this is what she has to do to save him.

And, and she has to trust- the mother of Moses, has to trust that this is from God and that she needs to listen to it.

And so she puts baby Moses in this floating basket.

ARIELLA: There was also a story about Moses's sister, right?

She was also very important.

CELENE: She's the one who saves him, essentially.

ARIELLA: Wow!

CELENE: So she's this really wonderful heroine.

So, he's floating down the river, and actually towards the palace!

So she, the mother of Moses, says to her daughter, "Follow him."

So out of a sense of loving her brother and wanting to save him, follows this basket all the way down.

ARIELLA: Oh my gosh!

So she followed the whole way there?

CELENE: Now keep in mind, this is a time when- when Pharaoh's armies are slaughtering the Hebrew children.

So she is tremendously brave to be able to, you know, approach the palace as a young girl.

And then, when Moses's basket gets pulled out of the river.

You can just imagine he must be crying, and what do you do when you have a crying baby?

You try to feed the baby.

And so Moses's sister is seeing this, and she sees that she has an opportunity.

And so she approaches the palace and says, "Shall I show you a house where he can be raised, where they'll take care of him?"

And with that, Moses gets returned to his mother just like God had promised - and again, trust.

(liquid pours) ARIELLA: As I'm trying to conceptualize love, I see a lot of these stories where it moves people to do things that maybe they wouldn't do otherwise, right?

This bravery that you were talking, right, about Moses's sister, to put herself in the line for the love that she has for her brother.

Not that different from a lot of the stories that I've been seeing, and it makes me think about the- the love of Shah Jahan and Mumtaz, and how it was about, you know, it was his love for her, Shah Jahan's love for Mumtaz that made him more of a believer.

CELENE: Mm-hmm.

ARIELLA: You know what I mean?

CELENE: Maybe Shah Jahan wants to change his life and take it in a new direction.

He's- you know, he's in a state of grief, he's in a state of loss, but perhaps also this monument is his way of reviving himself into a better version.

Whether it's Shah Jahan in India, or as you think about moving through the phases of- of your own adjusting to- to life without your dad.

Live with- with the feeling, it's a- it's a gift that will help you grow, it can take us out of that state of brokenness and, again, trust.

Trust that you will find that love you go looking for.

ARIELLA: I want to ask you, have you ever had your heart broken?

CELENE: Mmm.

I think I was more of a heartbreaker.

(both laugh) (rain trickling) Tomorrow We're shaking Wake up See the Sun come make it A new year And colors A new year Wake up Wake up I think we'll walk together ARIELLA: The story of Moses and his sister stayed with me, and it led me to the next stop in my journey, to another story of love between a brother with a famous name and his older sister, whose name I didn't know at all.

Yet she saved him in every way that's possible for one person to save another.

(typing) ANNOUNCER: 6:30 news program here on Channel 13, we presented a five-part series which we called, "The Hate that Hate Produced," a study of the rise of Black racism, of a call for Black supremacy among a small-but-growing segment of the American negro population.

MALCOLM X: You must realize in advance what's good news for you might be bad news for somebody else.

What's good news for the sheep might be bad news for the wolf.

FATIMAH: "The Hate that Hate Produced" was a documentary in the late '50s that introduced the Nation of Islam and Malcolm X to the American public for the first time, and through the lens of hatred.

But if you look at Malcolm, it's a love story, an untold love story.

In order to really be un- able to understand who Malcolm is, you have to understand that Malcolm was shaped and formed by love.

ARIELLA: Malcolm X's love for his daughters and his wife, Betty, is well known.

Less is known about the roles his siblings played, especially his half-sister, Ella Collins, who was the daughter from his father's first marriage.

She was 11 years older than Malcolm.

FATIMAH: Malcolm X is born Malcolm Little.

And the family experiences first hand a lot of the brutalities of racism at that time.

His father is eventually murdered early in Malcolm's life.

As a result, his mother actually suffers a nervous breakdown.

(indistinct chatter) ARIELLA: She's committed to a mental institution.

The state places young Malcolm into foster care.

FATIMAH: Malcolm was kind of, like, struggling.

He was getting in and out of trouble in the school system, so much to the point that his older sister, Ella Collins actually sent for Malcolm to live with her in Boston.

Ella was pretty established, she lived in the upwardly mobile section of Roxbury at the time, and she- Ella had big plans for Malcolm to do well.

She wants more for Malcolm than what he wants for himself.

She understands that he's been given a short hand, that he, you know, he didn't have the mother and father watching out over him the way every child ought to.

ZAHEER: She brought him to Boston to have like a better life.

But when Malcolm first got to Boston, he's kind of like this country bumpkin who has- has been in a sheltered life being exposed to this urban life.

Jazz and swing and dancing and the nightclubs and the zoot suits, the fashion, the clothes, the women.

He's completely drawn in.

Eventually Malcolm gets into what we would call the underground economy.

Drugs, by his own account, pimping, dealing, burglary.

Ella saw this first hand, but as much as she was dismayed about the direction that he was going in, she never put him out, she never disposed of him.

She- this was her brother.

This was her little brother, and she loved him.

ELLA: So when he- he was born, we expected great things of Malcolm.

After my father's death and um, his mother's having gone to a hospital, I felt that it was my duty to let him feel that life- the life that God gave him belonged to him.

He didn't have to pay homage to anyone.

This is how I guided him.

FATIMAH: She's constantly pushing for him to be the best version of himself.

Ella is there to remind Malcolm of not just who he is, who their father was, what their legacy is, and that he ought to be making better decisions for himself.

(door slams) ARIELLA: But her guidance can't save him from himself.

At only 20, he's arrested for a robbery spree and sentenced to eight to ten years.

FATIMAH: It would be hard for anyone who's just an older sibling to stay with someone when they are that committed to um, being the worst version of themselves.

And that's the part where I think, you really can see that, um, the connection is there, but there's something bigger than the- the connection is based on love.

Because she doesn't give up on him.

ELLA: In prison I was able to really direct him into accepting facts as a guideline to- to life.

Malcolm was able to see this and accept life from a realistic point of view.

I think all of the illusions that he may have adopted in his youth, from environment, I think he lost it in prison.

ZAHEER: When Malcolm was in prison, Ella didn't abandon him.

She visited him regularly.

In fact, Ella helped advocate for Malcolm to be moved to the Norfolk Prison Colony which had the huge library that would become so consequential to his self-education.

Ella was someone who had that deep love, and belief in his possibility!

Those bars did not remove his humanity or their relationship that was so important to his development.

And I think Malcolm knew that Ella was always there, and always going to be there.

And she was.

ARIELLA: While in prison.

Malcolm's older brothers introduced him to the Nation of Islam and to its leader, Elijah Muhammad.

Ella's not a member, but she has known Elijah Muhammad since childhood when their families lived in the same small corner of Georgia.

ELLA: Elijah Muhammad gave him a chance to excel.

Had not it been for Elijah Muhammad, I would have had to find possibly another field to project him through.

But Islam gave Malcolm a chance to really excel and build the Nation of Islam.

Much of the Nation of Islam is Malcolm.

MALCOLM X: It gives me great pleasure and an honor and a privilege at this time to introduce to you and present to you the messenger of Allah, your and my beloved leader and teacher, the most honorable and humble Elijah Muhammad.

(crowd applauding) (typing) PETER: I heard him speak for the first time in the Summer of 1962, and became an instant supporter.

Wherever he spoke in the New York area, I would go.

And if he mentioned a book that he- I would try to find the book and read it.

Because I had never heard anyone talk about race and white supremacy in this country the way he did.

He was the first person in my life that I heard talk extensively about psychological warfare, a war of the mind.

FATIMAH: I've interviewed so many African-American Muslims who came into Islam through the Nation of Islam in the early '50s, and when I ask them, you know, that seminal question, "Why did you join?"

they credit Malcolm.

But they're not just crediting Malcolm as a person, yes, they were in love with Malcolm, I mean it's a love story all around, there's no shortage of love, but they're crediting what Malcolm awakened in them.

So they're saying, "You know what?

'Malcolm came in there and he told us to love ourselves."

TARZAN: Aghhhh!

PETER: I begin to think back growing up in Tuskegee, Alabama.

And Tuskegee was about 90% Black at that time.

So I hardly ever saw white people, except when we'd go downtown to go to the movies.

Every Saturday, we'd be in there, like from about 10 in the morning until about 2 or 3 o'clock in the afternoon.

And they showed a lot of Tarzan movies, and a theater full of Black kids would be sitting there cheering for Tarzan and Cheetah, and laughing at the Africans, and regarding them as stupid.

So we would laugh at them and call them dumb.

I mean, when I was growing up in Tuskegee, you could call somebody a no-good you-know-what, a low-down you-know-what, an ugly you-know-what, a dirty you-know-what, but if you called them an African, or a Black you-know-what, you gon' fight.

Now with the other names, you may fight, you call them Black or African, you will be fighting, 'cause those were considered, you know, like a curse word, to call somebody African or Black.

ELLA: The Nation of Islam gave him a chance to recognize the lack of knowledge the masses contained.

PETER: Brother Malcolm was the one more than anyone else, I think, who got a whole lot of us out of that realm.

He awakened us to- on the fact that our minds, not only have we been physically attacked as a people, we had been psychologically attacked.

MALCOLM X: Who taught you to hate the texture of your hair?

Who taught you to hate the color of your skin to such extent that you bleach, to get like the white man?

Who taught you to hate the shape of your nose and the shape of your lips?

Who taught you to hate yourself from the top of your head to the soles of your feet?

Who taught you to hate your own kind?

Who taught you to hate the race that you belong to?

So much so that you don't want to be around each other?

No.

Before you come asking Mr. Muhammad, does he teach hate?

You should ask who - yourself who taught you to hate being what God gave you?

(crowd applauding) ZAHEER: Malcolm primarily was focused on getting Black people to love ourselves.

He understood that you could not engage in a freedom project with people unless you had unlocked their capacity for self-love and love within their community.

And so justice and um, the work for justice was very much dependent on Malcolm teaching this self-love, love aesthetically, the love of Black people's aesthetic, the love of Black spirituality, the love of Black political life, the love of Black communal life.

To lift up Blackness was not just an act of love, but an act of radical love.

FATIMAH: What's happening at this time is actually radical.

That whole transformation of the notion that "your dark skin makes you inherently inferior," to "this is a badge of honor, pride."

You are no longer just someone who came from a slave plantation and who had no identity.

You're connected to this long illustrious heritage.

They are told- being told to wake up and come alive to their true selves, to their true identity.

ZAHEER: And so, when we think of love, I think a lot of people might think of love in this really narrow sentimental way of like, romance novels, and for Malcolm, love was much deeper than that.

Now he had his romantic moments.

There's this part in his diary where he's traveling and he's like, wistfully saying, like, "I miss Betty," right?

So it's clear that Malcolm had that love capacity.

But for Malcolm that love went deeper.

It was a love of Black people, it was a love of freedom, it was a love of justice.

It was an understanding that you can't carry out justice without love.

ARIELLA: Malcolm's message of self-love strikes a chord with Black Americans.

Membership in the Nation of Islam jumps.

Many join after his speeches, but there remains one holdout.

ZAHEER: There's this quote, I remember when Malcolm talks about how he was trying to win converts to the- to the Nation of Islam.

And he said, he's like, "It would take Allah Himself to "convert Ella," like because she was so, he understood her to be so strong-willed.

ARIELLA: But after one of his talks in Boston, she surprises Malcolm when she rises with the others and joins the Nation of Islam.

As I journey further in the story, two things about Ella Collins are becoming clear.

She was a woman of strong opinions, and she did not hold them back.

ZAHEER: She ended up joining in the Boston Mosque and she didn't stay ver- she didn't stay long.

Malcolm in fact, had to mediate a dispute she had with the leadership of the mosque, and she ended up leaving the Nation.

FATIMAH: And she's still very supportive of Malcolm as a minister.

ARIELLA: Ella turns her energies to studying the Qur'an and aligns herself with the practices and beliefs of the broader Islamic community.

She saves her money to go on the annual pilgrimage to Mecca, which is the dream of every Muslim.

Malcolm also becomes disillusioned with Elijah Muhammad and leaves the movement to embrace traditional Islam just like Ella had done before him.

And like Ella, he wants to make the pilgrimage to Mecca, but going on the pilgrimage costs more money than he has.

FATIMAH: When he goes off his own way, he doesn't have the means to- to make the Hajj.

And this is something that Ella has actually been saving up for, herself.

So it's something that's important to her.

And remember, Ella has gone into mainstream Islam before her brother.

But still she says, no, Malcolm.

This is important.

ZAHEER: And she gave up her one shot so that Malcolm can make that journey.

That is a significant sacrifice.

ARIELLA: While in Mecca, he famously ate and prayed with people of all races.

And, he came face to face with something more.

ZAHEER: Some people say God is love.

It is the point of origin.

It is the end all and be all.

That is the source of love.

That is love itself.

That meeting with the source was symbolized in his Hajj.

ARIELLA: Ella later said that he returned from Mecca a new man, with a new name, el-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz.

Spiritually revitalized, he begins speaking publicly again and launches a new organization.

(car revs) PETER: I was working at Time Inc. in 1962, and one day I met a young Black woman, about my age, and so we started talking.

She said to me, "Would you like to be a part of a new organization?"

And I said yes.

She told me to meet at a- it was a motel up near- up near 153rd Street in Harlem.

After I'd been there maybe about 20 minutes, in walks Brother Malcolm.

I almost fell off my chair, because I did not, you know, it never occurred to me that he was gonna be, that I was gonna be a part of a new organization formed by him.

It became the Organization of Afro-American Unity, the OAAU.

Brother Malcolm's goal with the OAAU, besides helping us organize ourselves, was to take the United States before the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, and accuse it of being either unable or unwilling to protect the lives and property of Black people in this country.

And Sister Ella was supporting that concept.

Whenever he was doing anything really important, he would go to her, to get her reaction to it.

It wasn't like she decided everything he did, I definitely don't want to give that impression, because that's simply not true.

But he wanted her opinion.

He wanted to know what she felt about something.

He wanted to know- and she- 'cause he knew one thing about her- she would tell him straight-up the truth.

She was one of the few people I think that Brother Malcolm didn't mess with.

(laughs) He-he- when you saw him around her, boy, he was- I used to laugh and say, "Boy, when he was around her, boy, he was a whole different person."

You saw him being the little brother to his big sister.

Not only did he love her, he respected her.

ARIELLA: Crisscrossing the nation, his travels bring him back to Ella's home.

ELLA: He walked into my house.

He told me he was going to speak at Harvard that night.

He spoke at Harvard Law Firm- Forum.

After he came back to the house, I gave him a diploma.

"Tonight, Malcolm, you're a man, from my point of view."

He said, "I tried real hard, didn't I."

I said, "Yes you did.

"But you made it.

You're a man."

He was ready.

MAN: He raised his hand in a Muslim greeting, "Salaam alaikum."

At that point, I- I heard a rumbling behind me.

And I'm sure everyone else did too.

And I turned around in my seat to- to see what it was.

And, then we saw, like, I saw two guys standing up, and the next thing, my next impression, it all happened very rapidly as you can understand, is of the gunshots.

And I saw, Malcolm had his hand up.

He had said, he said, "Stay cool, stay calm," or something like that.

And just then the gunfire went off and his- his hand was up.

I remember this, I turned around quickly, and the next thing I saw was Malcolm falling back in a dead faint.

ZAHEER: When she learned of Malcolm X's assassination, Ella was with his family to identify the body.

PETER: After the assassination, she made an attempt, you know, to keep the OAAU going.

I went to- after about, I guess three weeks after the assassination, somewhere around in there, I went to a meeting but I was still in such a state of depression that I, I just kind of dropped out, away.

And- and many- most of us did.

ARIELLA: Ten years later, Elijah Muhammad dies.

His son, W. Deen Mohammed, loved Malcolm.

As Dr. Fanusie said, it's a love story all around.

He takes charge of the Nation and leads most of its members to mainstream Islam, a path laid by Malcolm and Ella.

It was the largest mass conversion in US history.

ZAHEER: I think Malcolm understood right up to his final moments that he had Ella in his corner.

He had Ella in his corner before he was Malcolm X.

He had Ella in his corner when he was Malcolm Little, this little country bumpkin wearing oversize suits.

He had Ella in his corner when he was an incarcerated person and with people that are often disposed of by society as having no future.

He had Ella in his corner when he was Malcolm X.

And he had- he had Ella in his corner when he was el-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz.

INTERVIEWER: Mrs. Collins?

ELLA: Yes?

INTERVIEWER: Alex Haley says that you are so much more than Malcolm's sister.

He said you were Malcolm's protector, his confidante.

Tell me about your relationship with Malcolm X. ELLA: I was thinking about him last night.

I felt responsible for Malcolm, from the beginning, as his sister.

Then I went along further, and I became his mother.

That's about the size of it.

ARIELLA: Radical love.

That certainly describes the stories of Layla and Majnun and the Taj Mahal.

And in the same way that Malcolm exhibited radical love for his community, Muhammad, peace be upon him, also expressed this love for his.

Muslims will say that they still feel that love today.

What remains for me is understanding how I can express such love in my life.

(engine roars) (typing) Well, I met a ghost one time and He became my only friend And we laughed and we cried Hiding in the cracks of fallen phones And broken glass ZAKARIA: Speak slow, so I know you can hear me.

This flow is a float where the spirits be.

It forms in my throat, and it steers me.

MARJAN: On the porch of my village home, I sit alone.

The sky strings an orchestra of pink pastels.

The language of love enters me through poetry.

SADIYAH: As the Sun begins to set, I will ask one of these children to name its colors, but stop them at every response.

If you won't say it like my husband would, then why do you have his mouth?

Love is invisible At least this I know Secrets are beautiful Hold hands with a ghost (crowd applauding) STAGE: Thank you very much.

(crowd cheering and applauding) ARIELLA: Three of the poets who performed are Muslim.

I learned that Marjan Naderi's family is from Afghanistan and she was Washington, DC's 2020 youth poet laureate.

Sadiyah Bashir is a well-known spoken word artist and Zakaria Ismail Kronemer is a musician and poet who's developing a model for sustainable farming.

ZAKARIA: To be able to let yourself feel love from people, there's a degree of vulnerability necessary.

Maybe it's not even people.

I'm a farmer, you know, by day at least.

And I- I've never owned land that I'm farming on.

I've experienced the loss of land, you know, I've experienced the loss of a relationship to something I really love deeply.

And, the question then is, can you still lo- be in a loving kind of interaction or interrelationship with something when you know that there's an end, you know?

MARJAN: Yeah.

SADIYAH: You could actually love the idea of the end, right?

Because sometimes the idea that, you know, this moment is going to end, right?

Kind of makes me love the process even more.

MARJAN: Yeah.

SADIYAH: Love the experience even more.

MARJAN: For me, I look to my mother and the world that she's come from, war, turmoil, Taliban, whatever it may be, and, when she's in her bouts of hopelessness, you know, I always challenge her, "Is my own love not enough?"

And she'll be like, "Of course," like, "You're the "only thing that matters in this life anyway, it's my offspring."

ZAKARIA: Actually the fact that we are here is evidence of the love of our ancestors.

Literally, not poetically.

MARJAN: Yes!

ZAKARIA: Love it's not just an emotion, it's a force.

MARJAN: If you want to know more about love, you turn to Rumi.

SADIYAH: For me, he's like a poetic ancestor, right?

Of teaching me how to write about love in these ways that are so just fantastic and amazing.

ARIELLA: Rumi, whose full name is Jalal al-Din Mohamad Rumi, was a 13th century Muslim poet and spiritual teacher.

Centuries later, he's beloved around the world and is one of America's best selling poets.

HUSSEIN: I was first introduced to Rumi by one of my undergraduate mentors.

And I asked him, "Why are we reading this 700-year-old poet?"

And he said to me, "Read him and find out."

And it was transformative.

And why he is so influential I think is because he has a life of transformation himself.

Can you feel it now Can you feel it now Can you feel it now HUSSEIN: A lot of people don't realize that Rumi himself was a scholar of the Qur'an.

And when we think of scholars, you know, it's the people in the library, and I say this as an academic, we don't talk to other people, we just sit there and read our books.

And that is who Rumi was.

One of the stories that we have of Rumi is that he's walking through the market with a stack of his books in his hand, and he's bumped by this man called Shams-i Tabrizi.

When they bump into each other, Rumi drops all the books on the floor, and he just gets really angry at Shams.

He says, "Do you know how valuable these books are?

How much knowledge is in these books?"

And Shams says, "Did you find God in these books?"

And Rumi says, "No.

"What type of question is that?"

And he picks up his books and he walks off in a huff.

And he continues walking through the bazaar.

And in these old bazaars, in these old markets, you had like a bookseller section, you had a rug-seller section, and you had the metalworkers section.

So he's walking through the metalworkers section and he's hearing the tuk tuk tuk and he's hearing these tack tack tack, and he's hearing these three, four different rhythms, and he's hearing something that he's never heard before, which is not just the rhythm of these hammers.

And I want you to do something for me.

Can you take your two fingers and just put it right here on your neck until you find your pulse.

ARIELLA: I got it.

HUSSEIN: Do you find your pulse there and you feel that rhythm?

ARIELLA: Yeah.

HUSSEIN: In the Qur'an it says "God is closer to you "than your jugular vein."

And Rumi would know this because he's a scholar of the Qur'an.

When he's hearing this rhythm in the market, what he's hearing then is his own heartbeat and then he starts hearing the divine.

And it's that that causes him to enter into his first moment of ecstasy where he starts dancing and uttering this poetry.

ARIELLA: It's said that Rumi sometimes composed his poetry while whirling, a mediation practice intended to draw a person closer to God.

(vocalizing) (vocalizing) ANNOUNCER: Salaam.

How is everybody?

This is in celebration of Rumi's birth.

I would like to thank all of you for coming.

We celebrate his birth with beauty.

With beauty and love, really.

So let's welcome Lida Saeedian.

She's worked 27 years now on a magisterial biography on Rumi.

So I have asked her to read a short poem of Rumi's.

(crowd applauding) LIDA: Rumi's knowledge was so vast, but still with all the knowledge there was a vacuum in his soul.

And he needed a spiritual companion.

Rumi approaches Shams and says "I am a spiritual seeker.

"Be my guest and come and live in my house."

Shams accepts, and it seems that in the first days, he sat in front of Rumi and observed his daily engagements.

He taught at four different colleges, had thousands of followers, so he was constantly busy.

Shams told Rumi "You gotta leave all this.

"You have to stop the teachings.

"You have to stop the writings.

"You have to stop "seeing all these people and we need to go into a solitary retreat."

A lot of their time was spent not in speech and discourse.

It was spent in silence.

And then Rumi says, "Please don't deprive me of the "talk of the secrets of the universe.

Speak."

And Shams says "It's not a matter of talk or speech - "it's a matter of realization.

"Shh.

Silence" HUSSEIN: One of the things that Rumi does so well in his poetry is that he'll build up this big, big idea, and then he'll end with the word "silence."

And the way we understand him under- ending with "silence," is that there is a point where you can't understand anymore through words.

So you have to follow his ascent of ideas and then figure the rest out yourself.

LIDA: They leave the retreat.

Rumi is suddenly a mystic poet, with poems streaming, pouring, out of his mouth already composed.

Not a word needed to be changed.

It's like Mozart, you know?

Mozart said, "I do not compose.

"It already comes to me already composed.

All I have to do is write it down."

TAREK: Rumi wrote about love, you know, he wrote about love of- of God and above all things the poetry of Rumi is an expression of the type of love that Islam and indeed the Prophet himself came to teach us.

And his poetry is a very accessible way to- for you to experience what that type of love in your heart can do.

How you end up looking at the world.

It's- it's beautiful, it's colors and it's diverse, but it all goes back to the same source.

Shams is able to unlock into Rumi- in Rumi a dimension that perhaps just needed a little bit of like a- a push.

He starts a spiritual order that continues till now.

We refer to them in English as the whirling dervishes.

This is the way that they have physically sought to inculcate in themselves these meanings.

ARIELLA: Rumi's transformation from this serious scholar to the joyful poet of love changes everything for him.

And his legions of admirers are thankful that it did.

But in Rumi's day, some are not so thankful.

They blame Shams for taking away their teacher and scholar.

One day, Rumi goes to meet Shams and cannot find him.

He's simply gone.

No note, no parting words of wisdom, not even a goodbye.

No one knows for sure what happened, it is likely that he was driven away.

Some scholars even think that he was killed.

Others say he may have left on his own accord, worried that he was becoming a roadblock to Rumi's growth.

But one thing is certain: the love Rumi felt for Shams defined his path, both in Shams's presence and in his absence.

So- so- so what's the lesson?

What can I do with this overwhelming pain at my father's absence?

I can't build a Taj Mahal.

I'm not going to lay on his grave and turn to dust like Majnun.

What is the secret of enduring love?

LIDA: "Yearning for you, "I'm restless day and night.

"How can I let day and night be day and night?

Like a camel, I'm under a load day and night."

(typing) ARIELLA: For a while, Rumi's so grief-stricken that he can barely function.

He offers a reward to anyone with information about him.

OMID: People come to Rumi and they're like, "Oh yeah, "we know where he is.

He's in China."

And he gives them the money.

And people are like, "They're lying!

"We know, like, they must be lying.

They have no clue."

And Rumi says "I know they're lying, but they said Shams's name in front of me."

(Ariella gasps) ARIELLA: Searching for meaning, Rumi's heartbreak takes him to the same story that started my journey - the story of Layla and Majnun.

OMID: So Layla and Majnun is one of our great, great love stories.

It is so popular and pervasive that there's probably 500 different versions of it in Arabic, in Persian, in Turkish, in Urdu.

There's hardly a Muslim language which doesn't have a Layla and Majnun story.

And the most famous story of Layla and Majnun that we have is the version that Rumi tells, and a few other poets tell as well.

Which is that the Khalifa, the ruling head of the whole Muslim community keeps reading these poems that Majnun has composed for Layla.

That "she's a girl of unpass- unsurpassing beauty and without her I don't breathe well" and all of that.

And so he's like, "Any girl who would inspire such extraordinary poetry is someone that I gotta know."

And just in case there's another one who's like, maybe even more beautiful, he's like, "Bring all the women to the court."

The day comes and he's just like, tingling with excitement.

And he goes to the court and a hundred women come in.

And he looks, and he looks, and he looks.

And no one woman stands out above the rest.

So he finally turns to the crowd and he goes, "Is one of you all Layla?"

Layla comes forward, she looks just like the rest of them.

And he goes, "You?!"

Like, "You are Layla?!

You are that, this Layla?!"

And she says, "I am Layla.

But you are not Majnun."

The spiritual path in Islam is about transforming our senses.

In order to see the beauty of Layla, you have to look through the eyes of Majnun.

The cultivation of Majnun-eyes is really one of the goals of- of the path.

And that's the defining feature of Rumi.

He sits with the pain, he sits with the suffering, until he says, "Today, I became free from the love of Shams."

And people say, "You mean you don't love him anymore?"

He said, "No, that Shams which I used to see "outside, now I see inside of myself.

I found the beloved inside of me."

So he starts by actually asking you to look deep deep deep within yourself and to sit with the source of your pain.

With everything that you are separated from- for some it's your loved ones, maybe someone who came into your life and left, and then for some people it's a sense of separation from God.

"Is anyone out there?

Is anyone listening?"

And probably the most painful one is when people are separated from themselves.

They had hopes and aspirations of how life was supposed to go, and it just hasn't.

He asks you not to block that out, but to sit with that pain.

But his is not a message of despair.

Every heart breaks, and your heart must break, but what a difference there is between a heart that merely breaks, and a heart that breaks open.

ARIELLA: What does that mean, for a heart to break open?

OMID: One who can see love in everyone and everything.

He calls it, "Seeing the one beloved in a thousand disguises."

AMBREEN: It's not the love, it's what the love makes you do.

TAREK: It's love that transforms.

It's that internal fundamental change and transformation.

HUSSEIN: Love should make you feel.

And that feeling should then be something that makes you act in the world.

OMID: Love is not a sentiment, it's not an emotion.

ZAKARIA: It's a force.

ARIELLA: Well how am I supposed to practically understand the world through these stories?

Me, me!

Not just anyone, not in theory, not in theory of what love looks like.

FATIMAH: Right.

ARIELLA: But really, like, what do I make of it?

FATIMAH: The loss of a human being in your life who cared and nurtured for you, I mean, I have an idea without ever having met him, of the enormity of his love for you.

(sigh) And on a practical, like, basis, like you, you're his future.

Like he's still here, because you're here.

It's not um, an abstract matter, this is concrete.

I've never met him and I feel like I know what's most important to him, because I know you, because I've met you.

Your dad's future is in you, and from what I see, you're giving your father a beautiful life.

ARIELLA: (crying) No, that's really beautiful.

FATIMAH: It's, yeah.

ARIELLA: I really appreciate you saying that.

FATIMAH: I appreciate you.

Yeah.

ARIELLA: Ugh, give me a hug.

(laughs) (indistinct) ARIELLA: I loved my father so much and it still hurts when I feel his absence.

But these stories have taught me that love does not have to end with the passing of a cherished relationship.

It can be transformed.

I think it's even meant to be transformed into something good, something greater.

Love has inspired great architecture, artwork, unforgettable literature, immortal poetry.

Love gives us fresh insights into familiar stories, and it has changed the world.

More importantly, it connects us to each other, to those with whom we are sharing this time with.

It even connects us to those who have lived and loved before us.

It even connects us to the source of all love.

Love is much more than an emotion.

It is indeed a force.

From my readings, I came across this line from a book called "The Secrets of Divine Love."

"Love.

"It is the reason there's something "instead of nothing.

"It is from the soil of love that all of existence "blossoms into being.

Love is why we're here."