MUHAMMAD: LEGACY OF A PROPHET 5 OF 6

PBS DOCS - MUHAMMAD: LEGACY OF A PROPHET 5 OF 6

A critical care nurse, Najah Bazzy is a second generation Muslim American who lives in Dearborn, Michigan. Her hometown has seen a massive influx of Muslim immigration as a result of the Gulf War. As she helps her colleagues understand and work effectively with their Muslim patients and her husband negotiate life with a teenage daughter, Bazzy says that Muhammad is her constant guide. "We live our lives through his examples, but he's not God," she explains. "Our reverence is to God. And our reference is to [Muhammad]. So how I walk, and how I speak, and how I carry myself, and how I treat my husband, and how I treat my mother and my father, and how I behave as a sister and a daughter and a nurse and a friend and a neighbor, that's all prophet Muhammad in action."

Although this documentary was well into production prior to 9/11, some of the American Muslim characters who help tell Muhammad's story were filmed after the attack. These sequences portray their reaction to this event, the aftermath they have experienced, and the controversial concept of jihad. Through a combination of commentary from Islamic experts and interviews with Muslim Americans, the program also addresses some of the difficult issues at the matrix of religious faith, cultural customs and Middle East politics, including women's rights and charges of anti-Semitism rooted in the historical conflicts of the 7th century.