A meditation on the themes of love of the Prophet, veneration of holy sites, grace and symbolism. This film tells the story of the meeting between the Prophet Muhammad (Peace and Blessings be upon Him) and a Christian monk named Bahira. The meeting happened in the shade of a tree.
Fourteen hundred years later that same tree was discovered still alive in the northern deserts of Jordan. The only tree alive in hundreds of square miles of emptiness. This tree is a link to the life of the Prophet and a place of pilgrimage today...
Those interviewed for the film include:
His Majesty King Abdallah II of Jordan
H.R.H. Prince Ghazi bin Muhammad
Shaykh Dr. Muhammad Sa'id Ramadan Al-Buti
Shaykh Al-Habib 'Umar bin Hafeeth
Shaykh Al-Habib Ali al-Jifri
Prof. Seyyed Hossein Nasr
H.E. Shaykh Dr. Ali Jum'a
Shaykh Abdal Hakim Murad
Testimonials:
'"The Blessed Tree has a fruit, the seed of which plants a new branch of Iman (faith) in the heart. I literally felt my Iman increase while watching this film. There are parts which would reduce even the hardest of hearts to tears."
- Hamza Yusuf Hanson
"A warm and remarkable witness to one of history's most symbolically crucial religious encounters. The meeting of a devout Byzantine Christian hermit with the future Prophet of Islam in the Syrian desert, is conveyed in a deeply convincing feat of historical reconstruction." - T.J. Winter
Quotes from the film:
"In this place, we pray to God to make our hearts containers of the love of the Prophet (Peace and Blessings be upon Him)."
- Shaykh Dr. Muhammad Sa'id Ramadan Al-Buti
"The Prophet sitting under this tree, and its reacting to the Prophet makes the tree the only living terrestrial witness to the Prophet , what we would call in Arabic a sahabi."
- H.R.H. Prince Ghazi bin Muhammad
"This tree was blessed with the touch of the Messenger of God (Peace and Blessings be upon Him)."
- Shaykh Al-Habib Ali Al-Jifri
"That thing that deserves to be loved most is that which brings forth from the depths of our spirits the recollection of the Divine Name. The title of the Holy Prophet of Islam is Habib Allah, the Beloved of God. This hub, this love for the Prophet could be described as the great transformative emotion of Islam."
- Abdal Hakim Murad
"You have to be able to apply a symbol in a wise way, from one domain of reality to another. There is, in a sense, a vertical dimension that goes through our heart vertically through our head and up to Heaven. The line of transcendence. This is the inner tree. The roots of it are actually the roots of the Divine reality in our hearts. For most human beings this tree has dried up because they are not aware of its roots. It is virtually there but not actually; and the spiritual life means the reviving of this tree within us by sinking the roots of the Divine once again in our hearts."
- Prof. Seyyed Hossein Nasr