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This series is a history told through 'things', and this programme is about two coins-about what we would now call a currency change. But they're two coins that sum up one of the greatest political upheavals ever-the permanent transformation of the Middle East in the years following the death of the Prophet Muhammad. For Muslims, the clock of history was reset when, in 622 in the Christian calendar, Muhammad and his followers moved from Mecca to Medina. That event, the Hijra, became for Islam Year 1 of an entirely new calendar. For his followers, the prophet's teachings had so transformed society that time had begun again.
这两枚第纳尔概括了世界史上最重大的一次政治与宗教巨变：先知穆罕默德去世后，中东发生了永久性的改变。对穆斯林来说，穆罕默德 及其信徒从麦加迁到麦地那是历史的起点。这次希吉拉事件发 生于基督教纪元的622年，也是伊斯兰新历中的希吉拉元年。在信徒眼中，穆罕默德的教义从根本上改变了世界，因此时间重新开始了。
The objects we'll encounter this week will show something of what the world looked like at this particular moment. They were all made in the years around Muhammad's death in the year Hijra 11, 632 AD, and we're travelling to China and Mexico, England and Korea. Everywhere we'll be looking at the interaction of power and faith.
接下来的几件物品都表现了世界在这一关键时刻的样貌。它们都大致制作于穆罕默德去世那一年，即希吉拉11年，公元632年前后，分别来自叙利亚、中国、英国、秘鲁和韩国，向我们展示了这些地区权力与信仰的交互作用。
In the 50 years after the death of the Prophet, Arabian armies shattered the political status quo across the Middle East, conquering Egypt and Syria, Iraq and Iran. The power of Islam had spread as far in a few decades as Christianity and Buddhism had in as many centuries.
先知去世后约50年，阿拉伯军队便改变了中东的政治现征服了埃及、叙利亚、伊拉克和伊朗。几十年间，伊斯兰教的势力范围就达到了基督教和佛教在几百年间所传播的范围。
We're in Damascus in the mid-690s, and the inhabitants of the city all have a strong sense that their world is in transition.
七世纪九十年代中期，大马士革的居民们一定发现自己的生活正发生翻天覆地的变化。
