Destiny Disrupted: A History of the World Through Islamic Eyes

I'm a major history buff. However, I'll freely admit to having done much more reading in American history than other topics. For example, I've read more biographies of George Washington than I have histories on Asia and the Middle East combined (unless maybe you give me partial credit for Japan and World War II). And, while such a trend is unlikely to change completely, I have started making some effort to branch out. An early pick for this effort was Tamim Ansary's 2009 Destiny Disrupted: A History of the World Through Islamic Eyes. Ansary's ambitious attempt to introduce the Islamic view of world history is fantastic, and well worth reading for any history fan, especially those like me who have been provincial in their previous reading. Ansary, who was born of an Afghan father and American mother in Afghanistan and moved to the United States in high school, is very well-suited to act as a bridge for the two worlds for his readers. He is able to see Islamic culture from an insider's point of view while also recognizing its place in relation to the Western view of history, and explain all of that to a Western audience - no small task, that. Ansary begins with a brief introduction the Middle East (itself a very Western-centric term, of course) before Muhammad's arrival on the scene. He then devotes a large segment of the book to Muhammad's time and that of the first four Caliph's to follow him. Since this was obviously such a major event in the formation of Islamic culture and outlook, the detailed look at this period is worth the space devoted to it, as it shapes everything that follows. The book then moves into detailing the political, social, and religious changes in and challenges to Islam over the years, and how even dividing that into three themes as I did is an artificial external imposition, since from within Islam, the political, social, and religious are so often all one thread. Ansary introduces all the major empires, religious schisms, and so on, until the Western narrative collides with Islam, at first with the minor - as far as Islam was concerned - detail of the Crusades - and then later in the 18th and 19th centuries as Western powers and greedy rulers slowly end up with foreigners calling the shots, openly or behind the scenes, in many major Islamic former powers. Ansary then details the natural response to that from Islam as it has sought to take back its own destiny. Ansary does an amazing job of bringing all the historical figures to life and entertaining the reader. As he states in his introduction, his approach is less an academic tome and more a conversation about just what the heck is going on over there with Islam. For such a broad and sweeping attempt to introduce the Islamic view of the world to readers unfamiliar with it, it's a perfect approach to engage while educating. I listened to Blackstone Audio's 2009 production of the book, narrated by Ansary himself. The production was very well done, and Ansary does a fantastic job. Author narration can be hit or miss, but Ansary really hits a great tone that's easy to listen to and indeed fits his conversational writing approach, and he nails all the pronunciation that another reader would trip over. The unabridged production runs approximately 17.5 hours. I've become a fan of Ansary with Destiny Disrupted, and I definitely plan to read more from him - and if possible listen to him. His history of Afghanistan, Games Without Rules, also self-narrated, is high on my to read list. I also aim to read more about some of the topics Ansary introduces from other authors, so much has my curiosity been piqued. Ansary does an amazing job of making a vital part of world history accessible to the average Western reader. Given the modern state of the world, it's imperative we Americans understand how our two cultures ended up where we are. Ansary's Destiny Disrupted is an excellent place to start.

As Americans moved past the initial shock of September 11, 2001, they began to ask a number of searching questions: Who were those people? What motivated them to give their lives for something so terrible? Who supported their senseless violence? And why do they hate us? We soon learned that those nineteen men who hijacked four airliners and destroyed the lives of thousands were self-proclaimed Muslims. They did not represent any one nation. Their common bond was the culture of radical Islam. Upon learning that, Americans then wanted to know what it was about the terrorists' religion that led them to believe that their actions were justified. Did they represent only the lunatic fringe? Or were their convictions and deeds much closer to the heart of Islam? President George W. Bush gave his answer when he told Americans, "These acts of violence against innocents violate the fundamental tenets of the Islamic faith." But not everyone was so sure. In a 1996 book titled The Clash of Civilizations, Harvard professor Samuel P. Huntington had claimed that the cultures of the Muslim world and of the West were inherently at odds with each other, and that the lines between them were what he called "the battle lines of the future." In the post-9/11 discussion, many observers suggested that the Huntingdon thesis anticipated those unspeakable events that had now come to pass. So who was right? Enter the latest book by Tamim Ansary, Destiny Disrupted. As it is with so many non-fiction books these days, once the title catches your attention, it's the subtitle that tells you what the book is actually about: A History of the World Through Islamic Eyes. Ansary might just be the very best person to write a book like this. He was born in 1948 in Kabul, Afghanistan, his father an Afghan and his mother an American. At age sixteen, he came to the United States where he graduated from Reed College, in Portland, Oregon, in 1970. Later, he traveled extensively in the Islamic world before settling on the American west coast where he has lived and worked as a writer ever since. Not only does he know both hemispheres, he describes himself as "resolutely secular" from a very early age. Ansary's basic argument suggests that the relationship between the Islamic East and the Christian West is never going to be simple. Why? Because their back stories are long and complicated and now tangled. As the author explains, "Throughout much of history, the West and the core of what is now the Islamic world have been like two separate universes, each preoccupied with its own internal affairs, each assuming itself to be the center of human history, each living out a different narrative—until the late seventeenth century when the two narratives began to intersect. At that point, one or the other had to give way because the two narratives were crosscurrents to each other. The West being more powerful, its current prevailed and churned the other one under. "But the superseded history never really ended. It kept on flowing beneath the surface, like a riptide, and it is flowing down there still. When you chart the hot spots of the world—Kashmir, Iraq, Chechnya, the Balkans, Israel and Palestine, Iraq—you’re staking out the borders of some entity that has vanished from the maps but still thrashes and flails in its effort not to die" (pp. xx-xxi). As you might have guessed, Ansary gives no easy answers to the question I raised at first. What he does, however, is much more significant. Starting with the civilization that flourished in ancient Mesopotamia and bringing the reader right up to September 11, 2001, the author provides a masterful, engaging overview of Islamic history. He includes, of course, the story of the life of Mohammed, the careers of his successors, the Crusades of Christians from the west and invasions of Mongols from from the east, the complex Ottoman Empire which eventually crumbled, and the rise of modern, secular Islamic states, followed by a conservative reaction, the evidence of which we see today. But beyond that, he explains how the Muslim story impacts and fits into the larger picture called world history. Here and there, Ansary takes the time to explicitly state what his storytelling implies. Here are a few of his most significant points: First, any credible account of world history will give appropriate space to the story of Islam. And as the author reveals, not only is that story significant, it is also fascinating. Most Westerners would never guess, for example, that in the 13th century Muslims were able make a stand against the invading Mongols by using a prototype gun they called a "hand cannon"; or that when William Shakespeare was writing his plays, the superpowers of the world were three Muslim empires; or that the steam engine was invented in the Islamic world three centuries before its development in the West. Second, although the West has traditionally ignored Islam, quite often a knowledge of Muslim history sheds light on our well-known western version of world history. A good example of this is the anti-philosophy project taken up by the great Muslim scholar Ghazali. Ansary tells how this man, by all accounts a towering academic, wrote a book explaining the Greek philosophical tradition, giving special attention to Aristotle. In a second book, according to his plan Ghazali set out to dismantle the system he had described in the first book. But, as fate would have it, the first one traveled far and wide, sometimes unaccompanied by the all-important refutation contained in the second. Consequently, and ironically, Ghazali's excellent description of Aristotelian thought led to a boom in its popularity most everywhere the first book was read. Fast forward to more than a century later, when an Italian Dominican priest named Thomas Aquinas set out to square the Church's teaching with Aristotle's philosophy. How many westerners realize that that influential work of Aquinas, which runs to dozens of volumes, owed so much of its inspiration to a Muslim? Third, the common American notion that Islamic terrorists hate the freedom of the United States is just plain wrong. Contrary to the rhetoric of George W. Bush, for example, those who plan to carry out a literal jihad against the U.S. do not resent the liberty of America. Instead, their rage is directed against what they regard as the boundless decadence and imperialism of the West, especially the United States. Along this line, Ansary relates what has to be one of the great geo-political tragedies of the twentieth century. In August 1953, the Central Intelligence Agency funded the violent ousting of Mohammed Mosaddeq, the recently-elected prime minister of Iran. Mosaddeq, who took a secular modernist approach to governing, looked to be the ideal Muslim leader. However, upon coming to power, he canceled Iran's lease with British Petroleum and announced that Iran would take control of its oil. As Ansary remarks, "Nice try." Eventually, the world learned that the United States actually sponsored the bloody coup that toppled Mosaddeq. Ansary observes that it would be hard to overstate "the shudder of anger it sent through the Muslim world" (p. 334). Since the end of World War II, the memory of a handful of events like the one just described has convinced a large percentage of the world's Muslims that the United States is, again, not only morally decadent, but hopelessly imperialistic. Fourth, when the West and the Muslim world address each other, their messages almost always miss the target. The two sides often speak past, rather than with each other. Ansary explains: "One side charges 'You are decadent.' The other side retorts, 'We are free.' These are not opposing contentions; they're nonsequiters. Each side identifies the other as a character in its own narrative. In the 1980s, Khomeini called America 'the Great Satan,' and other Islamist revolutionaries have echoed his rhetoric. In 2008, Jeffrey Herf, a history professor at the University of Maryland, suggested that radical Islamists are the Nazis reborn, motivated at core by anti-Semitism and hatred of women. It's a common analysis." (p. 350). Fifth, although Islam certainly is a religion, comparable to other religions like Hinduism and Christianity, it is many more things than that. Ansary says that Islam is also "a social project," belonging to the same category as communism, parliamentary democracy, and fascism. One can also think of Islam as a civilization, in the same class as Chinese, Indian, or Western civilization. And, Islam can also be seen "as one world history among many that are unfolding simultaneously, each in some way incorporating all the others" (p. 356). To summarize, in Destiny Disrupted, Tamim Ansary has presented the English-speaking world with an understanding of the sweep of history--and, therefore, an understanding of the way things are--from an Islamic point of view. By doing that, he has opened up a door that can lead at least "our side" towards a much-needed mutual tolerance. Anyone who wants to understand Islam and how it relates to world history and the present situation should read this book.

Destiny Disrupted: A history of the World Through Islamic Eyes By Tamim Ansary This is a rich compendium of Islamic history that chronicles important events in a highly descriptive manner atypical of the regular history books we know. It explains major roadblocks of Islamic history starting from the Pre-Islamic era through the history of the prophet Mohammad (SAW) down to the modern times. It has a very lucid introduction (please do not skip it) that tries to help give you the background to the multi layered events most of which are turbulent that characterized the Islamic history. Personally, I highly recommend this book to beginners like me who know little about Islamic history but keen to learn from an informed perspective devoid of primordial prejudices and biases. What I really like about the book is the writing style making it look like a novel. Tamim Ansary will take you along with him through the historic moments of Islamic history and make you feel as if you were truly there. Reading about the Mongols invasion, I almost felt as if I lived and survived that defining period. It was written in a very simple language suitable for beginners. Let me mention however, the author is an American Afghan who emigrated to the US in the 1970s and probably a muslim too. It was difficult for me to ascertain where Tamim belongs from the Islamic sectarian perspective as he seems to be everywhere in trying to narrate the history. This book might not be for you if you hate surprises and probably have a biased mindset about Islamic past and still want to live with the history painted by your Sheikhs. One major area missing in the book is the little time spent dwelling on the major events during the Abbasid era such as the Baitul Hikma and all the tremendous progress made through the Islamic Golden age in sciences. If you need more about it then you probably have to consult another book I recently read called ‘The House of Wisdom: how Arabic Science saved ancient knowledge and gave us renaissance’ by the unrepentany atheist Jim Al-khalili. Another shortcoming of the book, in my opinion is the lack of treatise of an important milestone in the Islamic exegesis. This has to do with the advent of the 4 juristic schools in Islam, viz Hanafy, Maliki, Hanbaly and Shafii. Overall, this is a great book in this era of social media where everyone seems to be his own sheikh but without solid background in Islamic history. Personally, this book deserves a 4 star out of 5.

As an AP World History teacher, I was excited to read Ansary's book and was hoping for a deeper understanding of the Islamic world than I already possess. My students ask really good questions and sometimes I don't feel as intelligent about the Muslim world as I would like, so I was hoping for more insight. While this is a good, solid history of the Islamic world, I did not, for the most part, feel that I received a deeper understanding of the Islamic civilization. It is more surface level and much of the information is covered in typical world history textbooks. The book covers Muhammad, the growth of Islam, the powerful caliphates of the Umayyad and Abbasid, the scientific innovations of their glory years, the disruption caused by the age of exploration, the decline of the Islamic gunpowder empires, the Tanzimat Reforms, etc. That being said, it was still a very solid history and I am definitely keeping this book and plan to re-read it again in my summers just to refresh myself with the information. While it may have been a little too flattering of the Islamic civilizations, I kind of expected that going in. Not overly biased by any means, but definitely more appreciative of Islamic developments. I would highly recommend the book for anyone looking for a comprehensive history of the Islamic world who does not already have a fairly strong understanding of the subject. The best part of the book, by far, was Ansary's writing style. He writes in a very conversational, easy-to-understand tone and it was a very fast read. I actually just purchased another of his books, The Invention of Yesterday, because I enjoyed his writing style so much. The information on Muhammad's successors was quite interesting (how and why they were chosen and why Ali was passed over repeatedly). Chapter 11, "Meanwhile in Europe" was one of the most well-written explanations of the age of exploration that I have ever read! I was blown away by how good that chapter was. Chapter 12, "West Comes East" was also very well-written and probably the most useful chapter for me as Ansary made excellent connections between the age of exploration and the reasons for the decline of the Ottoman, Safavid, and Mughal Empires. I had a hard time with the final chapters of the book. They seemed to really start dragging and the information about the secular modernists was difficult to understand as someone outside the Islamic religion. Overall, Destiny Disrupted is a solid history of the Islamic world by a very talented writer. I highly recommend.

Ansary, an American from Afghanistan, wrote a short and entertaining history about the Muslim world for a Western audience. This `alternative history' has been highly praised by some of my amazon friends. I am mostly with them, but not completely. The concept (tell history from a different angle) is intriguing, but the implementation is not always entirely convincing to me. What we get is a Western perspective on a Muslim perspective of a history of encounters between the Muslim world and the West. There are some new insights for me, so I still rate the book 5 stars, but for some minor but plentiful irritations, I theoretically deduct half a star. For the time before Islam arose, Ansary uses the term `middle world' in contrast to the Mediterranean world: while `Western civilization' was build around the sea and was largely based on sea lanes, the future Muslim world started out as a region based on land routes and trade connections. This is the region from Turkey and Egypt eastward to Central and South Asia. I had not been aware how peripheral the crusades were to the Muslim world's perception. Clash of civilizations? Hardly. Where was that civilization of the Franks? And the events really did not penetrate much into the Muslim part of the world, nor into the popular awareness. I had also not realized how devastating the Mongol attack on the Muslim world had been, not just in terms of mass murder (Ansary uses the term `holocaust'), but also because of the desertification of the Iran/Afghanistan region: the irrigation infrastructure was destroyed! I definitely need to read more on the Ottoman Empire. When Europe started its revival after the dark ages, the Muslim world was blooming and busy with itself, so the growth of the rival remained unnoticed for some time. Ansary's theory is that Europe overtook Islam in scientific and economic dimensions because the development of science in Islam was obstructed by the dominance of religious dogma. Europe freed itself of these chains with the reformation and the growth of mercantilist nation states. (While I find this convincing, I am sure some of my catholic friends will protest.) I have some issues with the book, which may all be minor in the overall reckoning, but they annoy me enough to take away half a star. There are too many inaccuracies in this edition. I am a map fetishist. The book has maps. They are instructive, but not all of them are correct and consistent. Start with the one on the present Muslim world, page xvi of the introduction: The Asia version here is just not right. Yes, there is a Muslim majority island in the Philippines, but it isn't Luzon! And how come Bali and East Timor are painted black? And is Bangladesh really that small? And was Pakistan forgotten? And then, page 2, map of the `middle world': why does China have to be moved to Siberia? And then: page 196 has a map showing the 3 Muslim empires of the Ottomans, Safavids, and Moghuls as `Muslim world'; but 5 pages later we get a map showing the sea routes from Europe to the Asian markets, and suddenly the Moghul empire is not part of the Muslim world any more. Inconsistent! And by the way, the Kingdom of Leon was not `north of Spain'! Unless the author or publisher has redefined Spain, Leon is in the north of Spain. Maybe that is pedantic, but I like books to be made with a professional effort! Apart from maps, I stumbled over this description of the early years: the Jews in the 6th century Arabia are said to be `resolutely monotheistic'; this may be so, but then Abraham's religion is also later called `resolute monotheism'. I take exception to that. I do not claim to be an expert on the Old Testament, but from my experience with this fascinating and revolting text, I say: no way were the Jews of the Old Testament monotheists! Ansary is making the mistake of confusing `worship one god' with `believe that only one exists'. More a question to the experts than a complaint: Ansary repeats the myth (?) that Islam saved Aristotle's texts from extinction, via Arabic translations of the Greek, which were then re-translated. I thought the ancient Greek texts had also been preserved in European monasteries. I think that the preservation happened both ways, therefore the claim in the name of Arab science is not compelling. I found the chapter on the prophet's life shockingly uncritical. Similarly, the caliphas are painted in pink. A typical sentence reads: the anecdotes are too consistent to dismiss. Really? Actually, this sentence annoys me. Is the author so naïve to believe that tradition would have let any other anecdote survive? Doesn't he know how tradition works and selects? The prophet was a nice simple kind man, says Ansary. The execution of all Jewish men in town was just par for the course, right? And as a (former) Lutheran I take exception to the statement that Luther nailed his 95 theses to the Wittenberg church door on Halloween day. That is taking anachronism too far. Now I am coming back to my headline: which destiny was disrupted and why? I think Ansary has shied away from his implied question: why did the blooming Muslim empires collapse without much of a gasp at the onslaught of European imperialism? Complacency and arrogance are the normal answers in this kind of situation. Could history repeat itself? Personally, I rather hope not.

Ansary, who grew up in Muslim Afghanistan, tells the story of world history as the Islamic world saw it from the time of Mohammad, through the fall of the Ottoman Empire to modern post-9/11 times (but pre-ISIS). He discusses, in fascinating, well-documented detail how our civilizations grew up seemingly oblivious to each other. He prefers to refer to what we call “the Middle East” as “the Middle World”— the whole area from the Indus to Istanbul—since Middle East assumes that one is standing in Western Europe. I doubt the term will catch on but it’s well-founded. What is particularly notable is the author’s very balanced, neutral view of things, considering how difficult it can be to compare these world views. That is to say, he pulls no punches in portraying the early years of Islam with assassinations, extreme corruption, wars and battles, backbiting, conspiracies and general nastiness among Shi’a, Sunni, Sufi, Sikhs and other splinter groups including later developments of Wahhabism, Salafism, etc. Of course Christian Europe comes in for its share but the conflict of civilizations is well-balanced. But where the book really shines is in its presentation of how various discoveries, scientific achievements, and historical world events were built from one another successively in an interconnected way — to borrow the terminology of the excellent BBC documentary series, "Connections." One historical theme in particular stands out: dealing with the Crusades — an inherently Europeanized concept. From the Arab side, it was not an epic struggle between Islam and Christendom…that was the story line the Crusaders saw. Instead of a clash of civilizations, the Muslims, who called this period the Franj Wars, saw it as a calamity befalling civilization itself. When they looked at the Franks they saw no evidence of civilization, just uncultured warlike beasts. The book then connects how the Crusades gave way to what Europeans call the Age of Discovery as the seafaring Europeans sought to find a way to avoid the Muslim problem involved in getting through the Middle World, eventually leading to Columbus seeking a more efficient direct route. In my personal view, it is essential to understand modern ISIS terrorism, Boko Haram, al-Qaeda, Taliban and other no-doubt soon-to-arise outrages in the context of their historical roots. These groups didn’t simply arise by accident or as religious pranks. Each can usually be seen as the response mechanisms of peoples who feel disenfranchised, outraged, powerless to combat social/religious abominations, often—usually—because of the direct exploitative interventions of Western interests. This in no way excuses atrocities but perhaps offers a lesson to be learned about hazards of cultural imperialism. My only criticism of the book is its vague and unhelpful main title which seems to have been selected for its alliterative value rather than informing us of anything. In fact, though I spend considerable time reading, highlighting and annotating this fine book, I'm invariably at a loss to tell someone what the title is.

A good history is synthesis; its author judges for themselves what constitutes a 'major event' or current of history and crafts these events into a narrative arc. This is why history is also subjective - different people will decide what is major or minor differently. Most histories I've read, whether it be H. G. Wells' Short History of the World/ Outline of World History, or the book I read recently titled A History of Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years suffer from the sin of Euro-centrism (like most standard world maps, I might add). For the period from just before the birth of Christ to the 'end of history' announced by Fukuyama at the end of the Cold War, they focus on first the Roman Empire, then its decline, and then the continent of Europe with brief forays into Asia Minor and the Levant. These histories tend to oversimplify things like the Hun or Mongol invasions as "barbarians coming from the East", as though these tribes appeared in the middle of nowhere fully formed and attacked "civilization". This is why Tamim Ansary's book is a refreshing departure. He focuses on the other world history - the history of first Islam, beginning with the life of the Prophet Mohammed, the Khalifate(s) that followed and then the fortunes and misfortunes of the Eastern Empire centered on Istanbul and its inheritance. I found it telling that rather than treating Islam (in his words) as part of a set also containing Christianity, Buddhism, Judaism, Hinduism etc, OR as part of a set also containing Communism, Capitalism, Socialism etc, OR as part of a set of civilizations - Roman, Western, Eastern, Indian, Chinese etc, he treats it as another history, whose jagged edges fit into the Europe-centered world history that most of us learnt in school. Yes - Islam is a religion; yes, it is a civilization (an umma), and yes it is an 'ism' that prescribes a social and moral framework. As the author tells it however it is also a story, interrupted by the forces of industrialization, of nationalism, and constitutionalism. It is the story of how the Prophet and his followers set out on a great social project - to set up a Dar al-Islam, an oasis of peace, a Khalifate where right living, morally upstanding people would have no fear and where violence would not rule. It is also the tragic tale of how the project has foundered as it was battered by internal strife and external factors outside its control. Even as a person living amid this stream of history much ignored in the popular conscious, I was surprised how many facts I learned from it. The roots of modern phenomenon like the Muslim Brotherhood, or the Aligarh and Deoband movements, or on the philosophies of Ataturk, Jinnah, and others' with their Secular Modernism were all news to me. I appreciated that he halted his story for the most part by telling of the Six Day War in 1967 and its aftermath, leading all the way to the two Gulf Wars and 9/11. He does speak of the current state of Iran, Iraq, Turkey, Syria, Israel, Lebanon, Jordan, Algeria, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, but in passing; as he puts it, events after 9/11 haven't been "mulched" enough for synthesis, and I agree. The same goes for the "Arab Spring" and recent events in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, Syria, and so on, which were actually about to unfold as this book went to press. As far as the book goes, it loses one star only because of the writing style, which is replete with modern idiom and light-weight/ informal words like "guys" and such. I suppose I prefer my histories to be more formal! In the final analysis, this is a must-read, especially for anyone who like me is tired of this narrative of the "Clash of Civilizations" or "West and East" (or worse, over-simplified Democracy vs Fundamentalism cage match narrative from the American Neo-con camp!). It is a succinct (perhaps too succinct in parts) introduction to the story and the philosophy of Islam.

On the recommendation of the Amazon community, I picked up _Destiny Disrupted_. In a word, it was marvelous. Ansary aims to write a history of the Middle East from the perspective of the Middle East and succeeds brilliantly. His writing is almost conversational (writing for a broad audience rather than an exculsively academic one), but his treatment of the subject is thorough and comprehensive. The first four chapters alone are worth the price of the book, as he gives the best summary of the birth, growth and expansion of Islam I have read. What a treat, then, to have an additional thirteen chapters discussing the intellectual flowering if Islamic thought and the later challenges and crises the Islamic world faced after 1000. Most readers, however, will want to read the last few chapters in which he explains the intellectial and political divisions within Islam, and the role (as both proxy and perpetrator) the United States plays. In particular, his treatment of the American involvement with Mossadeq in Iran (coupled with our involvement with the Suez crisis in 1956 and the material support for Israel in 1973) should be mandatory reading - it does much to explain the mistrust and frustration (notice I don't use the word "anger" here) the Islamic world has towards the US and our policies in the Middle East. I was also struck by his treatment of Israel; it is uncommon to find a writer who is able to explain the myriad of forces at work there with as much objectivity as Ansary does. In brief, Ansary shows that there is no "clash of civilizations" between the West and the Islamic world, but rather "the friction generated by two mismatched histories intersecting." I wholly agree. If we are to ever understand each other, the first place we must begin is by understanding each other's histories - and better still, to empathize and see how events and actions have not only influenced, but been perceived by the other side. Ansary's work is an excellent effort in this regard. Highly (and enthusiastically) recommended.

Great histary

This book gives a clear brief description of the history of the Middle World with some deep thoughts on the recent history!

Very fast seller. And very reliable, and very kind. Simply perfect.

Felt like reading a game of thrones. Highly engaging. I have never read a non-fiction with this much engagement. You get some idea on how many famous historical fictions are made based on true events.

People in the review section losing their minds because this book contradicts western narrative about a few things. This is a book about the view on history from Islamic eyes. Of course thinks will be written in a different way when you tell the story out of a pov. In conclusion: this book is amazing. I really enjoyed reading it and learnt a lot about Islam and the Middle East itself. It really made me question a lot about what I thought of „history“ so far. If you like it or not, people will always write and tell things differently when it benefits them. Do your fact checks through multiple sources and get your own understanding.