Status
Call number
Collection
Publication
Description
We in the West share a common narrative of world history. But our story largely omits a whole civilization whose citizens shared an entirely different narrative for a thousand years. Tamim Ansary tells the rich story of world history as it looks from that other perspective. With the evolution of the Muslim community at the center, his story moves from the lifetime of Mohammed through a succession of far-flung empires, to the struggles and ideological movements that have wracked the Muslim world in recent centuries, to the tangle of modern conflicts that culminated in the events of 9/11. He introduces the key people, events, ideas, legends, religious disputes, and turning points of world history from that other perspective, recounting not only what happened but how those events were interpreted and understood in that framework. He clarifies why these two great civilizations grew up oblivious to each other, what happened when they intersected, and how the Islamic world was affected by its slow recognition that Europe -- a place it long perceived as primitive -- had somehow hijacked destiny.… (more)
User reviews
What Ansary argues isn’t the classic ‘clash of cultures’ that has been taught in the West dating back to the crusades, in fact for much of world history the west had so little to do with the middle world it would be hard to describe much of anything besides the 1st crusade and the current wars as a clash (at least from a wider view of World History). Instead Ansary presents a rather compelling thesis that Islamic history and Western history are two very different world histories trajectories that have only recently collided and are trying to work themselves out. Ansary doesn’t shy away from the uncomfortable implications of his thesis: "The argument between Christian and Muslim 'fundamentalists' comes down to: Is there only one God or is Jesus Christ our savior? Again, that's not a point-counterpoint; that's two people talking to themselves in separate rooms." The real disappoint with this book is that once he builds his argument to a final crescendo, he leaves it there with no satisfactory answer. An impossible task I realize and something that is going to have to play itself out on a larger stage.
As a non-Arab Muslim I have done a lot of reading into historical works and trying to place events and people into timelines and places. But this was not the narrative I grew up with. In fact, most of these events and people were never even mentioned in any of the textbooks I ever read. If you received a western education chances are this will be true for you too. What's great about Ansary's approach is that he tells it in an easy to understand way relating occasionally to western events and times that help the reader place what they are reading. I would say this could easily be considered likened to an idiot's guide to the history of the Middle East.
If your already familiar with Middle Eastern history (maybe you've read books like A Concise History of the Middle East or something along those lines) you'll still get a lot out of this book and if you know nothing about Middle Eastern history this book will certainly give you a strong foundation.
Ansary says in his introduction that "Destiny Disrupted is neither a textbook nor a scholarly thesis. It's more like what I'd tell you if we met in a coffeehouse..." He refers to this work as the story arc of Middle Eastern/Islamic history and that's very much what it is. His writing is fun and accessible. It is a very enjoyable read. He makes some aspects of Islamic history and culture very easy to understand. For example the Sunni and Shi'a split which is something many people do not fully understand. Not only does he explain it in easy to understand terms but he helps fill in what else is happening to the key figures and the thoughts of the ummah at the time. He breaks down understanding things like the main difference between major Shia sects as well as how things like Wahabism came into being.
He brings the story right up into the present day ending with an afterword of a post 9/11 world. Anyone familiar with Middle Eastern drama films will find a similarity in the ending of the book as being an unresolved abrupt end. Well... I guess that's to be expected since the Islamic world and Islam in general are in a major state of flux and change right now. Nobody can say where things are going right now for sure but after reading this at least we can understand a little better how we got to where we currently are.
I cannot recommend this book highly enough. In these turbulent times, it behooves us to be able to understand what drives the thoughts and deeds of those many of us have chosen to consider our enemies.
The author begins by telling us that his book is neither a thesis nor a scholarly work, and it is neither of these. Instead, it provides a broad overview of world history from an Islamic point of view -- structurally similar to the sort of world history students read in American colleges, but very different in its conclusions! Many of the events described will be familiar to readers of the standard "Western Civ" text. But they look very different in the perspective that Mr. Ansary presents. That difference goes all the way from the beginning of Islam to the current day, challenging underlying assumptions right and left, and shifting the cast of characters so that bit players in the Western narrative become central figures, while much of Western history moves to the sidelines.
For me, this is a very valuable experience: I learned a great deal, and I think I may understand current-day Islamic attitudes better than I did. Don't read this book if you are looking for a detailed and documented history of the Islamic world; as Mr. Ansary says, this is not a scholarly work. It is, however, a very wise and valuable one -- do read it if you want to know more about the world you live in.
This is all done with very little anger and with few illusions about the pain that mutual adaption will involve; Ansary displays little doubt about being justified in calling out the non-Muslin world for its ignorance, while at the same time observing that it's elements of the Islamic world who are going to have to rise above their self-contained understanding and embrace the wider reality, at least if they want to stop being ineffectual. The main exception is the blunt use of the term "holocaust" to describe the disaster that the Mongol conquest inflicted on the Islamic world.
The author narrates the book himself. Although I don't think his narration is as rich as a professional reader, his accurate pronunciation of names and places enhanced the audio experience.
I am a 73 year-old white man of reasonable education in the Western canon, and most of what this book said was new to me.
Probably something along the lines of what is in this book should be a compulsory (and larger) part of every Westerner's education.
The reason this book gets one star is the opening to the chapter on the Crusades and the Mongols. He starts off with a multi-page ranting chain of ignorance. According to the author, in 1100 AD the entire peninsula of Italy was still in smoking ruins overrun with Germanic barbarians (incorrect), no Europeans outside of Byzantium had made it to the East (incorrect, esp with Vikings), and the major advances in agriculture like crop rotation and the horse collar are "minor innovations of no note." No one bothered with Europe not because Byzantium was a huge walled city on a choke point armed with Greek Fire or that the Moors were beaten back by the Franks, but because there was "no one worth trading with."
I find I am fine with calling the Crusades what they are -- enormously ignorant campaigns of extreme hubris. I'm fine with the opinion that the Europeans were unwashed barbarians. But be very careful going into territory where ignorance on a subject shows through because after running into page after page of factually incorrect information, I could not reliably believe anything else I read in the book. It was invalidated.
Entertaining read but there are much better histories on the Middle East. Unless looking for an opinionated piece on the history of the world from one man's perspective, this one is a miss.