Destiny Disrupted:A History of the World Through Islamic Eyes
This is world history as it looks from the “middle world,” that enormous region situated between the western civilization centered in Europe and the eastern civilization centered in China. Tracing this other world-historical line from ancient to modern times illuminates, I say, the roots of Islamist extremism and helps make today’s turmoil between east and west a great deal more comprehensible. I spent many years working in the U.S. textbook industry. As an editor, I worked on several major high school world history books presenting the familiar Eurocentric narrative. But as a young history buff growing up in Muslim Afghanistan, I was exposed early on to that other narrative and in Destiny Disrupted, I tell that story. My chronicle begins with the other line of descent from Mesopotamia and Egypt—the one that runs through Persia instead of Greece. I follow this line through the time of Mohammed and the growth of Islam, both as a community and as a religion, through the rise and fall of many empires to the struggles and ideological movements that took shape in the modern Middle East and culminated in the events of 9/11. I introduce the people, events, ideas, legends, religious disputes, and key turning points in this vast narrative, not only in terms of what happened, but in terms of how the events were understood and interpreted. This chronicle shows why Western and Islamic civilizations grew up so 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 and disorganized—had somehow hijacked destiny.
Readers weigh in…“Destiny Disrupted: A History of the World through Islamic Eyes … is incredibly illuminating. Ansary pretty much covers the entire history of Islam in an incredibly readable and lucid way. I’ve been recommending this book to everyone I know.” “This is a marvelous book. Ansary has written an indispensable historical account of the last 1500 years from a perspective that is all too often ignored in the West. Destiny Disrupted will be read for generations to come.” “There’s not a page where you won’t learn something startling in Destiny Disrupted. Beautifully clear and endlessly engaging, it’s a romp through science, poetry, politics and religion, in the company of a wise and charming mind, the perfect antidote to the Islamophobia that clouds Europe and North America.” “Wow! What a story he tells. I keep searching for a metaphor. It’s like watching a huge setup of dominoes get knocked over. One thing leads to another. Everything makes sense. But no, dominoes are too predictable. It’s more like surfing the ocean waves. I can tell you this. I felt like I was surfing gleefully along through the book until I crashed on the rocky shores of current events. I’d like to disappear, and reappear in about a thousand years, and read Tamim’s history of the world at that point in time. |
Click Here to Buy Available in Italian
 Available in German
Destiny Disrupted is also available in Russian and Indonesian, and Dutch, Turkish, Japanese, Spanish, and Korean translations are underway.
… a vivid, often-wrenching narrative of world history from the perspective of the Muslim world — not just that which is at loggerheads with the West today but the Muslim world from the time of Muhammad through the crushing defeat of the Six Day War and beyond… Those who want a book with pointy-headed language and footnotes will be sorely disappointed …{Ansary] intends to tell the core stories of Islamic history replete with the human drama that gives them meaning to Muslims in the first place, “and if you’re on board with me, buckle in and let’s begin.” Readers who take him up on his offer will be glad they did. … Never apologist in tone, meticulously researched and balanced, often amusing but never glib, “Destiny Disrupted” is ultimately a gripping drama that pulls the reader into great, seminal events of world history… The San Francisco Chronicle says… … “Destiny Disrupted” is a great introduction to the history of the faith more than a billion humans profess. With friendly, conversational prose and a keen eye for revealing anecdotes, Ansary leads us through nearly 1,500 years of Islamic history, from the revelation of the Quran and the early life of the Islamic community, through the Abbasids, the Ottomans, the Mughals, and up to the beginnings of the 21st century … Ansary’s colloquial style gives these long-ago events a sense of immediacy and freshness. … Although “Destiny Disrupted” is written in a highly accessible style … Ansary’s history credentials are ironclad. He knows his stuff. “Destiny Disrupted” includes areas of Islamic history normally glossed over in Western history books — including a long look at the Khalifate, the importance of Mohammed’s succession and the Moghul and Ottoman empires … A book that corrects much misinformation about Islamic culture, “Destiny Disrupted is,” as one reviewer put it, “an antidote to Islamophobia.” Tamim Ansary is a gifted writer whose 2002 memoir West of Kabul, East of New York: An Afghan American Story is a must-read … In his new book, Ansary sets out to fill the noticeable Islamic gap in English-language world histories. … The prose is fun to read, often graceful, never dull, and steers clear of academic jargon … The book presents Islam not only as a religion, but as a social project that takes on political and economic questions and includes a complete system of civil and criminal law. Ansary doesn’t have one particular ideological ax to grind, and is clearly a secular, cosmopolitan intellectual, comfortable with ambiguity, paradox, and nuance. He refrains from … editorializing, but is also not afraid to call a spade a spade when he’s discussing massacres, wars, or imperial conquest. |
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As an educator and AP/College Board world history consultant teaching workshops for AP World History
teachers, I have found Tamin Ansary’s Destiny Disrupted a wonderful “tool” to encourage historiography and
comparative meta-narratives for teachers and students. I have championed using DD alongside our other
AP World History texts as a comparative to teaching the history of the Middle East.
John Maunu
Grosse Ile High School, Michigan, AP histories Classroom Mentor
AP/College Board World History consultant
AP Histories instructor 35 yrs.
Skimming through the English books of a big bookstore in Berlin, Germany, I followed the advice of a Russian visitor and bought “Destiny Disrupted”. What an eye-opener!
During the Cold War our understanding was limited by the “Iron Curtain” and behind that, so we were taught, there was nothing but the “Communist block”.
Through Tamim Ansary I learned that our history lessons in school were even far more inadequate: after the crusaders and the “Dark Ages” we hopped right into the Enlightment and Muslim, after being fought back in Spain and from Vienna, came only into our horizon as some noble figures in literature and opera: exotic and unreal, but exciting as “the Other” in adventure stories. And then eventually, full of amazement, the big question: Why are “They” so mad all of a sudden?
Thank you! DD was translated into German, as I found out meanwhile, and I hope it will have many readers. It’s a must for everyone who seeks a better understanding of our time and most entertaining on top!