Important events of Islamic history

Tamim Ansary covered in his book “Destiny Disrupted” almost most important events of Islamic history from the rise of Islam as a religion till this recent decade. Indeed, He stated his by describing Arabs status before the emergence of Islam, and he used the term “The Middle World” referring to what nowadays known as Middle East. Concerning to the Prophet life, it was similar to most of God’s messengers, the life of Prophet Mohammed was not luxurious, he didn’t see his father, and his mother died too when he was still children. Prophet Mohammed grew up in his grandfather house, who predicted that this child “Mohammed” would have a significant status in the future. After his grandfather’s death, his uncle called “Abu Talib” adopted and treated Mohammed as a son. When he became an adult, most of people during this time look to the prophet as an honest, fair, truthful, and respectable, while he started his straggling with what called “midlife crisis”. Then, he began to visit the cave constantly, and in a certain day, he heard a voice called him to recite, this moment was the beginning of the prophecy of Mohammed (P.B.U.H.). In 622, after twelve years of revelation, the prophet with Abu Baker decided to leave Mecca and go to city called Yathrib “Medina”, which is the formation of Hijri calendar.

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After establishing of the first headquarter of Islam in Medina, the Prophet Mohammed had been died and this started new Islamic era which is Khalifate. Muslims were shocked even some of Prophet’s companions, when they knew that Mohammed “the Prophet” is dead! During this shock, Abu Baker, first man become a Muslim, became a first caliph. Then the caliphs were as following, Omar, Othman, and finally Ali. There were some controversial issues after Ali succession and the main issue was known as “Schism”. Following to these four rightly guided successors, there were many different ages, such as Umayyad, Abbasid, Fatimid, and Ottoman. Regarding to Umayyad, they faced several troubles as an empire with some Muslims who didn’t recognized them as a ruling family for Muslim, because it was for the first time the Khalifate become by inheritance. Also, at the beginning of Umayyad dynasty, some people named themselves as Shiites, who became after Ali’s death. Then, the Abbasid density replaced the Umayyad. Fatimid era was known of the Fatimid fighting against Crusade campaigns. Last Islamic Khalifate “Ottoman” it remained to more than six centuries that make the Ottoman Empire one of the most significant era of Islamic history.
Muslims were not so closed; indeed the location of the Islamic Empire encouraged them to interact with the entire world, while it is in the middle world. There were numerous efforts by many Muslim scholars to figure out what was wrong and how the Muslim world became like this, an example of these scholars were Hassan al-Banna, Jamal al-Din Afghani, and the one who preceded them Mohammed Abdul Wahhab. Many different ideas came up about this mysterious problems, one of the fundamental issues was the secular movement that certainly came from the West, by three main aspects which were Industrialization, Constitutionalism, and Nationalism. First of all, after the invention of steam engine, which was the most significant outcome of the Industrial revolution, Europeans managed to spread their goods in the entire world, while Muslims invented it -the steam engine- three centuries before the Europeans did, so why did it makes this effective transformation in the West, and did not in the Muslim world? Second, a new class emerged in Iran complained about the dominance of arbitrary power, therefore they demanded to create a society which could organize a good structure for each individual whether ruler or ruled, simply they wanted a constitution – an important precondition to reach democracy- like what Europeans have, in order to find a civil society. This rising group created the essentials of the secular modernist ideology in Islamic world. After approximately 30 years, the constitution had been accepted by Muzaffer al-din -Qajar king- in 1906. Third, the phenomena of nationalism was also one of the fundamental problems faced the Muslim World, specially the Turks who ruled the Muslim community during the last days of Islamic Caliphate. All of these events and types, which written above, are the leading principles of the rise of secular trends in many aspects of the Islamic community.
Despite all significant interactions between the Islamic empire with the external world in west and east in aspects, for instance; sciences, art, philosophy, and algebra, there were many controversies, and the most visible were the wars that Muslims fought, while Muslims won in many events, they lost many of them as well. Concerning the Islamic victories, starting from first battle “Bader” that Muslims won, which was between Muslims versus Qurush, then the rest of Mohammad’s conquests. Then, Tamim Ansary mentioned in his book the most important wars and battles such as “Manzikert in 1071 CE” which was between the Seljuk Turks against the Byzantines Empire, this battle opened a new era of wars between Muslims and Christians.
On the other hand, Islamic history witnessed many Islamic defeats as well. For instance, the Mongol invaded Bagdad, which destroyed completely, as a result the Abbasid Empire have been collapsed. In addition, the several crusade campaigns made the Islamic empire suffers from these ongoing and cumbersome campaigns even though Muslims won some of it , besides attracted the Muslims attentions to the military equipment instead of producing and manufacturing. Ending with the war the destroyed the Ottoman empire, the last Islamic Khalifate, after 1st world war, when Ataturk announced establishment of the first Turkey state, by during this act, when he saw that there is no reason to maintain what called Islamic Khalifate, while in realty the Muslim leaders of states were follow their interests despite the consequences whether it will help the Khalifate or not.
After the cancelation of Khalifate by Ataturk, each Muslim country looked to itself attempted to get its dependence as a state, the first country declared itself as a secular was Turkey. Also, almost all the countries in the Arabian Gulf were tried to create what is known the Arabism unity; they cooperated with the British government against the ottomans which was a one of many reasons that motivated Ataturk to abolish the Islamic Khalifate while most Muslims were actually divided. After the end of World War II, the state of Israel had been born in May 15, 1948, as a result of the Prime Minster of United Kingdom promise for Jew, when he promised them after the World War II to give them a country in order to be the homeland for Jews, as a result of their efforts which motivated the United States of America to intervener the war beside the alliances powers. The Arab catastrophe launched a new era of wars between what known later as Pan-Arabs verses Israel. After the mid of twenty century, Jamal Abdul Nasser recalled the Arabism, and spread the Nasserite ideas among most of Arab countries, but the Nasserites did not remains for a long time after the death of Nasser.
Criticism
Concerning to what Tamim Ansary wrote “Medina in the time of Mohammed and the first three khalifas was the ideal community”when he described what is called Wahhabism and its founder Mohammed bin Abdul Wahhab, he argued that Wahhabism looks at the period of Prophet Mohammed and the first three Khalifas as the best community, which is extremely right, but the question is “where is the forth khalife Ali of the formula?” As a Muslims, we all agreed that the best community in Islamic history was at the beginning of Islam, to be more accurate, it is kind of hierarchy; the top was during Prophet Mohammed’s life, then the four khalifas as following Abu Baker, Oman, Othman, and Ali. For that reason, there is no doubt that we ought to recognize that there are four rightly-guided successors, not three. Therefore, Mohammed Abdul Wahhab would not say something like this, because according to Ansary “he was not an innovator; in fact, he has the anti-innovator”, so it will effects his movement if he mentioned only three out of the four rightly-guided successors, if he did so consequently no one will follow him. It could be some of Sufi thoughts reflected on author ideas.
He claimed that the Black Stone fell from the sky and pointing out that it could be a meteor, and he omitted the Muslims narrative that he ought to represent their perspective of events, which stated that the stone from the Paradise, and the angel “Gabriel” gave it to Abraham when he built the Kaaba. Also, he claimed that Omar himself, who is laying the foundation in Islam that Quran is the law and Sunnah is guide, which is not true because he would not do it without the of the Prophet Mohammed’s companions approval, because all of them took the Islamic principles from the Prophet Mohammed’s life. Tamim Ansary allegedly that complicity of Talha bin Ubaidullah and Al-Zubair bin Al-Awam in the murder Othman, or even killed him personally, which is purely lie and baseless speculation, and it has a smell of the writing of Shiites. According to Tamim Ansary, “Mecca had temples to at least a hundred pagan deities”, in fact, Ansary ought to say Mecca had only one temple -Kaaba- and there were many hundred pagan around and inside Kaaba.