Lost Islamic History: Reclaiming Muslim Civilisation from the Past

I love this book. It's an engaging and thought-provoking overview of Islamic history. As a young Muslim-American, I needed this information to dive deeper into Islamic history than my high school world history class did. In that class, we only touched upon a tiny amount of information about Islamic history. This book is great for those who wish to learn about Islamic history specifically with a great breadth of information. It covers so many different aspects of Islamic civilization, including important events, different groups' perspectives, and reasons for conflict and success.

I don’t claim to have read all or even most of the books on history of Islam, but I have read a few. This is probably one of the best. It covers in a few hundred pages what other books have covered in thousands. It encompasses almost the entire history of Muslim world right from the time of the Prophet (peace upon him) through the very exciting initial period of khilafat rashida through the turbulent times of the khilfa, the transition form the khilafa to the hereditary kingdoms and later expansion of Islam in three continents.It is amazing how the author has captured this vast subject in such a small space. It is brief but concise. Nothing important has been left out. It is very coherent and you never feel hurried or rushed even though the author is sometimesgoing through centuries of history sometimes in a space of few dozen pages. That really shows author’s mastery of the subject as you have to posses great judgement in what to include and what to omit.

This should be a staple in any home for those that love history. This highlights how we have come to our modern conflicts and fragmented societies. What Muslims went through tragedy and victory included. Must read and highly recommend.

I’m not someone who knew a lot about Islamic history before reading this book. I knew about life of the prophet Muhammad (s) from reading other books, however after his death my knowledge on the Islamic world was pretty bleak.Firstly, this book did a really good job of answering the question of what happened during the time of the 4 rightly guided caliphates. After that question was answered, one of the main positives about this book was that it gave me a birds eye view on Islamic history in general.My two favorite sections of the book were first when the author discussed the achievements of the Muslims with regards to science, math, astronomy, etc and the second was the last section of the book where the author discusses the history of Muslims from the first World War onwards.Overall, I found the book easy to read. The author does a good job at explaining the facts about a situation without any religious or ideological biases. For example, if something happened in history that was the fault of Muslims, the author pointed it out unapologetically.With that being said, I did find some negatives with the book. Firstly, there were some sections that were fact heavy and I found myself having to get a map out to visualize what part of the Muslim world the author was discussing. Secondly, the overall organization of the book was a bit problematic at times. Instead of it being organized chronologically, it was organized by region. For example, the author would give the full history of what happened in North Africa and then restart the timeline to give the full history of Asia.This book is an excellent starting point for someone who wants to begin their study of the Muslim world in general. I will be using it as a reference point on my future studies in Islamic history.

This book summarized the different periods of islamic history. The authur even explains how the last couple of centuries brought us to the current situation we are in.

It is a brilliantly written book. I would highly recommend giving it a read. The author has done a great job explaining Islamic History in a simple format. I could not put this book down.

I am a history fan. More so, a fan of studying what shapes our various faiths and forms of worship; why we believe what we believe; ideologies prompted or inspired by our cultural queues, ancient political and economic forces, and sometimes, charismatic thinkers, teachers, and leaders. I have enjoyed studying the history of Christianity, Judaism, some Buddhism, Hinduism, and Daoism, but I had never found a good, thorough read on Islamic history. Now I have. I didn't just want to know what happened and when, but why. What wars, politics, culture, traditions, honor codes, parochialism, and business negotiations came into play to form an ideological movement that became, in this case, Islam. This book answers those questions.It is well organized and very well written. It is concise and clear. A perfectly enjoyable read! I will probably read it another two or three times. Proud to give this book 5 stars. Congrats and a huge thank you to the author!

This is a great book for basic Islamic history. A must have for any revert or anyone who wants to get a taste of Islam