Book Review: Destiny Disrupted by Tamim Ansary

Cover of Latest Edition

Tamim Ansary’s latest book ‘Destiny Disrupted’ outlines the 1400 years of history of Islamic world and the world surrounding Islamic civilization, as seen from the eyes of a Muslim. It is written like a story in a layman's, highly readable language.

This book is a great reminder of the fact that to understand our present condition we need to understand our past, and unless we don't do that we cannot plan for the future. It is quite unfortunate that those of us who have been studying in conventional schools, hardly knows anything about their own past.

In fact there are campaigns going on to even remove the trivial details of history or historical figures present in the curriculum. When the public institutions looks away from the natural duties, which as per the constitution of Pakistan are also their legal responsibilities,  then eventually the public at large needs books which can made us aware of our past. In urdu we have authors like Naseem Hijazi, and Mirza Altamash... the English readers, now have Tamim Ansari.

The conventional books on Islamic history of dull, difficult to read and infested with cumbersome details, which bores the reader in just a few pages. The opposite is true for Destiny Disrupted.

The author comically narrates the twists and turns of history. Some of the events considered controversial in Islamic history, are effortlessly described with such respect and neutrality, and skillfully escapes the chance of getting biased with the Shia or Sunni narrative.

It’s a little surprise that after 3 years of its publication, it is an American best seller, some of the reviews about the book explain why so:

"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." -RAJ PATEL, author of Stuff and Starved and visiting scholar, Center for African Studies, University of California at Berkeley

"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, a book which offers a wealth of knowledge and insight to any reader who wants to understand the movements and events behind the modern-day hostilities wracking Western and Islamic societies." -Portland Oregonian

This book inarguable negates the narrative that during the dark ages of Europe, the world at large was at large was also dark. The narration further goes to establish that from this dark abyss the European received enlightenment through a scientific and technological revolution, and created a civilization which had the ability to solve all of mankind’s problems.

The torchbearers of this enlightenment discourse assumed that the rest of the world, which was out of western civilization, as uncivilized; therefore it was considered the natural duty of theirs to bring everyone to raise themselves. This narrative still holds strong today.

Ansary's contribution has effortlessly destroyed this narrative, as it wouldn't be wronged to assert that Europeans learned what civilized means from the Islamic world, which possessed its own socioeconomic and political model, its own way of living, and its unique worldview which defines everything its own context. Of course it has its own weaknesses, and but also has its own way to assess and solve them, which should be understood and respected by the rest.

Ansary in his concluding chapter asserts: "Muslims were a crowd of people going somewhere. Europeans and their offshoots was a crowd of people going somewhere. When the two crowds crossed paths, much bumping and crashing resulted, and the crashing is still going on." He further notes in the end: "Islam can quite validly be seen as one item in a class whose other items include Chinese civilization, Indian civilization, Western civilization, and so on, because there is a universe of cultural artifacts from art to philosophy to architecture to handicrafts to virtually every other realm of human cultural endeavor that could properly be called Islamic. Or, as I have tried to demonstrate, Islam can be seen as one world history among many that are unfolding simultaneously, each in some way incorporating all the others. Considered in this light, Islam is a vast narrative moving through time, anchored by the birth of that community in Mecca and Medina fourteen centuries ago. The story includes many characters who are not Muslim and many events that are not religious. Jews and Christians and Hindus are part of this story. Industrialization is an element of the plot, and so is the steam engine and the discovery of oil. When you look at it this way, Islam is a vast complex of communal purposes moving through time, driven by its own internally coherent assumptions. And so is the West."

This eventually nullifies the notion that western solutions can solve the problems of the Muslim world. Its like saying a toolkit design to maintain or repair an automobile can also be used to maintain or repair a garden... This makes the book a must read for all, especially those who thinks western style liberal democracy, or western modern urbanization, or technological revolution can help Islamic world to fix itself.

Author is an academic researcher, author, blogger, social entrepreneur, activist, mentor and tweets @javaidomar