Destiny Disrupted

A History of the World Through Islamic Eyes

De: Tamim Ansary

Narrado por: Tamim Ansary

“A must read for anyone who wants to learn more about the history of the Islamic world” (San Francisco Chronicle)

In Destiny Disrupted, Tamim Ansary tells the rich story of world history as it looks from a new 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 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, imparting not only what happened but how it is understood from the Muslim perspective.

He clarifies why two great civilizations-Western and Muslim-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.

With storytelling brio, humor, and evenhanded sympathy to all sides of the story, Ansary illuminates a fascinating parallel to the world narrative usually heard in the West. Destiny Disrupted offers a vital perspective on world conflicts many now find so puzzling.

©2025 Tamim Ansary (P)2025 PublicAffairs

Reseñas de la Crítica

"Ansary has written an informative and thoroughly engaging look at the past, present and future of Islam. With his seamless and charming prose, he challenges conventional wisdom and appeals for a fuller understanding of how Islam and the world at large have shaped each other. And that makes this book, in this uneasy, contentious post 9/11 world, a must-read."

—Khaled Hosseini, author of The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns

"I'm in the middle of Tamim Ansary's Destiny Disrupted: A History of the World through Islamic Eyes, and it's 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. Especially when people are looking for a comprehensive-but-approachable way to look at world history through the lens of Islam, there's no better book."

—Dave Eggers, TheRumpus.net

"A lively, thorough and accessible survey of the history of Islam (both the religion and its political dimension) that explores many of the disconnects between Islam and the West."

—Shelf Awareness

A Must Read - Especially If New to Islamic History

Ansary covers the entire islamic history in a sweeping narrative that is entertaining and easy to follow, even for someone with no prior knowledge.

He summarizes and connects timelines effortlessly. I will be returning to this book as reference material.

An Excellent Book

I learned so much from this book. It truly shows how Islamic history ties in to the history of the world, and how changing global philosophies influence each other. Very well written and read. I wish I could have this author as a professor. Thank you for your excellent work, Mr. Ansary!

An interesting, if somewhat inaccurate, history

This book was one that I was looking forward to, a more or less seemingly unbiases history of Islam and how they view the world, but I was left just a little disappointed.

Overall, while the book does offer a view of World History through Muslim Eyes, it does bring forth, at times, a very biased history. There is little mention of the Reconquest of the Iberian Peninsula, nor is there any real great detail on the Crusades outside of the first three (which is fair in and of itself. The first three are the main ones), and the main point of that is a biased view of “They came to take lands we ourselves had taken during the Arab Colonization Period.”

There is also, curiously, no mention of the role of Islam in the Slave Trade during the chapter entitled “Meanwhile in Europe”, though he does spend a good time laying out the flaws of Europe, of Christianity, and how these, and the society they built, juxtapose them against Islam, which, the book makes rather clear, views itself as a Worldwide Religion. There is no real discussion of Dhimmitude outside of Ansary describing the lives of Non-Muslims as relatively well under Muslim Rule, despite many who lived under Muslim Rule (or at least periods of Muslim Rule) leaving sources to the contrary.

Finally, Ansary does not give Zionism the more or less unbiased view that it deserves starting in Chapter 14. He continues a trend (or rather, predates the modern trend) of describing Zionism as solely a Nationalist Venture, though he does, surprisingly, admit that Jews are indigenous to the Levant. However, as we go through the last few chapters, there is an almost over-representation of Israel and Palestine, and there are times when Ansary seems to jump through hoops to vilify Israel. For example, in the lead up to independence, during the Yishuv Period, he happily mentioned instances of terrorism committed by Haganah and Irgun, but fails to mention that Arabs (a word he uses, as Palestinian as a term did not exist just yet) also committed Terror attacks against both Jews and British. There is no mention of the variety of attacks against Jews by Arabs during this period. And he fails to see the irony of him saying the Arabs would not accept a Religious Claim (which is right, of course), while they themselves took the land on the basis of Arab Colonization and claims that Muhammad rose to heaven from the Temple Mount. One look at the temple mount showcases colonization in action, where a Muslim Mosque sits on top of the holiest site in Judaism. He also does not see the irony in claiming that it was “their” land, when the land became Arab through Colonization. But I digress. This book definitely offers a one-sided, but brief overview, of the beginnings of the Israel-Palestine Conflict. It does, however, give significant weight to the Six-Day War, pinning that as the start of the turn from Secular Modernism to the Radical Islam (Jihadism as Ansary prefers, Islamism as the world seems to prefer), that led to the revival of radicalism among Islam, with such things as the rise of Hamas, Hezbollah, and their infiltration of the PLO (And of course, where we got to this current War), the Iranian Regime Change, and the like.

As one can imagine, the last few chapters come down to Muslim Competition with the West, the change from Secular Modernism to Radicalism, and how we got here. I think it is, at the end of the day, a folly to claim any religion could be a world religion and that Islamic Destiny got disrupted, when in fact, they simply met the same limitations of empire and faith.

You cannot know a person until you know how he sees himself.

I was enamored of the premise of this work from the moment I read its introduction. An Afghani kid from the US is going to explain the history of the world from the view of one of the other major cultures. I immediately imagined such a project for the Chinese world or the Indian.

I loved this book on my first read through, and when I saw that it was coming to audible I eagerly awaited its release. To a great extent it continues to inform my understanding of Arab, Turkish and Farsi attitudes in the modern world.

Although I of course disagree with the author’s understanding of the events since the start of the 20th century, this work is, by definition, one of perspective, and even that disagreement is, in a way, vindicating.