I knew most of the history, but the perspective, written by a Muslim from Afghanistan who has lived in the U.S. for many years, provided fresh insight.
Perhaps the most interesting was Ansary's description of Islam as a cultural movement rather than a religion. He writes that the original Prophet (Mohammed) and his immediate successors pronounced Islam as a new religion and lived it admirably. But soon after, their successors failed to live up to the precedent, thereby corrupting it as a religion. From then on Islam has lived as a cultural movement of global and historic significance, but less so as a religion.
Islam's cultural prominence in the centuries preceding the Mongol invasions (mid-thirteenth century) was as rich as that of ancient Rome, Renaissance Italy, or "the west" ever since. But those Mongols completely took the wind out of Islam's sails. Baghdad's destruction and the subsequent power vacuum opened the door to inward fighting and cultural collapse.
Later meddling by Russia (in search of warm water ports), Europe (seeking efficient trading channels with the east) and America (seeking cheap oil) furthered Islam's decline and stifled any chance for rebirth.
Hence the title of the book: Destiny Disrupted.
The central point of the book begs the question, how would America feel if it's Manifest Destiny was somehow ended abruptly before its realization? That's how Islam feels today. A once great cultural, the greatest in the world at the time, on a relentless growth curve, was suddenly put in reverse, a pattern that continued for centuries.
How would we feel? Resentful, in a word.
And Ansary posits that this resentment is the central issue between Islam and the west today. It's not Islam vs. Christianity or Judaism. It's the reality of Islam today, versus what it could have been.
It's a powerful perspective to absorb and an important one to try and understand.
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