Firas Alkhateeb’s Lost Islamic History: Reclaiming the Muslim Civilisation from the Past begins with the premise that Islam has always been equalitarian, where social hierarchies and aristocratic privileges found no place since its early days. The book takes the reader through different phases of the development of Islam, Islamic sciences, and expansion of Islamic territories over the course of centuries through rise and fall of caliphates and empires. One can easily arrive at the conclusion from the reading of this well-researched book on Islamic civilisation that the social equality which the religion brought to the nomadic Arab society has been lost with the passage of time.
The first chapter of the book is devoted to pre-Islamic Arabia where the writer shows how a polytheistic society living under harsh conditions had diverted from the message brought to them by Prophet Ibrahim. It is among this group of nomadic people, known as the Quraysh of Mecca, that the religion of Islam was born. The messenger who brought it to the people belonged to a modest clan of Banu Hashim.
In the opening chapters of the book, Alkhateeb confirms sparse monotheists, apart from Jews and Christians, existed in pre-Islamic Arabia. He writes, “… Young Muhammad did not get involved in the religion of the Quraysh. The original monotheistic message of Ibrahim and Isma’il was a faint memory to most Arabs, but it still held weight for a few, known as hunafa (singular hanif), meaning ‘monotheistics’, who refused to accept the hundreds of stone and wood gods. Muhammad was one of them.” Not only this, we are told the Prophet of Islam preferred seclusion to reflect on the society he lived in.
Banu Hashim, despite sharing the common family tree with the ruling elites of Mecca, quite in contrast, had no riches but only a reputation of being a trustworthy clan. And one of its clan member, orphaned at the age of five, who earned the title of Al-Amin (the honest one) in his manhood brought Islam to Arabia replete with social ills such as female infanticide, slavery, elitism, etc. “Early verses,” Alkhateeb writes, “also denounced social ills that were prevalent in Mecca. With increasing prosperity from the trade routes, distinct social classes developed. The wealthy would use their money to fund more caravans that would in turn bring them more wealth. A poor person, meanwhile, continued to be marginalized, doubly so if they did not belong to a powerful clan. The Quran declared such disregard for the poor as detrimental to the establishment of a just social order, and worthy of punishment in the Hereafter.”
Equality is of paramount importance in Islam and the religious movement that began in Mecca was initially supported by early Muslims belonging to branches of Quraysh who were considered inferior, and opposed vehemently by the ruling elites, as new beliefs were a threat to their social and economic positions.
Alkhateeb argues by presenting facts and several instances that religious freedom guaranteed to non-Muslim population of Medina in the constitution of Medina by the Prophet was enshrined by Muslim rulers in their governance for centuries. Even when the Umayyads under the leadership of teenager Muhammad bin Qasim captured Sindh with the aid of Buddhist temple officials in response to native ruler Raja Dahir’s unwillingness to release Arab captives, after a Muslim vessel was intercepted by local pirates, religious freedom was guaranteed to Hindus and Buddhists living there. “On the advice of his superiors in Iraq, Ibn Qasim extended the same religious freedom to Buddhists and Hindus that was already given to Christians and Jews elsewhere in the Muslim world. Temples and idols destroyed in the fighting were allowed to be rebuilt by the new Muslim governors. Once again, the relaxed terms offered by the conquering Muslims created little discontent with Muslim rule and relative social harmony,” Alkhateeb notes.
The book charts out how the centuries-old knowledge of prominent Islamic scholars, scientists, astronomers and mathematicians shaped the European intellectual life after the Renaissance as their works were translated into European languages. The capital of Abbasids in Baghdad, which housed the famed House of Wisdom and Al-Andalus, served as centres of knowledge and wisdom for not just the Muslim civilisation but also for the West. “Using trigonometry and spherical geometry they calculated that earth is 12,728 kilometers in diameter—they were off by a mere 37 kilometers. Furthermore, they calculated the earth’s circumference to be 39,968 kilometers, when in actuality it is 40,074 kilometers. Without modern satellites and telescopes, these calculations can only be described as astounding,”Alkhateeb writes.
After the period of expansion, Muslim civilisation began reshaping scientific history through innovation and discoveries that were ahead of their time. Even the Crusades and the onslaught of Mongols could not put a halt to the rise of Muslim power as there emerged empires that were more powerful and wealthier than the previous ones. But gradually Europe prevailed over Islamic nations.
Triumph of Europe over the Muslim world compelled Islamic scholars to conclude if Muslims could return to “Islamic practices of the early generations” then “God would reward them with success”. Later on, this belief was contradicted by another class of scholars who were all for modernity, and had aligned themselves with the European Enlightenment. “Europe had gone from the Dark Ages to world conquerers, so it must be doing something right, they reasoned. In their minds, the Muslim world had fallen so far behind precisely because it was so focussed on religion and bringing back the glory days of early Islamic history, instead of modernising according to new ideas and philosophies,” Alkhateeb writes. These approaches continue to affect the way Muslims think today, according to the author.
During the occupation of the Arab world, Asia and the Indian subcontinent by European powers, indigenous cultures and ideas were “associated with backwardness and impotence”. The former prestige and greatness of Muslim civilisation dissipated, with the masses quickly adapting to Western culture, ideas and political systems.
The book is not without failings, as can be expected when a subject as vast as Islamic history is dealt with in 250-odd pages. This is also why it is a great work of research. There is very little on how the Middle East came under the influence of the West, and began adopting Western forms in the organisation and expression of its political and social life to a certain extent, although a lot of emphasis has been given to westernisation of the Ottoman empire.
All in all, this a great book for anyone interested in the study of Islamic history. The scholarship of the author shines through the pages, despite some missing points. Alkhateeb has done well to shed light on the values of Islam that truly define the faith.