Muslims

by Ali Mahmood

Hardcover with unclipped dust jacket, in very good condition. Jacket edges are creased and nicked. Board spine ends are bumped, and page block is lightly blemished. Boards are clean, binding is sound and pages are clear. LW

Hardcover

Published January 1, 2017

Reviews

[Jazz Singh]

The idea of Muslims as an entity in power from the inception of Islam works until the Caliphate is ruled by the descendants of The Prophet. After that, it's like reading the history of any country in the world. In this case, many countries, with their individual culture and identity, and the political aspirations of power-hungry individuals who will do anything to get it.
The takeaway from this one is a lack of loyalty, gut-wrenching brutality and cruelty in the lust for power.

A table of lineage along with maps as times and borders changed would help enormously. Also, too many superlatives become confusing - every other ruler/dynasty cannot possibly be the 'greatest' just as every other period cannot be 'golden'.

[Rithun Regi]

This is an excellent book well written and easy to follow.about the history of Muslims. It makes for a fascinating read on Muslims and the spread of Islam across a diverse group of people all over the world.

[Yash Sharma]

Muslims : A Concise History
---------------------------------------------------------

There is no wealth like knowledge, no poverty like Ignorance.

- Imam Ali




Few books deserves to be read multiple times. Muslims, The real history is one of those books. Fourteen-hundred-years of history in a single book is like a treasure trove. Although, you will enjoy this beautifully written book more if you are somewhat familiar with the Islamic history.

People often come to the conclusion without grasping the whole picture. Passing judgements about this and that is also part of that process. That's why reading history and making sense of it is one of the most important things which we can do in our life time.

Prophet Muhammad was the founder of Islam. The religion which was started by him in the seventh century is one of the most followed and at the same time most misunderstood too. The foundation of this religion is based on truth, equality and justice. But with the passing generations the basic tenets of this religion has been throughly eroded. And this division and chaos started immediately after the death of Prophet.

The four rightly guided caliphs who succeeded Prophet were - Abu bakr, Umar, Uthman and Ali. But during the life and times of the latter caliph, a man by the name of Muawiya came, and he changed the history of the Islam and of the Muslims forever.

Muawiya, was the fifth caliph, and the founder of the first Islamic dynasty, The Ummayyad dynasty. It was the Ummayyads who brutally butchered the family of the grandson of Prophet, Imam Hussein.

The Ummayyad's ruled from their capital, Damascus.

After the Ummayyad's, the Abbasid dynasty arose and they ruled from their capital, Baghdad.

It was during the rule of Abbasids that Muslims excelled in the field of medicine, science, literature.

There were another important Islamic dynasties too, like the Fatimids dyansty who ruled from their capital, Cairo. The Umayyads of Spain who ruled for eight hundred years with the city of Cordoba became their power center.

The author of this book also included the rise and fall of the Ottoman empire, about the Mamluk dynasty of Egypt, The Delhi sultanate, The life and times of the Great Mughals, about the Safavids of Iran, and those men and women who once influenced the Muslims and the history of Islam. Like, General Nasser of Egypt, The Genghis Khan, King Faisal of Saudi Arabia, Saddam Hussein, Razia sultan and many more.

Before reading this book, I request you to read these two books - The Arabs a history by Eugene Rogan, and No God but God : The Origins, Evolution and the future of Islam by Reza Aslan.

I will end with these lines of Prophet Muhammad :-

'The ink of the scholar is more holy than the blood of the martyr'.

My Ratings : ⭐⭐⭐⭐ (4/5)

I hope you like this, Thanks for reading, Jai Hind.

For more information You can visit - https://dontbignorant.in/

[Dr Bhabatosh]

After having read the two books by Lesley Hazleton, whose work Mahmood has alluded to in this book, I had great expectation. The book fulfils this only partially. One book with these limited pages may not be able to capture the Islamic history in great detail. Mahmood also has I believe taken care to keep it interesting and at a level to engage a broad segment of readers and not just history buffs and academics. Where this book does justice. Where I feel it falls very short is depicting history truthfully as an author, as an academic. Author has not been able to do justice to the title, ‘real history’ and ended up writing some history a a generous glorification. That’s not inherently bad. The issue is he has done that ignoring history (lot of examples where he has mentioned firsts for Muslims like university etc ignores facts of Chinese and Indian universities which predate by almost a thousand years). Second issue I note is contradictions. He glorifies things and actions where author himself has used words to describe wrongdoings (at points he glorifies event conquests, describes treachery as political smartness etc). Overall makes a good read for most. But don’t hold the work to real test of history.

[Mihr Chand]

Summary: Childish diction combined with homophobia.

I had great expectations from this book, which were completely destroyed by Mahmood. The book starts off extremely well with a summary of the life of the Prophet and the first Caliphs. It takes a nosedive by glancing over the history of Muslims after this point(perhaps due to the sheer length and breadth of the topic). It lends itself to obvious homophobia to the point that every homosexual character becomes inherently "vile", "weak", "immoral" and many adjectives along the same lines. Interestingly, it is biased towards the Saudi royal family- despite their funding of Wahabbi extremism and funnelling their money towards dubious destinations. Please do not read this book hoping to get a history of the Islam and its adherents.

[Sadiq Kazi]

Serves more of an introduction rather than a 'Real History'. Karen Armstrong's Short History of Islam is far better. Where the book seems to score is about giving an overview of the strifes and battles playing out in the Middle East - Syria, Libya and Iraq.

[Abbas]

The book covers history of all the Islamic kings and rulers. Fast paced, gripping.

[Tanzeel haider]

It was okay!
- Tries to cover vast history of Muslims but fails
- Rushes through each story
- Little character development or full background of a historical figure is missing (he could have written this in multiple volumes). Because of which one cannot understand whether good or bad the figure was
- Not source is mentioned in the pages as footnotes. Bad way to write a history book
- Author misses on mentioning the full form of abbreviation in many places
- Some character randomly appears without any introduction