Do You want to read Books on Islamic History? Here is a list of famous books on Islamic history and a little intro of the Book to help you decide the Book you may Want to Read .
Author: Tamim Ansary
In Destiny Disrupted, Tamim Ansary tells the rich story of world history as the Islamic world saw it, from the time of Prophet Mohammed Sallalahu alaihe wassalam to the fall of the Ottoman Empire and beyond. He clarifies why our civilizations 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 and disorganized—had somehow hijacked destiny.
The Ottoman Empire was one of the largest and most influential empires in world history. Its reach extended to three continents and it survived for more than six centuries, but its history is too often colored by the memory of its bloody final throes on the battlefields of World War I. If You want to read about the history of Ottoman Empire ,You can read these books –
Osman’s Dream: The History of the Ottoman Empire by Caroline Finkel
In this magisterial work-the first definitive account written for the general reader-renowned scholar and journalist Caroline Finkel lucidly recounts the epic story of the Ottoman Empire from its origins in the thirteenth century through its destruction in the twentieth.
The Ottoman Empire: The Classical Age 1300–1600 by Halil Inalcik
In this book, A preeminent scholar of Turkish history vividly portrays 300 years of this distinctively Eastern culture as it grew from a military principality to the world’s most powerful Islamic state. He paints a striking picture of the prominence of religion and warfare in everyday life, as well as the traditions of statecraft, administration, social values, financial, and land policies. “…masterly…Halil Inalcik is one of the foremost living students of Ottoman history…Read this book…”–Times Literary Supplement.
The First World War in the Middle East by Kristian Ulrichsen
The First World War in the Middle East is an accessibly written military and social history of the clash of world empires in the Dardanelles, Egypt and Palestine, Mesopotamia, Persia and the Caucasus. Coates Ulrichsen demonstrates how wartime exigencies shaped the parameters of the modern Middle East, and describes and assesses the major campaigns against the Ottoman Empire and Germany involving British and imperial troops from the French and Russian Empires, as well as their Arab and Armenian allies.
Also documented are the enormous logistical demands placed on host societies by the Great Powers’ conduct of industrialised warfare in hostile terrain. The resulting deepening of imperial penetration, and the extension of state controls across a heterogeneous sprawl of territories, generated a powerful backlash both during and immediately after the war, which played a pivotal role in shaping national identities as the Ottoman Empire was dismembered.
The Ottoman Empire and Islamic Tradition by Norman Itzkowitz
This skillfully written text presents the full sweep of Ottoman history from its beginnings on the Byzantine frontier in about 1300, through its development as an empire, to its late eighteenth-century confrontation with a rapidly modernizing Europe. Itzkowitz delineates the fundamental institutions of the Ottoman state, the major divisions within the society, and the basic ideas on government and social structure. Throughout, Itzkowitz emphasizes the Ottomans’ own conception of their historical experience, and in so doing penetrates the surface view provided by the insights of Western observers of the Ottoman world to the core of Ottoman existence.
The Venture of Islam has been honored as a magisterial work of the mind since its publication in early 1975. In this three-volume study, illustrated with charts and maps, Hodgson traces and interprets the historical development of Islamic civilization from before the birth of Muhammad SAW to the middle of the twentieth century. This work grew out of the famous course on Islamic civilization that Hodgson created and taught for many years at the University of Chicago.
In the second work of this three-volume set, Hodgson investigates the establishment of an international Islamic civilization through about 1500. This includes a theoretical discussion of cultural patterning in the Islamic world and the Occident.
In this concluding volume of The Venture of Islam, Hodgson describes the second flowering of Islam: the Safavi, Timuri, and Ottoman empires. The final part of the volume analyzes the widespread Islamic heritage in today’s world.
Author:
Islam has been one of the most powerful religious, social, and political forces in history. Over the last 1400 years, from origins in Arabia, a succession of Muslim polities and later empires expanded to control territories and peoples that ultimately stretched from southern France, to East Africa to South East Asia.
Yet many of the contributions of Muslim thinkers, scientists, and theologians, not to mention rulers, statesmen and soldiers, have been occluded. This book rescues from oblivion and neglect some of these personalities and institutions while offering the reader a new narrative of this lost Islamic history.
The Umayyads, Abbasids, and Ottomans feature in the story, as do Muslim Spain, the savannah kingdoms of West Africa and the Mughal Empire, along with the later European colonization of Muslim lands and the development of modern nation-states in the Muslim world.
Throughout, the impact of Islamic belief on scientific advancement, social structures, and cultural development is given due prominence, and the text is complemented by portraits of key personalities, inventions and little known historical nuggets. The history of Islam and of the world’s Muslims brings together diverse peoples, geographies, and states, all interwoven into one narrative that begins with Muhammad and continues to this day.
Author: Karen Armstrong
No religion in the modern world is as feared and misunderstood as Islam. It haunts the popular imagination as an extreme faith that promotes terrorism, authoritarian government, female oppression, and civil war. In a vital revision of this narrow view of Islam and a distillation of years of thinking and writing about the subject, Karen Armstrong’s short history demonstrates that the world’s fastest-growing faith is a much more complex phenomenon than its modern fundamentalist strain might suggest
Readers seeking a quick but thoughtful introduction to Islam will want to peruse Armstrong’s latest offering. In her hallmark stylish and accessible prose, the author of A History of God takes readers from the sixth-century days of the Prophet Muhammad SAW to the present.
By Syed Ameer Ali
Contents:
History of Mecca by Safiur Rahman Mubarakpuri By Darussalam Publications
This book mentions the different aspects of Makkah, and recorded the most important historical events that have direct effect on the establishment and sacredness of Makkah as well as its religious weight.
This Book also highlights the sites that are highly important whenever Makhah is mentioned like the Black Stone, Zamzam Well, and others.
A great part of the book has been dedicated to in speaking about the Holy Ka’bah and the Holy Mosque updating the extensions and the improvements, that have taken place from the time of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) to the Saudi era.
At the end of the book there is a complete guide about Hajj and its rites.
It is the Biography of Prophet Muhammad SAW by Sheikh Safi-ur-Rahman al-Mubarkpuri.
It was honored by the World Muslim League as first prize winner book. Whoever wants to know the whole life style of the Prophet in detail must read this book.
It is a complete authoritative book on the life of Prophet Muhammad (S) by Sheikh Safi-ur-Rahman al-Mubarkpuri. a book that deals with the spiritual life and lessons of the Prophet,This is the top recommendation and an all time best seller.Originally written in Arabic and Urdu, the Arabic version was awarded first prize by the Muslim World League at the first Islamic Conference, following an open competition for a book on the life of Prophet Mohammed in 1979.
If you are looking for a book on Islamic history in arabic , Read Hayatus Sahaba . It is one of the books used in Darse Nizami syllabus and is very engaging.
The book presents in graphic detail each and every aspect of the many splendoured and exalted lives, morals and struggles of the Sahabah, based on authentic and original sources of Ahadeeth, Sirah, Tabaqat and Islamic History.
One finds here all the hear, light and power of their faith in Islam, unfolding into words and actions which laid the foundations of the golden era of the Righteous Caliphate. Originally written in Arabic by well known scholar Maulana Muhammad Yusuf Kandhlawi the book has been highly acclaimed as one of the most authentic book of its kind, throughout the Islamic world.
Hayatus Sahaba in Arabic :
There is an English version of this book too,
This book is the translation of Volume 7 of the Kitab at-Tabaqat al-Kabir of Ibn Sa’d which deals with the Companions, Tabi’un and the subsequent generations of the people of knowledge in Basra, Baghdad, Khurasan, Syria and Egypt.
This book is of particular interest because its pages demonstrate the attitude and action of the Companions and the Tabi’un when confronted by the most dangerous of trials – fitna, or civil war. This is extremely important in the modern age, in which fitna is commonplace, for we can learn a great deal from how the early Muslims dealt with it.
An abridged translation of Volume Eight of Ibn Sa’d’s Kitab’at-Tabaqat al-Kabir which deals exclusively with the women who met the Prophet Muhammad, blessings and peace be on him and on his family and Companions, or who transmitted from him. The author is one of the greatest authorities on early Muslim biography, and his detailed work helps to make the Companions of the Prophet (pbuh)come alive for the reader.
Author:Lesley Hazleton
This is the foundation story of the Shia-Sunni split in Islam, a magnificent tale of power, intrigue, assassination, and passionate faith. Starting in Arabia in the year 632 and reaching its terrible breaking point fifty years later in Iraq, it still shapes modern headlines from Iran’s Islamic Revolution to the Iraq civil war.
Lesley Hazleton shows how this story is alive in Middle Eastern hearts and minds today, as though it had just happened. Even as she tells what happened in the seventh century, she never lets the reader lose sight of where those events have left us, and why they matter so much now as the struggle for dominance in the Muslim world plays out in the cities and mountains of Iraq and Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan.
The Devils Deception -the History of sects in Islam : by Ibn Jawzi
It gives you an early history of the Shia and Khawarij. The Mirage in Iran continues with the Shia. More on the Khawarij can be found in ‘The Khawarij and Jihad’ by Abu Hamza, he touches on the GIA and Algeria.
This translation of Tablees Iblees provides important analysis in developing self-awareness and critical thinking to ward off many deceptions of the devil, which have plagued mankind from the time of Adam.The Devil’s Deception by imam Ibn Al-Jawzi is a complete English translation of Talbis Iblis. It’s a very famous book in urdu but only recently got translated into English.
This book is the sixth instalment from Dar as-Sunnah of the illustrious Imam, Abu’l-Faraj Ibn Jawzi. Being a complete translation of his well-known and prized work, Ibn Jawzi enumerates within it, many of the mechanisms and modus operandi used by the devil in deceiving and leading mankind away from the Straight Path.
The Crusades is a masterly and welcome contribution to the historiography of the Crusades. Hillenbrand has set an enviable standard of scholarship from which teachers and students of the Crusades, the medieval Middle East, and medieval Europe will long benefit.
Some other books on Crusaders are :
The Crusades Through Arab Eyes by Amin Maalouf
The Saint and the Sultan: The Crusades, Islam, and Francis of Assisi’s Mission of Peace by Paul Moses .
The Saint and Sultan is an intriguing examination of the extraordinary–and little known meeting between St. Francis of Assisi and Islamic leader Sultan Malik Al-Kamil that has strong resonance in today’s divided world.
In 1219, as the Fifth Crusade was being fought, Francis crossed enemy lines to gain an audience with Malik al-Kamil, the Sultan of Egypt. The two talked of war and peace and faith and when Francis returned home, he proposed that his Order of the Friars Minor live peaceably among the followers of Islam–a revolutionary call at a moment when Christendom pinned its hopes for converting Muslims on the battlefield.
The Saint and the Sultan captures the lives of St. Francis and Sultan al-Kamil and illuminates the political intrigue and religious fervor of their time. In the process, it reveals a startlingly timely story of interfaith conflict, war, and the search for peace. More than simply a dramatic adventure, though it does not lack for colorful saints and sinners, loyalty and betrayal, and thrilling Crusade narrative, The Saint and the Sultan brings to life an episode of deep relevance for all who seek to find peace between the West and the Islamic world. Get it Here
Islam through Western Eye : From the Crusades to the War on Terrorism :
This book gives a thorough going analysis of how the anti-Islamic discourse both evolved and subsequently shaped the West’s understanding of Islam and Muslims for the past thousand years.
This book is a comprehensive historical study of the rise and fall of civilizations, including Islamic civilizations.
The Muqaddimah, often translated as “Introduction” or “Prolegomenon,” is the most important Islamic history of the premodern world. Written by the great fourteenth-century Arab scholar Ibn Khaldûn (d. 1406), this monumental work established the foundations of several fields of knowledge, including the philosophy of history, sociology, ethnography, and economics.
This volume makes available a seminal work of Islam and medieval and ancient history to twenty-first century audiences.
Author: Michael Hamilton Morgan
It is an essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the major role played by the early Muslim world in influencing modern society, Lost History fills an important void. Written by an award-winning author and former diplomat with extensive experience in the Muslim world, it provides new insight not only into Islam’s historic achievements but also the ancient resentments that fuel today’s bitter conflicts.
Michael Hamilton Morgan reveals how early Muslim advancements in science and culture lay the cornerstones of the European Renaissance, the Enlightenment, and modern Western society.
As he chronicles the Golden Ages of Islam, beginning in 570 a.d. with the birth of Muhammad, and resonating today, he introduces scholars like Ibn Al-Haytham, Ibn Sina, Al-Tusi, Al-Khwarizmi, and Omar Khayyam, towering figures who revolutionized the mathematics, astronomy, and medicine of their time and paved the way for Newton, Copernicus, and many others.
And he reminds us that inspired leaders from Muhammad to Suleiman the Magnificent and beyond championed religious tolerance, encouraged intellectual inquiry, and sponsored artistic, architectural, and literary works that still dazzle us with their brilliance. Lost History finally affords pioneering leaders with the proper credit and respect they so richly deserve.
Author:Hugh Kennedy
Today’s Arab world was created at breathtaking speed. In just over one hundred years following the death of Mohammed in 632, Arabs had subjugated a territory with an east-west expanse greater than the Roman Empire, and they did it in about one-half the time. By the mid-eighth century, Arab armies had conquered the thousand-year-old Persian Empire, reduced the Byzantine Empire to little more than a city-state based around Constantinople, and destroyed the Visigoth kingdom of Spain. The cultural and linguistic effects of this early Islamic expansion reverberate today.
This is the first popular English-language account in many years of this astonishing remaking of the political and religious map of the world. Hugh Kennedy’s sweeping narrative reveals how the Arab armies conquered almost everything in their path, and brings to light the unique characteristics of Islamic rule. One of the few academic historians with a genuine talent for story telling, Kennedy offers a compelling mix of larger-than-life characters, fierce battles, and the great clash of civilizations and religions.
The Islamic rulers called the Iberian peninsula “Al-Andalus”. That was the root for the name of the present-day region of Andalusia, the southernmost region of Spain.
For a time, the area that is today Spain and Portugal was one of the great Muslim civilizations, reaching its summit with the Umayyad Caliphate in the 10th century. Muslim Spain had the following chronological phases:
Blood and Faith: The Purging of Muslim Spain by Matthew Carr
A centuries-old story with remarkable contemporary resonance, Blood and Faith is celebrated journalist Matthew Carr’s riveting and “richly detailed” (Choice) chronicle of what was, by 1614, the largest act of ethnic cleansing in European history.
Months after King Philip III of Spain signed an edict in 1609 denouncing the Muslim inhabitants of Spain as heretics, traitors, and apostates, the entire Muslim population of Spain was given three days to leave Spanish territory, on threat of death. In the brutal and traumatic exodus that followed, entire families and communities were forced to abandon homes and villages where they had lived for generations, leaving their property in the hands of their Christian neighbors. By 1613, an estimated 300,000 Muslims had been removed from Spanish territory.
Blood and Faith presents a remarkable window onto a little known period of modern Europe
God’s Crucible: Islam and the Making of Europe 570–1215 by David Levering Lewis
Resonating as profoundly today as when it was first published to widespread critical acclaim a decade ago, God’s Crucible is a bold portrait of Islamic Spain and the birth of modern Europe from one of our greatest historians. David Levering Lewis’s narrative, filled with accounts of some of the most epic battles in world history, reveals how cosmopolitan, Muslim al-Andalus flourished―a beacon of cooperation and tolerance―while proto-Europe floundered in opposition to Islam, making virtues out of hereditary aristocracy, religious intolerance, perpetual war, and slavery.
This masterful history begins with the fall of the Persian and Roman empires, followed by the rise of the prophet Muhammad and five centuries of engagement between the Muslim imperium and an emerging Europe. Essential and urgent, God’s Crucible underscores the importance of these early, world-altering events whose influence remains as current as today’s headlines.
Islamic Spain, 1250 to 1500 by L.P. Harvey
This is a richly detailed account of Muslim life throughout the kingdoms of Spain, from the fall of Seville, which signaled the beginning of the retreat of Islam, to the Christian reconquest.
“Harvey not only examines the politics of the Nasrids, but also the Islamic communities in the Christian kingdoms of the peninsula. This innovative approach breaks new ground, enables the reader to appreciate the situation of all Spanish Muslims and is fully vindicated
Medieval Iberia: Readings from Christian, Muslim, and Jewish Sources edited by Olivia Constable
The documents collected in Medieval Iberia date mostly from the eighth through the fifteenth centuries and have been translated from Latin, Arabic, Hebrew, Judeo-Arabic, Castilian, Catalan, and Portuguese by many of the most eminent scholars in the field of Iberian studies. Nearly one quarter of this edition is new, including visual materials and increased coverage of Jewish and Muslim affairs, as well as more sources pertaining to women, social and economic history, and domestic life.
This primary source material ranges widely across historical chronicles, poetry, and legal and religious sources, and each is accompanied by a brief introduction placing the text in its historical and cultural setting. Arranged chronologically, the documents are also keyed so as to be accessible to readers interested in specific topics such as urban life, the politics of the royal courts, interfaith relations, or women, marriage, and the family.
A History of Islamic Spain by William Montgomery Watt
The period of Muslim occupation in Spain represents the only significant contact Islam and Europe was ever to have on European soil. In this important as well as fascinating study, Watt traces Islam’s influence upon Spain and European civilization–from the collapse of the Visigoths in the eighth century to the fall of Granada in the fifteenth, and considers Spain’s importance as a part of the Islamic empire. Particular attention is given to the golden period of economic and political stability achieved under the Umayyads.
Without losing themselves in detail and without sacrificing complexity, the authors discuss the political, social, and economic continuity in Islamic Spain, or al-Andalus, in light of its cultural and intellectual effects upon the rest of Europe. Medieval Christianity, Watt points out, found models of scholarship in the Islamic philosophers and adapted the idea of holy war to its own purposes while the final reunification of Spain under the aegis of the Reconquista played a significant role in bringing Europe out of the Middle Ages.
A survey essential to anyone seeking a more complete knowledge of European or Islamic history, the volume also includes sections on literature and philology by Pierre Cachia.
This series of “Islamic surveys” is designed to give the educated reader something more than can be found in the usual popular books. Each work undertakes to survey a special part of the field, and to show the present stage of scholarship here. Where there is a clear picture this will be given; but where there are gaps, obscurities and differences of opinion, these will also be indicated. Full and annotated bibliographies will afford guidance to those who want to pursue their studies further.
There will also be some account of the nature and extent of the source material. The series is addressed in the first place to the educated reader, with little or no previous knowledge of the subject; its character is such that it should be of value also to university students and others whose interest is of a more professional kind.
The History of Islam in Africa by Nehemia Levtzion
The history of the Islamic faith on the continent of Africa spans fourteen centuries. For the first time in a single volume, The History of Islam in Africa presents a detailed historic mapping of the cultural, political, geographic, and religious past of this significant presence on a continent-wide scale. Bringing together two dozen leading scholars, this comprehensive work treats the historical development of the religion in each major region and examines its effects.Designed as both a reference and a text, The History of Islam in Africa will be an essential tool for libraries, scholars, and students of this growing field.
Black Pilgrimage to Islam by Robert Dannin
Among the book’s greatest strengths are the Muslims’ testimonies of conversion, presented in their own words.This book offers a comprehensive ethnographic study of African-American Muslims. Drawing on hundreds of interviews conducted over a period of several years, Dannin provides an unprecedented look inside the fascinating and little understood world of black Muslims.
Ibn Battuta in Black Africa by Said Hamdun
Ibn Battuta’s description is a unique document of the high culture, pride, and independence of Black African states in the fourteenth century. This book is one of the most important documents about Black Africa written by a non-European Medieval historian. The new appendices include reports by contemporary Arab travelers who witnessed events described by Ibn Battuta, such as Ibn Khaldun, al-Maqqari, Ibn al-Dawadari and Al-Maqrizi. New foreword and bibliography by Ross Dunn. New and expanded appendices.
A History of Islamic Societies describes the transformations of Islamic societies from their beginning in the seventh century, through their diffusion across the globe, into the challenges of the nineteenth century. The story focuses on the organization of families and tribes, religious groups and states, depicts them in their varied and changing contexts, and shows how they were transformed by their interactions with other religious and political communities into a varied, global and interconnected family of societies.
The book concludes with the European commercial and imperial interventions that initiated a new set of transformations in the Islamic world, and the onset of the modern era. Organized in narrative sections for the history of each major region, with innovative, analytic summary introductions and conclusions, this book is a unique endeavor. Its breadth, clarity, style, and thoughtful exposition will ensure its place in the classroom and beyond as a guide for the educated reader.
In 1325 the young Morrocan Ibn Battuta left his home to make the pilgrimage to Mecca. On the way, he became enamoured with travel and travelled half the world, from North Africa to China, before returning to his home in 1349. His record of his journeys, the Rihla, is difficult to read and chaotically organised, leading historian Ross E. Dunn to present Ibn Battuta’s story in a more accessible format. THE ADVENTURES OF IBN BATTUTA is an extremely interesting book, and I recommend it highly to anyone interested in world history.
In its first thousand years – from the 7th century to the great Islamic empires of the 16th century, Islamic civilization flourished. While Europeans suffered through the Dark Ages, Muslims in such cities as Jerusalem, Damascus, Alexandria, Fez, Tunis, Cairo and Baghdad made remarkable advances in philosophy, science, medicine, literature and art. This work explores the first millennium of Islamic culture, seeking to shatter stereotypes and enlighten readers about the events and achievements that have shaped contemporary Islamic civilization.
The Uyghurs: Strangers in Their Own Land by Gardner Bovingdon (Author)
For more than half a century many Uyghurs, members of a Muslim minority in northwestern China, have sought to achieve greater autonomy or outright independence. Yet the Chinese government has consistently resisted these efforts, countering with repression and a sophisticated strategy of state-sanctioned propaganda emphasizing interethnic harmony and Chinese nationalism. After decades of struggle, Uyghurs remain passionate about establishing and expanding their power within government, and China’s leaders continue to push back, refusing to concede any physical or political ground.
Beginning with the history of Xinjiang and its unique population of Chinese Muslims, Gardner Bovingdon follows fifty years of Uyghur discontent, particularly the development of individual and collective acts of resistance since 1949, as well as the role of various transnational organizations in cultivating dissent.
Bovingdon’s work provides fresh insight into the practices of nation building and nation challenging, not only in relation to Xinjiang but also in reference to other regions of conflict. His work highlights the influence of international institutions on growing regional autonomy and underscores the role of representation in nationalist politics, as well as the local, regional, and global implications of the “war on terror” on antistate movements.
While both the Chinese state and foreign analysts have portrayed Uyghur activists as Muslim terrorists, situating them within global terrorist networks, Bovingdon argues that these assumptions are flawed, drawing a clear line between Islamist ideology and Uyghur nationhood.
“The House of Wisdom” by Jonathan Lyons – This book explores the intellectual and cultural achievements of the Abbasid Caliphate, which was known for its patronage of scholarship and the arts.
These were some Books on Islamic History
Duties of a Muslim Husband: Rights and Responsibilities in Islam In Islam, marriage is considered a sacred bond between a…
The sayings of Umar ibn al Khattab on Seeking Knowledge Umar ibn al-Khattab (radi allahu anhu), the second Caliph of…
The Unique intercession of prophet Muhammad (Sallallahu Alaihe Wasallam) on day of judgement The Unique Status of Rasulullah (Sallallahu Alaihe…
10 Lessons I Learned from the Book The Role of the Woman in Rectifying the Society by Sheikh Uthaymeen As…
Sky Musalla; Guinness World Record for Highest Prayer Room Within a Skybridge. The Sky Mussallah at Address Jabal Omar Makkah…
Letter of Imam Malik to Imam al Layth ibn Sa'd -an amazing historical insight into the Islamic etiquette of disagreement. Of…
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A beautiful collection of islamic books
A beautiful spectrum of books on Islamic history.