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The Muslim 100: The Lives, Thoughts and Achievements of the Most Influential Muslims in History
"It is rare to see a publication which includes personalities from both Shia and Sunni schools of thought and which is so much needed in today's turbulent world. This book, I believe will . . . enrich our understanding of not only the historical but the contemporary history of the Muslim."—Ahmed J. Versi, chief editor of The Muslim News (London) Who have been the Muslim world's most influential people? What were their ideas, thoughts, and achievements? In one hundred short and engaging profiles of these extraordinary people, fourteen hundred years of the vast and rich history of the Muslim world is unfolded. For anyone interested in getting an intimate view of Islam through its kings and scholars, generals and sportsmen, architects and scientists, and many others—this is the book for you. Among those profiled are the Prophet Muhammad, the Caliph Umar, Imam Husain, Abu Hanifa, Harun al-Rashid, al-Khwarizmi, al-Ghazali, Saladin, Rumi, Ibn Battuta, Sinan, Ataturk, Iqbal, Jinnah, Ayatollah Khomeini, Malcolm X, and Muhammad Ali.
608 pages, Paperback
First published March 1, 2008
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
March 15, 2022
As someone who loves Islamic history & reading about prominent historic Muslim figures, I was incredibly excited to receive The Muslim 100 from @kubepublishing.
Until I opened the table of contents and discovered that in a list of 100 figures - including people like Ataturk (responsible for the extreme secularization & de-Islamifying of Turkey!) & al-Hallaj (literally executed for his heresy!) - only FOUR WOMEN were mentioned.
Which women, you ask? A'ishah bint Abi Bakr, Khadijah bint Khuwaylid, Fatimah bint Muhammad, & Rabia al-Adawiyyah. And for the first three women, according to the author, the most important thing about them was that they were perfect wives. Rabia al-Adawiyya's story included super dodgy myths about her, like seeing the Ka'bah come to her. Other than her legendary status as a Sufi figure, not much else is attributed to her.
Even worse, the author acknowledges the lack of women in this book - in an obnoxiously smug way, at that (see last slide). Instead of having a discussion into why this is, or exploring his definition & standard of what it means to be “influential,” or examining historical & cultural factors behind the marginalization of women & the minimizing of our stories - he smugly comments, “This book has managed to please people &, at the same time, displease a lot of people! Mission accomplished!”
In one glib statement, he made it clear that in his eyes, there have been almost no Muslim women deserving of being considered as “most influential” in history.
The fact that the author chose to highlight & *praise* people like Ataturk & al-Hallaj instead of incredible Muslim women like A'ishah bint Talha, Umm ad-Dardaa as-Sughra, Nana Asmau, Razia Sultan, Sultanah Safiatuddin Shah, or any number of others goes to show his priorities in terms of who he considers worthy of attention & who doesn't.
I am sick of books about "Muslim Heroes," "Muslim legends," & "great Muslims in Islamic history" that exclude women. THIS is exactly why people think that Muslim women have never done anything meaningful - because our stories are constantly erased & hidden.
0/5 🌟
Until I opened the table of contents and discovered that in a list of 100 figures - including people like Ataturk (responsible for the extreme secularization & de-Islamifying of Turkey!) & al-Hallaj (literally executed for his heresy!) - only FOUR WOMEN were mentioned.
Which women, you ask? A'ishah bint Abi Bakr, Khadijah bint Khuwaylid, Fatimah bint Muhammad, & Rabia al-Adawiyyah. And for the first three women, according to the author, the most important thing about them was that they were perfect wives. Rabia al-Adawiyya's story included super dodgy myths about her, like seeing the Ka'bah come to her. Other than her legendary status as a Sufi figure, not much else is attributed to her.
Even worse, the author acknowledges the lack of women in this book - in an obnoxiously smug way, at that (see last slide). Instead of having a discussion into why this is, or exploring his definition & standard of what it means to be “influential,” or examining historical & cultural factors behind the marginalization of women & the minimizing of our stories - he smugly comments, “This book has managed to please people &, at the same time, displease a lot of people! Mission accomplished!”
In one glib statement, he made it clear that in his eyes, there have been almost no Muslim women deserving of being considered as “most influential” in history.
The fact that the author chose to highlight & *praise* people like Ataturk & al-Hallaj instead of incredible Muslim women like A'ishah bint Talha, Umm ad-Dardaa as-Sughra, Nana Asmau, Razia Sultan, Sultanah Safiatuddin Shah, or any number of others goes to show his priorities in terms of who he considers worthy of attention & who doesn't.
I am sick of books about "Muslim Heroes," "Muslim legends," & "great Muslims in Islamic history" that exclude women. THIS is exactly why people think that Muslim women have never done anything meaningful - because our stories are constantly erased & hidden.
0/5 🌟
June 22, 2009
Clearly inspired by Michael Hart's The 100 A Ranking of The Most Influential Persons in History, Muhammad Khan presents to us the Muslim version where he has attempted to list the 100 most influential Muslims in history. Like Hart, Muhammad Khan's no. 1 spot is also reserved for the Prophet Muhammad. Unlike Hart, though, Khan does not really get into details why he chose Prophet Muhammad as the most influential person. Of course being a Muslim, Khan is expected to place the Prophet at the top. Michael Hart justifies his choice for the number one spot by explaining that Muhammad (pbuh) was the only person in history to have made a lasting impact in both the spiritual and material world. Hart also argued that Muhammad's (pbuh) Arabic dialect has been preserved over 1400 years and has become the standard Arabic dialect because of the Quran (no other language or dialect today is the same as it was 1400 years ago) superceding the other 10 different Arabic dialects. The Prophet's dress code, how he prayed, even how he ate are all preserved today not just by his fellow Arabs but throughout the world by Muslims eager to emulate his example. Surprisingly, Khan did not list this bit of detail in his biographical entry for the Prophet.
The Prophet's companions and two of his wives (Khadijah and Aisha) make up the top 9 in Khan's list with the prolific hadith narrator, Abu Hurairah, coming in at number 10. The remaining 90 are made up of Muslim scholars, scientists (like Ibn Khaldun, the father of historical inquiry) and rulers. There are a handful of 20th Century figures that made the list like Ayatollah Khomeini, Kemal Ataturk and even the boxer Muhammad Ali at number 100.
One may agree or disagree with his choices or the placing of certain luminaries over others but Muhammad Khan has nevertheless pulled off a magnificient feat with this book. It is a great book of reference for anyone interested in the movers and shakers throughout Islamic history.
The Prophet's companions and two of his wives (Khadijah and Aisha) make up the top 9 in Khan's list with the prolific hadith narrator, Abu Hurairah, coming in at number 10. The remaining 90 are made up of Muslim scholars, scientists (like Ibn Khaldun, the father of historical inquiry) and rulers. There are a handful of 20th Century figures that made the list like Ayatollah Khomeini, Kemal Ataturk and even the boxer Muhammad Ali at number 100.
One may agree or disagree with his choices or the placing of certain luminaries over others but Muhammad Khan has nevertheless pulled off a magnificient feat with this book. It is a great book of reference for anyone interested in the movers and shakers throughout Islamic history.
December 14, 2021
I was really excited to start reading this when the publisher gave me a copy in exchange for an honest review. But unfortunately, I was first disappointed when I realized that only 4/100 Muslims listed were women, and then realized that there is very little explanation on how these “most influential Muslims in history” were chosen and ranked. The author claims in the intro to actually rank these figures in a very “rational” and “objective” way and expects readers to accept it as is—without any acknowledgement of his personal bias.
Is it even useful to try to choose the top 100 influential Muslims? (Whether the “influence” is good or bad influence is open to interpretation—he includes people as destructive as Ataturk and as noble as Umar ibn al-Khattab. He uses influence in the very broadest sense, which might also be part of the problem.). I think this would’ve been better as a series of articles instead of a hierarchically organized book, because each person’s chapter isn’t even connected to the other chapters and can be read as standalones. If it were a series of articles without any argument about the order of influence, I think I could’ve accepted it better.
But even then, the word choice, sentence structure, and general organizational flow of the chapters were poor. I sometimes questioned whether the author understood the meanings of the complex words he used, and there were just so many adjectives at times that it felt unconcise and exaggerated.
I don’t even feel like I was left with a solid understanding of what these individuals did in order to be counted as highly influential; their biographies were interesting, but they didn’t deliver the book’s purpose—to show us how/why they were the most influential people.
So while this might be used as a good reference book if you want a quick bio on some figure from Islamic history, I struggled to get through this both because of both the writing style and the problematic premise on ranking influence. But if you want a book that discusses some influential Muslims in the past, I would recommend Saviors of Islamic Spirit and Al-Muhaddithat instead.
Is it even useful to try to choose the top 100 influential Muslims? (Whether the “influence” is good or bad influence is open to interpretation—he includes people as destructive as Ataturk and as noble as Umar ibn al-Khattab. He uses influence in the very broadest sense, which might also be part of the problem.). I think this would’ve been better as a series of articles instead of a hierarchically organized book, because each person’s chapter isn’t even connected to the other chapters and can be read as standalones. If it were a series of articles without any argument about the order of influence, I think I could’ve accepted it better.
But even then, the word choice, sentence structure, and general organizational flow of the chapters were poor. I sometimes questioned whether the author understood the meanings of the complex words he used, and there were just so many adjectives at times that it felt unconcise and exaggerated.
I don’t even feel like I was left with a solid understanding of what these individuals did in order to be counted as highly influential; their biographies were interesting, but they didn’t deliver the book’s purpose—to show us how/why they were the most influential people.
So while this might be used as a good reference book if you want a quick bio on some figure from Islamic history, I struggled to get through this both because of both the writing style and the problematic premise on ranking influence. But if you want a book that discusses some influential Muslims in the past, I would recommend Saviors of Islamic Spirit and Al-Muhaddithat instead.
December 5, 2014
i loved the way he wrote biography for each moslem story, flowing and very informative!
October 23, 2017
Buku yang menarik dan memperkenalkan pada sosok-sosok baru. Cuma memang sayang, kebanyakan tokoh berasal dari semenanjung Arab. Padahal jika menilik bisa digali tokoh dari Indonesia/Malaysia. Tapi tentu ini soal pendapat subjektif tentang siapa yang pantas menjadi 100 Muslim Paling Berpengaruh di Dunia.
Secara keseluruhan sangat informatif dan inspiratif.
Secara keseluruhan sangat informatif dan inspiratif.
July 30, 2019
The engaging language and concise entries make it both an enjoyable an educational read. An excellent sequel to Michael Hart’s The 100, this book is a must-have for every library and household. Both Muslims and non-Muslims can benefit from the diversity of the entries, which include the great scientist Jabir ibn Hayyan (known as Geber in the west) as well as the late Malcolm X and Muhammad Ali.
Even better than this is the author’s second book, The Muslim Heritage of Bengal.
If only this book was available during my days at school!
Even better than this is the author’s second book, The Muslim Heritage of Bengal.
If only this book was available during my days at school!
August 6, 2013
Very informative.
January 5, 2016
Banyak nama yang baru saya tahu. Buku yang bagus sekali memuat biografi muslim secara singkat namun padat. Cocok untuk mereka yang suka biografi seperti saya. Hehe.
Read
March 18, 2016i think this book is based historical Muslim life in early age. this book is beneficial for people because it show us to go in to the right faith.
Want to read
February 12, 2017test
February 17, 2021
Setiap pemeringkatan pastilah bias, termasuk buku ini. Tapi, tetap layak dibaca
February 17, 2022
Nice
Love from Bangladesh
Love from Bangladesh
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews