“Decisive Moments in the History of Islam” by Muhammad Abdullah Enan, formerly of the Egyptian Bar and Egyptian Society for Historical Research; originally published in 1940 in Lahore (Pakistan); revised third ed. in 1949; revised fifth ed. in 1974. Written by a Muslim who contended that the pagans living in North Africa were generally `happy’ to be informed of the peaceful message of the Prophet Mohammad – as long as they paid their dhimmi jizyah tribute-taxes (p. 22). The author quoted both the English historian Gibbon and the German von Schlegel about the dhimmis’ happiness. The author tried to down play the military aspects of the Muslim’s `peaceful conquests’ by the early Muslim militias (or as the author defined these military campaigns: “the Arab Outburst”), but in a moment of candor the Muslim author gushed that in Oct. 732: “The Muslims captured and pillaged Poitiers [France] and burned its famous cathedral. They then attacked Tours…captured it and destroyed its cathedral…the Berber tribes were anxious to retire with their great spoils…They plundered all its rich churches and monasteries…and carried away innumerable treasures, spoils and captives” (p. 61). The author discusses other various Muslim battles: Constantinople, Crete, Sicily, Sardegna, Corsica, the battle of Manzikert, Hattin, Mansurah, De Joinveill’s Memoirs, slavery in the Middle Ages [eight short pages of banal generalities; no discussion from the hadith], the Fall of Toledo and Granada, and bemoans the collapse of Muslim Spain (or as the author titled it: The Fall of the Moorish Civilization). Not really an extensive nor detailed in-depth analysis of the history of the early Muslim era, but probably interesting when it was originally written. If you are already familiar with Islamic history, I don’t see this mid-1950s book adding much to a reader’s knowledge. Past its prime; stale-dated.
