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Introduction

The book Destiny Disrupted: A History of the World Through Islamic Eyes by Tamim Ansary claims to relate “the rich story of world history as the Islamic world saw it.”[1]  However, the book contains numerous factual problems, as the analysis below documents.

The following chapters of the book feature these factual problems:

• Chapter 2: The Hijra
• Chapter 14: Industry, Constitutions, and Nationalism
• Chapter 15: Rise of the Secular Modernists
• Chapter 16: The Crisis of Modernity
• Chapter 17: The Tide Turns

The problems include:

• Inaccurately describing historic Jewish residence in the Holy Land
• Inaccurately describing Jews during the emergence of Islam
• Misrepresenting Zionism as
  • a settler colonial movement
  • based only on religious beliefs
• Falsely claiming Britain promised land to “Zionists of Europe” rather than Jews
• Misattributing the causes of wars and intifadas against Israel
• Falsely suggesting Zionists would not accept a Palestinian state
• Inflating the number of Palestinian refugees and eliding the Arab persecution of Jewish refugees
• Soft-Pedaling Arab violent rhetoric and actions directed against Jews

Chapter 2: The Hijra

Inaccurately Describing Jews During the Emergence of Islam

Chapter 2 features inaccurate descriptions of Jews in the emergence of Islam.

One such inaccurate description is the following: “After the disastrous battle of Uhud, another of Medina’s Jewish tribes had been exposed as collaborating with the Meccans.  Like the first Jewish tribe, they had been tried and sent into exile.”[2]

This description incorrectly treats as historical fact a Jewish tribe “collaborating” with the enemies of Muslims during the battle of Uhud.  However, other factors help to explain why Jews did not provide assistance at the battle.  For example, the historian Norman A. Stillman has noted that the battle happened on the Jewish Sabbath, a holy day on which Jews traditionally refrain from work.[3]

Another inaccurate description of Jews found in this chapter is as follows:

The third tribe, the Banu Qurayza, then proclaimed its loyalty to the Pact of Medina.  Now, however, in the run-up to the Battle of the Moat, its leaders had secretly conspired with the Quraysh to fall upon the Muslim forces from behind as soon as the Meccan forces attacked from the front.[4]

Despite the text’s treatment of each element of this narrative of events as factual, scholars regard the claim that the Banu Qurayza made such a pact as unlikely.  For example, Dr. Stillman has observed, “This [claim that the Qurazi chieftain had made a treaty] seems doubtful, however, and is probably the invention of later Muslim writers who wished to justify the harsh punishment that was meted out to the Qurayza.”[5]  Contrary to the text’s claim that the Banu Qurayza “conspired with the Quraysh,” the Banu Qurayza did not, in fact, do so, but the Banu Qurayza were punished anyway.  According to Dr. Stillman, “In the end[,] they did nothing.”[6]

In yet another of this chapter’s inaccurate descriptions, the book states that “the whole tribe [was put] on trial” and “one of their former associates among the Medina tribes [was appointed] as judge,” further noting, “When the tribe was found guilty, the judge declared that the crime was treason, the punishment for which was death.”[7]

This text leaves readers with the false impression that the treason was so blatant that even “one of their former associates among the Medina tribes” rendered such a harsh verdict.  However, the identity of the judge as a Muslim who “was dying of wounds” sustained during the fighting renders the judgement as something to be expected.  Moreover, Muslim sources indicate that the fate of the Jews had already been decided before the Jews surrendered, another fact omitted from this text’s account of events that problematizes the picture painted by the text of an apparently legitimate judicial procedure producing a just verdict.[8]  By omitting Muslim sources that undermine the book’s apologetic account of the harsh treatment of Jews, the book effectively whitewashes historical events in the emergence of Islam.

Chapter 14: Industry, Constitutions, and Nationalism

Falsely Claiming Britain Promised Land to “Zionists of Europe” Rather Than Jews

Chapter 14 features the false claim that Britain promised land to “Zionists of Europe” rather than Jews.

The book states,

Britain essentially promised the same territory to the Hashimites, the Saudis, and the Zionists of Europe, territory actually inhabited by still another Arab people with rapidly developing nationalist aspirations of their own–while in fact Britain and France had already secretly agreed to carve up the whole promised territory between themselves.[9]

Contrary to the text’s claim that Britain had promised the land to “the Zionists of Europe,” the Balfour Declaration mentions “the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people” [Italics mine].[10]

Chapter 15: Rise of the Secular Modernists

Inaccurately Describing Historic Jewish Residence in the Holy Land

Chapter 15 inaccurately describes the historic residence of the Jewish people in the Holy Land:

Was the natural “nation” here the Arabs, who constituted nearly 90 percent of the population and had been living here for centuries?  Or was it the Jews, most of whom had come here from Europe in the last two decades but whose ancestors had lived here two thousand years ago?  Hmm: tough question.[11]

This text omits the indigenous Jewish presence in the land over millennia, evidenced by archaeological artifacts, such as the Merneptah Stele (1207 BCE), and Jewish residence in the land between “two thousand years ago” and the “last two decades” to which the text refers.  For example, leading Jewish mystics moved to the land of Israel (alongside Jews already residing in the land) around the end of the Middle Ages and Chassidim would go on to comprise a central part of the Jewish Yishuv there.[12]

Chapter 16: The Crisis of Modernity

Chapter 16 inaccurately describes the historic residence of the Jewish people in the Holy Land, misrepresents Zionism as based solely on religious belief, misrepresents Zionism as a settler colonial movement, falsely suggests Zionists would not accept a Palestinian state, elides the persecution of Jewish refugees, and misattributes the causes of wars against Israel.

Inaccurately Describing Historic Jewish Residence in the Holy Land

The chapter features the following inaccurate description of the historic residence of the Jewish people in the Holy Land: “They [Jews] based their claim on the fact that their ancestors had lived there until the year 135 CE and that even in diaspora they had never abandoned hope of returning.”[13]

This text ignores the fact that before the emergence of the modern Zionist movement, Jews did return to the land, not merely entertaining a “hope of returning.”  As previously mentioned, prominent mystically oriented Jews relocated to the land of Israel (living by Jews already resident there) toward the end of the Middle Ages and Chassidic Jews would be a central part of the Jewish Yishuv there.[14]

Misrepresenting Zionism as Based Only on Religious Belief

The chapter also misrepresents Zionism as based solely on religious belief:

“Next year in Jerusalem” was part of the Passover service, a key cultural and religious rite in Judaism.  According to Jewish doctrine, G[-]d had given the disputed land to the Hebrews and their descendants as part of His covenant with Abraham.  Arabs, of course, were not persuaded by a religious doctrine that assigned the land they inhabited to another people, especially since the religion was not theirs.[15]

This portion of text omits nonreligious arguments Zionists have made for the legitimacy of Israel’s existence, including appeals to Jews’ indigeneity to the land.  The text’s claim that Arabs’ non-Jewish religions would prevent them from recognizing that “G[-]d had given the disputed land to the Hebrews and their descendants” is contradicted, for example, by Islamic scholars who have come to this conclusion.[16]

Misrepresenting Zionism as a Settler Colonial Movement

The chapter misrepresents the Zionist movement as settler colonialism:

What happened just before and during World War II in Palestine resembled what happened earlier in Algeria when French immigrants bought up much of the land and planted a parallel economy there, rendering the original inhabitants irrelevant.  By 1945, the Jewish population of Palestine almost equaled the Arab population.  If one were to translate that Influx of newcomers to the American context, it would be as if 150 million refugees flooded in within a decade.  How could that not lead to turmoil?[18]

This text’s claim that what Jews were doing in the land resembled what the French were doing in Algeria is problematic given that Jewish people are indigenous to the land of Israel and were returning to their ancestral homeland.  In fact, the historian Robert S. Wistrich has described Zionism as “the first successful anti-colonial liberation struggle in the Middle East” that became “a leading pioneer of postwar decolonization and the liberation of oppressed peoples in the Third World.”[19]  Also, the idea that Arabs were significantly disadvantaged or “render[ed] […] irrelevant” is belied by a Peel Commission report indicating that “the presence of Jews In Palestine, along with the work of the British administration, had resulted in higher wages, an improved standard of living, and ample employment opportunities.”[20]

Another example of this misrepresentation found in the chapter is evidenced in the following passage:

Most Arabs had no personal stake in the actual issue: the birth of Israel would not strip an Iraqi farmer of his land or keep some Moroccan shopkeeper from prospering in his business–yet most Arabs and indeed most Muslims could wax passionate about who got Palestine.  Why?  Because the emergence of Israel had emblematic meaning for them.  It meant that Arabs (and Muslims generally) had no power, that imperialists could take any part of their territory, and that no one outside the Muslim world would side with them against a patent injustice.  The existence of Israel signified European dominance over Muslims, Arab and non-Arab, and over the people of Asia and Africa generally.[21]

The claim that for “most Arabs,” the emergence of the tiny State of Israel, the world’s only Jewish State, “meant that Arabs (and Muslims generally) had no power” borders on the absurd with multiple Arab states in existence in which Arabs exert political and military power.  In addition, Zionist and Israeli leaders have long expressed a desire to share the land of Israel with non-Jews, including Arabs.  Theodor Herzl, the founder of Zionism, and David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister, sought to live alongside Arabs.  In this regard, the former hoped to see “flourishing relations between Jews and Arabs” in a future Jewish State.  David Ben-Gurion held that Arabs and Jews could benefit one another.[22]  The 12^th Zionist Congress articulated similar sentiments.[23]  Israelis also appealed to Arabs to stay in areas from which many decided to flee.  Israel’s Basic Laws ensure full social and political equality for all Israeli citizens regardless of religious affiliation, and various ethnic groups have flourished in the Jewish State.  Members of different religious and ethnic groups in Israel have served in various Israeli governmental positions and other sectors of Israeli society.  This analysis overlooks the role Islamist ideology and anti-Zionist antisemitism has played in the refusal of many Arabs to accept a Jewish State in any borders.[24]  Contrary to the text’s claim about “imperialists […] tak[ing] […] their territory,” the historian Jeffrey Herf has observed, “Had it been up to the British Foreign Office or the U.S. State and Defense Departments and the CIA–the usual malefactors of Western imperialism–the Jewish state would have been stillborn” due to their “overwhelming hostil[ity] to the establishment of the State of Israel.” Furthermore, the text’s claim that Israel represents “European dominance” is curious given that most Israelis are non-European in origin.[25]

Falsely Suggesting Zionists Would Not Accept a Palestinian State

The chapter falsely suggests that Zionists have been unwilling to accept a Palestinian state:

In the aftermath of the war of 1948, the Arabs lost the public relations battle even more drastically than they had lost their land.  For one thing, some prominent Arabs publicly and constantly disputed Israel’s “right to exist.”  They were speaking within the framework of the nationalist argument: Zionists wanted Israel to exist, the Arabs of Palestine wanted Palestine to exist, and since they claimed the same territory, both could not exist: the assertion of each nation’s “right to exist” was inherently a denial of the other nation’s “right to exist.”  But in the shadow of Nazis’ attempted genocide, asserting that Israel had no right to exist sounded like saying, “Jews have no right to exist.”[26]

The text’s suggestion that the existence of the State of Israel is responsible for preventing the establishment of a Palestinian state is belied by the fact that Zionists accepted UN Partition Resolution 181 of Palestine into two states: one Arab and one Jewish.  Had Arab leaders accepted the UN Partition Plan, a Palestinian state could have emerged.  Israeli leaders have made subsequent offers to recognize a Palestinian state, including in 2000 and 2008, but these offers were similarly rejected by Palestinian leaders.

Eliding the Persecution of Jewish Refugees

The chapter elides the persecution of Jewish refugees from Arab lands:

When war ended, a war that Israel remembers as their War of Independence but that Arabs called the Catastrophe, some seven hundred thousand Arabs found themselves homeless and stateless, living as refugees in the neighboring Arab countries.  The lands that were supposed to become Palestine were annexed (mostly by Jordan).  The bulk of the Arab refugees collected on the West Bank of the Jordan River, where they seethed and stewed and sometimes staged small raids into the land that had once been theirs.[27]

While the text mentions “Arab refugees,” it omits any reference to the more than 800,000 Jewish refugees who fled Arab lands in the Middle East and North Africa due to persecution.

Misattributing the Causes of Wars Against Israel

The chapter misattributes the causes of wars against the Jewish State: “Just three months later, Syria and Israel got locked into a cycle of raids and counterraids back and forth across their border, which escalated for six months, growing ever more bloody.”[28]

This text obfuscates the fact that cross-border guerrilla attacks against Israel emanating from Syria were responsible for precipitating Israel’s defensive responses.[29]

Another example of such misattribution in the chapter is found in the following passage: “This is where matters stood in the spring of 1967, just before one of the most seminal events of modern history, at least as seen through Islamic eyes: Israel’s Six[-]Day War against her Arab neighbors.”[30]

This text leaves readers with the impression that Israel waged the Six-Day War as an act of aggression.  In fact, Israel was acting in self-defense to prevent the destruction of the world’s only Jewish State and in response to an act of war by Egypt, which had expelled United Nations troops from the Sinai Peninsula and imposed a blockade on Israel’s Eilat port.  Israeli historian Michael Oren has noted, “Israel was desperate to avoid war and, up to the eve of the battle, pursued every avenue in an effort to avert it.”[31]

Chapter 17: The Tide Turns

Chapter 17 inflates the number of Palestinian refugees while eliding the persecution of Jewish refugees, downplays Arab violent rhetoric and actions against Jews, and misattributes the causes of wars and intifadas against the Jewish State.

Inflating Palestinian Refugees and Eliding the Persecution of Jewish Refugees

The chapter exaggerates the number of Palestian refugees while overlooking the persecution of Jewish refugees:

These refugees, their numbers swelled to more than a million by the latest mayhem, could properly be called Palestinians at this point, because their intense shared historical experience had certainly given them a common identity and made them a “nation” in the classic sense.[32]

Estimates of the number of Palestinian refugees resulting from the 1947-48 War vary from between 500,000 and 600,000 (Israel’s Foreign Ministry and Central Bureau of Statistics), between 600,000 and 760,000 (The British Foreign Office), and approximately 711,000 (United Nations Conciliation Commission for Palestine-Endorsed).  Each of these estimates of the number of Palestinian refugees is lower than the “more than a million” mentioned in the text.  Also, while the text mentions Palestinian refugees, it omits any reference to the more than 800,000 Jewish refugees who fled Arab lands in the Middle East and North Africa because of persecution.

Soft-Pedaling Arab Violent Rhetoric and Actions Directed Against Jews

The chapter downplays the significance of violent rhetoric and actions against Jews by offering apologetics for them:

In May 1967, Nasser began to spout martial rhetoric at Israel: to prove he meant business, he even blockaded Israel’s access to the Red Sea.  Actually, of course, with seventy thousand of his best troops bogged down in Yemen, Nasser could not possibly take any real military action; but a man can talk.  Talk, if it’s tough enough, will sometimes do the job.[33]

This text bends over backwards to downplay the existential threat facing the world’s only Jewish State in the days leading up to the Six-Day War, dismissing Nasser’s actions as merely “spout[ing] martial rhetoric.”  In fact, Nasser clearly articulated his annihilationist aim: “Our basic objective will be to destroy Israel.”[34]  Protesters in Iraq, Egypt, and Syria chanted “Death to the Jews!” as well as “Throw the Jews into the sea.”[35]  The situation facing Israel was severe.  As the scholar Daniel Gordis states,

The situation was dire: the Egyptians had at least 100,000 troops and 900 tanks in the Sinai.  To the north, Syria had readied 75,000 men and 400 tanks, while the Jordanians had amassed 32,000 men and almost 300 tanks.  In total, Israel faced a potential force of 207,000 soldiers and 1,600 tanks.  With full mobilization, Israel could muster 264,000 soldiers but had only 800 tanks.  When it came to planes, the situation was even worse.  The Arabs had 700 combat aircraft, while Israel had only 300.[36]

Misattributing the Causes of Wars and Intifadas Against Israel

The chapter’s misattribution of the causes of wars and intifadas against Israel is evidenced in the following passage:

Overall then, what did the Six[-]Day War accomplish?  Israel gained the Occupied Territories.  They were supposed to buffer the country against further attacks.  Instead, within those same territories, Israeli authorities have faced ever-mounting insurgencies called intifadas, to which they have responded with ever more brutal measures.  Year after year and decade after decade, this strike-and-counterstrike syndrome has drained the nation’s energies and compromised its moral arguments in the world.[37]

This text leaves readers with the impression that Israel waged the Six-Day War to acquire more territory, but this impression is false.  Israel decided to wage war out of necessity, to preserve the Jewish State whose existence had been threatened by Arab leaders.  The text also suggests Israel was not willing to compromise over territory, but as Israel’s Foreign Minister Abba Eban said, “everything is negotiable.”[38]  The text also omits other significant effects of the Six-Day War, like the instilling of “a new pride in being Jewish” among Soviet and American Jews, not merely Israel’s acquisition of territories.[39]

Contrary to the text’s false suggestion that Palestinian intifadas were a consequence of Israel’s occupation of territories, Arab violence against Jews predated Israel’s control of “Palestinian Territories,” including Arab attacks against Jews in 1920, 1921, 1929, and 1936.

In the following terms, Azzam Pasha, Secretary-General of the Arab League, made clear the violent intentions of the five Arab armies that invaded Israel following the proclamation of Israel’s establishment on May 14, 1948 long before Israel acquired territories in the 1967 Six-Day War: “It will be a war of annihilation. It will be a momentous massacre in history that will be talked about like the massacres of the Mongols or the Crusades.”

The text also leaves readers with the false impression that Palestinian intifadas were directed against “Israeli authorities.”  In fact, Palestinians targeted Israeli civilians in both the first and second intifadas.  The text provides no evidence for the “ever more brutal measures” Israel is alleged to have taken nor for the claim that what transpired “drained the nation’s energies and compromised its moral arguments in the world.”

Conclusion

The above analysis documented factual problems relating to the Middle East in the book Destiny Disrupted: A History of the World Through Islamic Eyes.

These problems include:

• Incorrectly describing historic Jewish presence in the Holy Land
• Misrepresenting Zionism as
  • a manifestation of settler colonialism
  • based solely on religious beliefs
• Falsely alleging Britain promised land to “Zionists of Europe” rather than Jews
• Misattributing the factors precipitating wars and intifadas against Israel
• Falsely indicating Zionists would not accept a Palestinian state
• Inflating the number of Palestinian refugees while eliding Jewish refugees persecuted by Arabs
• Downplaying Arab violent words and deeds against Jews

-Reviewed by David Orenstein/Oct. 21, 2025

[1] Tamim Ansary, Destiny Disrupted: A History of the World Through Islamic Eyes (PublicAffairs, 2010), Back Cover.

[2] Ibid. p. 27.

[3] Norman A. Stillman, The Jews of Arab Lands: A History and Source Book (The Jewish Publication Society of America, 1979), p. 14.

[4] Ansary, Destiny Disrupted, p. 27.

[5] Stillman, The Jews of Arab Lands, pp. 14-15.

[6] Ibid. p. 15.

[7] Ansary, Destiny Disrupted, p. 28.

[8] Stillman, The Jews of Arab Lands, p. 15.

[9] Ansary, Destiny Disrupted, p. 298.

[10] Itamar Rabinovich and Jehuda Reinharz, Israel in the Middle East: Documents and Readings on Society, Politics, and Foreign Relations, Pre-1948 to the Present (Brandeis University Press, 2008), p. 29.

[11] Ansary, Destiny Disrupted, p. 313.

[12] Edward Kessler, An Introduction to Jewish-Christian Relations (Cambridge University Press, 2013), pp. 152-153.

[13] Ansary, Destiny Disrupted, p. 322.

[14] Kessler, An Introduction to Jewish-Christian Relations, pp. 152-153.

[15] Ansary, Destiny Disrupted, p. 322.

[16] A number of Islamic scholars hold that G-d gave the land to Jews, including Khaleel Mohammed of San Diego State University and Mohammad Tawhidi of the Islamic Association of South Africa.

[17] Ansary, Destiny Disrupted, p. 320.

[18] Ibid. pp. 320-321.

[19] Robert S. Wistrich, From Ambivalence to Betrayal: The Left, the Jews, and Israel (University of Nebraska Press, 2012), p. 512.

[20] Mitchell Bard, Myths and Facts: A Guide to the Arab-Israeli Conflict, American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise, pp. 19-20.

[21] Ansary, Destiny Disrupted, pp. 322-323.

[22] David Ben-Gurion stated: “[There is] no conflict of interest between the Jewish people as a whole and the Arab people as a whole….We need each other.  We can benefit each other” (Gilbert, In Ishmael’s House, pp. 172-173).  Similarly, he stated: “a great Jewish community, a free Jewish nation in Palestine, with a large scope for its activities, will be of great benefit to our Arab neighbours, and from the recognition of this fact will come a lasting peace and lasting cooperation between the two peoples” (Ibid. p. 173).

[23] The 12^th Zionist Congress resolved, “the determination of the Jewish people to live with the Arab people on terms of unity and mutual respect, and together with them to make the common home into a flourishing community the upbuilding of which may assure to each of its peoples an undisturbed national development” (Quoted in “Palestine: Correspondence with the Palestine Arab Delegation and the Zionist Organization,” Cmd. 1700 (London, 1922)).

[24] For example, Middle East historian Meir Litvak has observed: “the religious idiom has always played an important role in the evolution of Palestinian nationalism and in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict […] Various Arab rulers have also used Islam as an instrument for their policies in the conflict” (Meir Litvak, Middle Eastern Studies, “The Islamization of the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict: The Case of Hamas,” January 1998, pp. 148-163.”).

[25] Yossi Klein Halevi, Letters to My Palestinian Neighbor (HarperCollins Publishers, 2019), pp. 39-40.

[26] Ansary, Destiny Disrupted, p. 324.

[27] Ibid.

[28] Ibid. p. 328.

[29] Barry Rubin, Israel: An Introduction (Yale University Press, 2012), p. 30.

[30] Ansary, Destiny Disrupted, p. 328.

[31] Michael Oren, “Did Israel Want the Six Day War?” Azure (Spring 5759/1999), p. 51.

[32] Ansary, Destiny Disrupted, p. 330.

[33] Ibid. p. 329.

[34] Daniel Gordis, Israel: A Concise History of a Nation Reborn (HarperCollins Publishers, 2017), p. 270.

[35] Ibid.

[36] Ibid. p. 272.

[37] Ansary, Destiny Disrupted, p. 332.

[38] Tuvia Book, For the Sake of Zion (The Toby Press, 2017), p. 98.

[39] Gordis, Israel, p. 281.