I believe that a greater understanding of how civilization evolved through the centuries may indeed erase misconceptions that have led to intolerance, abuse and violence between peoples and nations. Never have I believed it more than after reflectively reading the 2007 book Lost History: The Enduring Legacy of Muslim Scientists, Thinkers, and Artists by Michael Hamilton Morgan. Most of us, including myself, have not been taught in history class that it was about seven centuries of Muslim brilliance that took off where the Babylonians, Greeks, Romans and others left off to help usher in the European Renaissance and Enlightenment after their superstitious Middle Ages. Muslims, often brainstorming with Jews and Christians, left a legacy in astronomy, mathematics, medicine, pharmacology, architecture, philosophy and the arts that was crucial in developing our modern world.

The Muslims could do this because their prophet Muhammad told them to seek knowledge, that divine truth is found through reason, and that faith and reason can be the same. These great thinkers had creative minds and they often invented in many fields of study. One example is the Persian ibn Sina (Latinized to Avicenna) who wrote nearly 300 works on medicine, philosophy, mineralogy, mathematics, and astronomy. His Canon of Medicine, along with another Persian’s work, developed European medicine more than anything else. Morgan fully details how Avicenna did this as he does with every person mentioned in his book. It’s completely fascinating.

I can’t possibly tell you about all the great thinkers discussed in Lost History, but wish I could. Morgan observes in his Introduction that the book isn’t about religion; it’s about a civilization in which Islam played an integral role. He writes for the general reader more than academics and realizes he is ’entering a minefield’ because of so many things happening today, but wants us to understand that he hopes to show that the ‘events and ideas of a thousand years ago are directly relevant to our lives today.’

With eight chapters, as well as an Introduction, Epilogue, Foreword by His Majesty King Abdullah II of Jordan, Acknowledgments and Bibliography, this substantial book of just under 300 pages does a tremendous job of showing history’s relevance to us.

1) Rome’s Children
2) Lost Cities of Genius
3) God In The Numeral (specifically zero created by al-Khwarizmi)
4) Star Patterns
5) Inventors and Scientists
6) Healers and Hospitals
7) Vision, Voice, Citadel
8) Enlightened Leadership (one briefly was even a woman)

The sheer beauty of Lost History makes your average history book look like a dull cousin. He relates history to our present through short fictional stories of people today that precede the corresponding historical sections. Morgan helps us to see how contemplation of nature helps these geniuses as much as reflection on earlier works by people like Galen, Ptolemy, and Aristotle. Their hopes and fears come alive just like the ancient cities of Baghdad, Damascus, Cairo, Qurtuba (today Cordoba), Medina Azahara, Seville, and Jerusalem.

Let’s take Jerusalem, for example, and a Kurd from Syria called Saladin. He’s a different kind of Muslim leader, being deeply religious, chivalrous and military, who gets his chance at revenge on the Christian Crusaders who bloodily took Jerusalem and left no survivors. Now Saladin and his army retake Jerusalem in 1187, but blood doesn’t flow. A detailed account was taken by a witness and supplied here. Reason was used with Saladin to negotiate terms of surrender and he stood by his word to accept only payment from his prisoners. The 30,000 poor who couldn’t pay had their bill paid by Saladin himself. 100,000 Christians altogether got off with their possessions intact and exile as punishment.

Now tell me, who acted more like Jesus the Christ? Even Dante gave Saladin a place in heaven in his Divine Comedy published in the thirteenth century.

Then there’s the great Mughal ruler, Akbar of India, who enrages his Sunni Muslim scholars by listening to Jesuit priests at court, along with theologians from all the religions in India (a country of 140 million then), and deciding to establish a religion that unifies all of them. Needless to say, his attempt soon founders and all that’s left is the city he built in the religion’s honor.

Lost History ends with a nostalgic look at the Ottoman Empire’s greatest Sultan, Suleiman I, from a few months before his death to his death at 71 years in battle. This ruler had an alliance with a French king against the Catholics and so helped spread Protestantism throughout Europe. He was also a poet and Morgan offers one of his poems, yet again showing Morgan’s excellent research. I have a quibble, though. He discusses the fatal flaw in the Ottoman Empire and how it slowly died after Suleiman with World War I delivering the knock-out punch, but not how they tried to wipe out Christian Armenia in their final years. They needed to be knocked out, it seems to me, even if they once were a great empire that brought together the religions.

There’s so much that’s fascinating about this book. I only mentioned a few of the dozens of Muslim geniuses you’ll enjoy reading about, probably for the first time. Much of the legacy left by the Muslim’s Golden Age was assimilated into European culture and the Muslims forgotten by most when Europe stopped giving them credit. I think they should be remembered if only to help us understand that we all need each other’s gifts and are not islands. Peace can be possible if we better understand our history.

Jimmy Carter sums up the book pretty well: Lost History delivers a missing link to the story of an interconnected world: the achievements of Muslim civilization and its influence on East and West.

Hopefully some of you reading this are Muslims who don’t know that your brilliant past is nothing like your present. Or are people who have misconceptions of Islam. Even if you’ve been raised a Muslim, you could have misunderstandings and so this book will give you hope for the future of the Muslim people (and the world). As Morgan concludes, ’For every crisis spot, there is now a promising center of innovation.’ He sees your hope in immigrant Muslim communities in Europe and the Americas, but American leadership holds the key, it seems to me. Let’s do something about that, shall we?

Morgan is a former diplomat who now heads New Foundations For Peace, which promotes cross-cultural understanding and leadership among youth. He's also written or co-written several books, covered foreign policy issues for ABC and CBS, and directed and advised the International Pegasus Prize For Literature for ten years.

Recommended: Yes