We Need to Be Better About Teaching Islamic History
What constitutes an overview?
I am American, and my parents are both Egyptian immigrants. I distinctly remember in 3rd grade learning about ancient Egypt and feeling pride in having my culture shared with the rest of the class. I was the only Egyptian kid in the class (as it almost always is). My parents came into the class and brought Egyptian food; we had a great time. Again, in 6th grade, we learned about ancient Egypt. Again, My parents came in and we did an activity and (of course) there was food for the class that my grandma had prepared. The next and final time I learned about ancient Egypt was in 9th grade (it seems like the American education system needs to recycle the same topics every three years, as if there’s nothing more to learn). This time, I was in Pre-AP World History. We were moving fast through the material, and there wasn’t really an opportunity for my parents to come into the class like in previous years.
While I do have Egyptian roots, they aren’t the only ones I grow from. I was also raised Muslim. We celebrated Eid, fasted for Ramadan, and I attended Sunday School for most of my life (including the time when I was in Pre-AP World). Never had I learned about the Islamic Golden Age, or the very concept of an Islamic civilization — at least not until Pre-AP World. In Sunday school I’d learned about the Prophet Muhammad and some stories about his life. I’d also learned about random battles that seemed to almost exist outside of history — I didn’t have the full picture to understand the context and significance of The Battle of Uhud, for example. I didn’t know the consequences or the stakes of such an event.
In Pre-AP World, we bounced around a great deal between different civilizations around the world. We went from Mesopotamia to Egypt to India to China to Greece to Persia to Mesoamerica to China again to Rome to Africa to India again to Byzantium, etc. Each of these units were a place and a time in history, each came with their own little packet (some larger than others) with a unique color. We first touched the Arab world with a pastel-yellow packet, enshrined on the front with the words “The Islamic Golden Age”. This was the first time I was learning in “regular school” anything about Islam, and certainly the first time ever I was learning about the Arab world. We began the unit by discussing the core tenets of Islam. I remember our teacher telling us, “Islam is not just a religion; it’s a way of life”. For some reason that line always stuck with me.
We quickly zoomed through the foundational stuff about Islam: the five pillars, the Quran, who Muhammad was, and the cities of Mecca and Medina. After that, we bounced straight to the Golden Age. While it was an interesting unit, all we really learned was some flurrying fluff in the sound of “Umayyad”, “Abbasid”, “astrolabe”, “algebra”, and “Cordoba”. We didn’t discuss much beyond that. Our next packet, a green one if I recall correctly, was about the Crusades. We jumped straight into Pope Urban II and Saladin and Richard the Lionhearted. We touched on a few consequences, like how the Black Death didn’t really spread to the Middle East because of soap and proper hygiene, and that trade opened up after the wars. Ultimately, the Islamic world was subsumed by the Ottomans and the Mughals, two gunpowder empires.
My young mind didn’t question the content we were learning much. I thought this was all there was to know about the history, and that anything beyond this concrete foundation were deep new discoveries being made by modern archaeologists. I thought the reason our Islamic and African and Mesoamerican packets were slimmer than our Roman and Greek and Chinese packets was that there wasn’t much written history in these regions and therefore little surviving history to learn. I naively thought that history was written, and that it could only be written. I didn’t question the fact that we were learning the intricacies of gothic architecture in the European Medieval Ages, while not naming a single Muslim outside of Muhammad, Saladin, Ibn Battuta, and Mansa Musa (of whom the latter two were found in our West Africa packet). I suppose in some sense I subconsciously believed that Egyptian history was a little richer because they kept many hieroglyphic records; I assumed that once Islam spread to the region they all ditched their gods and began reading the Quran, leaving their antiquated culture in the past.
Fast forward to last year. In my usual antics of browsing Wikipedia, I kept coming across famous Medieval Muslims. Names like Al-Ghazali, Al-Farabi, Ziryab, Al-Khansa, and Ibn Rushd began to take up space on my ‘saved articles’ list. I kept reading and reading, astounded by the amount of influential figures. Pre-AP World briefly introduced me into the discoveries and miracles of the Golden Age, but I had no concept of the women and men behind them. It felt enlightening to read about the glory and height of the Golden Age. What amazed me even more than the amount of articles was their length. There are extremely detailed and lengthy entries on Wikipedia about Islamic Golden Age polymaths, philosophers, artists, scientists, writers, concepts, and events. Why didn’t they teach us any of this in school? Why did we have to learn about ‘flying buttresses’ and not early ophthalmological surgery? It felt completely backward to learn as much as we did about the Renaissance and Enlightenment and not mention that the Islamic world kept the knowledge alive and built upon it before giving it to Europe.
Personally, I was more interested in the philosophy than anything else. The philosophers (who themselves were often also scientists, jurists, theologians, poets, artists, and sometimes political leaders) had so many writings to learn from and ideas to meditate upon. I decided to look into an Islamic philosophy class to take at my university. I didn’t have luck in finding one. I tried looking into anything Medieval Islam that my school had to offer. What I did find, however, was one history class: History of the Islamic World. I took the class the following semester, and I thrived. I enjoyed so much of the material, and each day we learned about a different aspect of Islamic civilization. Unfortunately, halfway into the class we left the Golden Age and moved on to the pre-modern and modern eras. I wish we’d spent more time on the things I wanted to learn, though I understand that it wasn’t really in the scope of the course. I wish that more classes were offered at my school to learn about Islamic philosophy, Medieval Islamic history, Islamic art, and Islamic poetry. There aren’t many opportunities in America to learn any of this rich documented history and culture.
I wish there was more emphasis on this incredible civilization. I’m not trying to posit that back then they lived in some utopia; there was still inequality, hate, extremism, just like in the modern American civilization. I just would love the opportunity to learn about all that, rather than just learn a factual nugget here and there. I want to know how they lived; which ways did they live like us, and which ways did they not? I want to know how they thought; how did they feel about the prevailing philosophies of the time? I want to know about their politics; did they support their leaders or want to overthrow them? What was it like to live in Andalusia in 1091 CE? Or Cairo 1246 CE? What was it liked to discover the Islamic canon in the Baghdad House of Wisdom?
Teaching Islamic history should not stop at the water’s edge of public school, but in Sunday school as well. The religion encourages learning and reading. It’s a shame that the only text that is read is the Quran in most Sunday schools. There are a plethora of great texts by Islamic scholars throughout history that open the door to discussion and application of the virtues presented in the religion. I believe many more young people would be eager to learn about the history of their religion rather than just the fundamentals. The fundamentals have been built upon for over a millennium. It’s necessary to teach the history of Islam in order to build the Muslim (and non-Muslim) scholars of the future.
I believe the education system has not emphasized Islamic history nearly enough. Right now, most Americans hear of the Islamic world and think of backward, misogynistic, and radical people. They don’t think of scholars, art, or prosperity. The knowledge of this civilization should not be forgotten — the West owes it at least that much. If we want to say we are teaching students history, we should teach this crucial part of it. Within this century, Islam is going to be the most widely practiced religion in the world. The history needs to be taught; not just because it’s Islamic history, but because it’s human history.
