Our highly popular history course by Shaykh Dr Ridhwan launching in High Wycombe 6 October 2024. Classes will be monthly, first Sunday of each month. 9am – 1.30 pm, with breaks. Join us on this journey to discover your heritage.
It is time to Reclaim, Rename and Rewrite our history, not allow others to write it for us.
The course focuses on a broad sweep of the major historical personalities, events and processes of the Islamic (622-1707) and European (1707-present) Ages. The Islamic Age, or Islamic Millennium, is further divided into 3 major periods: (1) the High Caliphate Period (622-1066), in which most of the Muslim world is united under one caliph who commands the greatest empire in the world; (2) the Middle Period (1066-1500) of Islamic sultanates, emirates and khanates, in which myriad polities and dynasties come and go but which form the “Muslim Commonwealth” united by a common language, religion and culture; and (3) the Gunpowder Period (1500-1707), dominated by the emergence three great empires in the Muslim world, the Ottoman, Mughal and Safavid, which continue Muslim global pre-eminence, while Western Europe is undergoing its Renaissance, Reformation and Age of Discovery.
The final period, the European Age, (1707- present), witnesses the gradual rise of the European colonial empires which come to dominate most of the world by the end of the nineteenth century. Following the momentous and self-destructive power struggles between these colonial powers in the 20th century – the two World Wars – the mantle of Western civilization is taken on by the new world superpower, the United States of America, which proceeds to fashion a new global order under its direction.
The passage of ages, empires, dynasties and the later emergence of nation-states will be studied in relation to the world situation as a whole, and with particular regard to three inter-related aspects: political-military, intellectual and the economic.