Book Review of Twenty20 Vision

Twenty20 Vision: My Life and Inspiration by Mushtaq Ahmed.

The book has got some very good reviews. One such is present here

http://content-usa.cricinfo.com/reviews/content/story/281458.html

Daastaan-e-Mujhaid

You are in love with a Naseem Hijazi book, the minute you start reading the preface. In his own words, for this book he wanted to do some research on the Mujahideen, and when he did so, he had so much to chose from. Obviously this small sentence is explained in his wonderful poetic style..

The purpose of his books is not amusement and time pass, but to enrich the dying flame in the hearts of Muslim youth.

As the book starts immediately you relate yourself to the characters that he creates for his readers.You smile, you cry and you laugh. You don't want to let go off the book, till the end is reached.

The book centres around 'Naeem', a fictious but completely believable character planted in that age of history where Muslim Ummah had started to decline from the steep that they had achieved just after the few years of the birth of Islam. Naeem is shown battling with Mohammed Bin Qasim and Qutaiba the two famous Muslim generals.

One can relate to the fact that Muslims in that time were so powerful that the only enemy that could defeat them was themselves. And that eventually happened, minus the eras of a few caliphates, the Muslims went in a self destruct.

Everyone knows that there is a need to bring about a change in the thought process and spirit of Muslim youth. What that change has to be Nasim Hijazi affectively highlights it in this book. Just be what Naeem and Abdullah were, and we would be out of today's mess in no time.

Allah kee Talwaar

'O you people I place before you three conditions. 1) Accept Islam or (2) continue with your religion and pay us tax for the protection we provide to you or (3) come out and fight. For I bring an army for you, which is not afraid to die...'

This was the central theme of the letters and announcements of Hazrat Khalid Bin Waleed (Razi Allah Unho) to such mighty empires as the Romans and Persians.

Years before in the time of Hazrat Muhammad (peace be upon him) a small army of faithfuls was sent out to fight. Khalid Bin Waleed (Razi Allah Unho) was amongst those faithfuls. The battle turned quite bad for the Muslims and resulted in the Shahadat of the first three commanders. Khalid Bin Waleed (Razi Allah Unho) relunctantly took the flag of commander and hence gave birth to Saif Ullah or the 'Sword of Allah'. Immediately he gathered and re-arranged his troops. Asked a few of his riders to go to the back of the Muslim army and run their horses on sand, so as to give rise to dust, so that the enemies come under the impression that help has arrived for the Muslim army. Meanwhile he commanded his troops to hit the enemies hard. The enemy though greater in number lost confidence by thinking that Muslims have been re-juvenated by fresh troops. Slowly but surely, the Saif Ullah, took the remaining Muslims out of the jaws of death and returned to Madina, where the Prophet of Allah named him Saif Ullah. He prooved himself worthy of this title by demonstrating great skills in fighting wars with the Mighty Armies of Non Muslims. No matter how strong the enemy was, the sheer determination of his and his Faithful Warriors was too much for his enemies to bear. History has made it quite evident that when the purpose of war was to gain favor of Allah, then winning the war was not a big issue for the Muslims. This lesson of history becomes the hope of tomorrow for us.

The book, by Abu Zaid Shibli, is well written, but it fell quite short of what I was expecting of it (the blame entirely being on my expectations). I wanted the book to concentrate more on the war tactics, the mighty resolve, the endearing faith, the miracles and power which was given to the Muslims by Allah Almighty for the immense Emaan in their hearts.

A good book anyways as it lists all the wars that were fought by the Mighty Soldier of Islam who fought more than 100 wars. It also attempts to answer some of the controversaries. But I would wait for a book to come along which would focus on the sheer genious of the tactics employed by the 'Saif Ullah'.