Most of what we suffer today only occurred in the last 100 years; the fall of the Ottoman Empire, the creation of Israel, the Sykes-Picot Agreement, the conversion of Muslim provinces into nation-states, the discovery of oil, the rise of the United States as a global power, the rise and fall of the Soviet Union, the rise and fall of secular pan-Arabism, economic globalization, and so on. And, it seems to us, in our myopia, that we have been suffering these difficulties forever; but it has not really been that long.
In the overall history of this Ummah, a century is like one minute in one round of a boxing match. We have been hit by a flurry of blows in that 100 year minute; but we were hit before similarly during the 100 year minute of the Christian Crusades, and we rebounded heroically.
So, a century is very long, yes, but also, very short.