Islam and the West

This is a classic work on the subject of the centuries-old war between Islam and the West. According to Dr. Lewis, who has spent his career thinking and writing about the subject, what we all are living through now is just the latest phase of the conflict. As Dr. Lewis, a Professor at Princeton, is nearing the age of 100, he is no longer able to appear on TV and radio, a great loss to those of us who get their information from talking heads. After reading this short book, you will understand that the military and cultural power of Islam reached its peak sometime around the 14th century and has since been in decline. Militarily, the Christian countries have dominated the Islamic countries (culminating with the defeat of the Turkish empire in WWI). Culturally, Islam has fallen centuries behind the West as measured by scientific and technical achievements. Zionism, which is a relatively new phenomenon, has played a small part in the conflict when placed in the perspective of history. I read this book about 25 years ago and find it no less compelling as I re-read it today. It should be a textbook in every liberal arts curriculum and read by anyone who cannot for the life of them understand what drives the irrationalism, ideological chaos, and mass murder in the Islamic world.

I was looking for the source of the Smithsonian series that aired several years ago! Apparently there was no 'single' source; however what I've read so for is intriguing. I've found it educational as well as interesting.

Good book with tons of details. She has good knowledge about Islam.

The first chapter of the book discusses the geopolitical relations between Islam and Europe, including an interesting treatment of Islamic law. However, the middle sections of the book are dedicated to very technical criticisms of other authors, some of whom wrote centuries ago, for their ignorance of arabic vocabulary, as well as reviews of earlier European books, some of which date back centuries, about Islam. The author is free with his criticisms of other writers whose knowledge of Arabic and Turkish clearly does not match his own. There is a chapter attacking the theory of "Orientalism" as propounded by the late Edward Said. Lewis and Said were free with their criticism of each other, and Lewis gives a full treatment of his side of the argument. All of this material is fairly remote from what I expected from the title and summary, especially from a well-known expert on Middle Eastern history and culture.

Having seen citations from this book again and again, I ordered it. This is a milestone in terms of containing very important details about Ottoman history. Should I recommend a book concerning to Western-Muslim relations, I would definitely say Islam and the West.

excellent background reference material

Professor Lewis in top form as usual. Professor Lewis identifies the reality of the Middle East vs Edward Said's delusions and victimology. Professor Lewis, RIP.

Overall, I enjoyed this book. Lewis knows his stuff, and how to teach it. In that regard, the contrast between him and Said seems to me like the contrast between a craftsman who does his job, and the office politician. Lewis understands Middle Eastern cultures thoroughly, he expresses his ideas clearly, and (it seems to me) is commmitted to telling the truth, honestly and fairly. Islam and the West is, of course, a broad topic, and the book is only 200 pages, with some repetition from other works, I think, so I was sometimes disappointed in Lewis' choice of topics. The book is primarily a history of intellectual understandings, and secondarily a reply to Said's attacks. It is not a political history of the two civilizations, though it gives a bit of that history. (Paul Fregosi's Jihad is the most enlightening book I've read on the military aspect of the relationship.) Lewis shows how the West became interested in Islam from the Middle Ages, and how Islam much later developed an interest in the other direction. He discusses Gibbon, colonialism, Islamic factions, and how Christians, Jews, and Muslims have seen one another. He also offers an eloquent appeal for honest and free historical study of other cultures. As a student of Asian cultures, I appreciated the way he emphasizes the need to understand other worldviews as they understand themselves, rather than projecting our categories onto them. His tone is sometimes ironic, but not, in my opinion, indulgently so. Said mostly deserves the drubbing (verbal smart bombs) he takes, though Lewis may be a touch thorough. (But with less collatoral damage than Said's sweeping invective.) Lewis asks why Westerners have studied other cultures, and gives several answers (beyond the power grab Said suggests): spiritual links to the Middle East, fear of jihad, the prestige of Arab science. I would add another. It seems to me Dr. Lewis is weakest when he talks about Christianity. He assumes that Christianity claims exclusive truth in the same sense as Islam. But a further reason that the West studied Islam I think derives from differences between the two faiths. Missionaries like Matteo Ricci and James Legge were often at the forefront of Western understanding of Asian cultures, and even today Christian missionaries translate the Bible into thousands of remote languages. I think this has to do with the Christian idea of the "word become flesh." In Christianity, God affirmed other cultures and languages by the incarnation, and underlined it with the miracle of Pentacost. This is quite different from the Muslim idea of the Koran writen in heaven in "pure Arabic," which can never be translated, and made a huge difference in the thought of people like Justin, Origin, Augustine, and Ricci. Lewis misunderstands why Christians reject Mohammed, I think. The difference between the two faiths, and the reason Christians mistrust Mohammed, is not just that one is earlier and one is later. Rather, we feel that Mohammed conforms to a type familiar in our scriptures, the "false prophet" or "anti-Christ:" the union of unscrupulous power with pretensions to divine authority. Lewis does Islam and Christianity the courtesy of taking both seriously, however, and that is enormously refreshing.

Livre écrit dans une langue anglaise claire mais l'on remarque un contenu assez pauvre à cause des approximations doctrinaires de l'auteur, ici et là mélangées et parfois contradictoires.

This is required reading for anyone following Trump politics. Bernard Lewis started life as a pointy-headed intellectual and wrote books like this. He tired of academe and became a 'thinker' advising a few of the last presidents, and became far more populist and richer as a result. So HIS views can account for the mess America is making of the Middle East over twenty years. Hence the required reading bit. His pen is now still and according to his obituary in the Times his early works such as this - are far more readable and make more sense than the later works. The Arabists in the British Foreign Office ( 'the Camel Corps') have lost influence over foreign policy in the last decade or so - they were excluded from discussions over the mess Bush and Blair made of Iraq and their counsel was replaced with stuff like this. This book is a must-read for 2018.

I am content with this book. I knew the writer and his work. The quality is high. The looked good and was cheap. Till next time, Jan bartholomeus

This book constitutes a selection of writings by the first earnest student of the middle East, Bernard Lewis. Lewis has been maligned as an orientalist and has been the subject of much controversy largely due to his influence over the Bush administration with regards to the Iraq war. This book includes some of his best scholarly pieces including his study of Gibbon and Muhammad. Undoubtedly, Lewis is at his best when he is dealing with history. Also included are articles Lewis authored to defend himself from criticism levelled against him by his perennial opponent and literary critic, Edward Said whose book Orientalism is a good read if one wants to understand the debate Lewis was participating in. In these journalistic chapters Lewis descends often into hyperbole and doesn't engage honestly with his opponents criticism. Moreover contrary to what one reviewer has said Lewis paints a fair and accurate image of the Islamic world in general and the late Ottoman Empire in particular. Lewis compelling argues, displaying his tremendous erudition, that the Muslim world was more tolerant of religious minorities than Christendom demonstrated by ,for example, the Ottoman Millet system. Lewis shows that the Muslim world before the treaty of Carlowitz was far ahead of the Christendom in terms of military force and learning. In some areas his work suffers from a lack of rigorous scholarship. For example some claims are lacking footnotes and one source of evidence for his claim is that a young man informed him of it in shop. Overall, a great collection of writings that illuminate the contemporary problems plaguing the Islamic world and certainly will provided arguments to engage with and critique.

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