I highly recommend several of his books, “What Went Wrong” and “Crisis in Islam”. HIGHLY educational, and written in a very readable way for such a distinguished scholar.
I highly recommend several of his books, “What Went Wrong” and “Crisis in Islam”. HIGHLY educational, and written in a very readable way for such a distinguished scholar.
Islam: The Religion and the People
Bernard Lewis, Buntzie Ellis Churchill
http://www.amazon.com/Islam-Religion-People-Bernard-Lewis/dp/0132230852/ref=sr_1_6?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1283093357&sr=1-6
Lewis (Near Eastern studies, emeritus, Princeton Univ.; The Crisis of Islam) and Churchill (former president, World Affairs Council of Philadelphia) offer an accessible introduction to Muslims and their faith. In clear language, the authors cover the faith’s development, its five pillars, Scripture and tradition, law, the mosque, diversity, sectarian divisions, government, economics, women, dress, language, war and peace, and radicalism. There are three particular strengths. First, Lewis and Churchill insist that Islam cannot be reduced to extremes as either a bloodthirsty creed or solely a message of peace. The Qur’an advocates a range of responses according to specific circumstances. Second, the authors humanize Islam by including insets on “Islamic humor” in every chapter. Third, the book replaces dangerous characterizations of Islam as an enemy with an understanding of Islam as a faith intimately connected to Christianity and Judaism. Through understanding Islam, readers may see that the minority who espouse a radicalized totalitarian version of Islam represent neither the faith nor most of its followers. Highly recommended for all libraries.
This is a major difference between the United States and these various cultures of the Middle East, where they have a very acute sense of history, a very keen awareness of the past.
Now I'm not saying that their perceptions of history are necessarily accurate. I mean, we all have our own particular slant to the--the way in which we view the past, but at least they know. I mean, for example, in the Iraq-Iran war, between 1980 and 1988, the war propaganda of both sides, of both the Iraqis and the Iranians, made frequent allusions to events of the seventh century.
Mr Lewis makes too little of the fact, and is missing intellectual rigor in the fact that (1) a "sense" of history, is NOT the same as a KNOWLEDGE of history, (2) nor is a sense of grievance over past events a substitute for KNOWLEDGE of why the events occurred, and (3) "perceptions" and mis-perceptions are much stronger in moving people than actual knowledge - as we see in Islam where the early century battles between Shia and Sunni continue to be not mere theological disputes but animate violent strife BETWEEN Muslims the world over, today.
With all their perceptions and mis-perceptions rampant in moving Muslims to action, of how much positive value is there in their "sense" of history? Very little.
All Empires "fall" from within, first. The Muslim empires, from the first to the last, from the early ones that fell into dispute with each other to the Ottomans at the end, fell from within first - rotted - before external forces delivered the coup de grace. One cannot observe that without concluding that that internal failure had to also include failures of the reigning religious-philosophy of those empires as well - Islam.
But, where western Judeo-Christian society looked within to their own reigning philosophies and altered their approach to their own faiths and faith's impact on society, Muslims have always, and still now, blame everyone but themselves and everything but their 7th-century religious sensibilities for their troubles.
Notice also that Mr. Lewis picks up Islam in Europe only after conquest had produced that fact, by which he can ignore it (their "crusades" to conquer Europe) and proceed to place everything in an Islamic context for how they thereafter declined - as if they were supposed to be in Europe in the first place.