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My Appreciation and Critique of Bernard LewisBy Rev. Bassam M. Madany
I got acquainted with the writings of the British scholar, Bernard Lewis, when in the1970’s I taught a semester course on the History of the Middle East, at Trinity ChristianCollege, in Palos Heights, a suburb of Chicago. When I undertook this challenge, I used atextbook written by a professor from an American state university. Having studied thissubject when I was living in the Middle East, I became disappointed with this textbook,as it paid little attention to the religious motifs that are basic for a proper understanding of Islam. I was glad to discover Bernard Lewis’
“The Arabs in History.”
Instantly, I wasattracted to his interpretive approach for the study of the Middle East. In his
Introduction
to this book, he wrote:
“The European writer on Islamic history labours under a special disability. Writing ina Western language, he necessarily uses Western terms. But these terms are based onWestern categories of thought and analysis, themselves deriving in the main fromWestern history. Their application to the conditions of another society formed bydifferent influences and living in different way of life can at best be only an analogyand may be dangerously misleading. To take an example: such pairs of words asChurch and State, spiritual and temporal, ecclesiastical and lay, had no real equivalents in Arabic until modern times, when they were created --- or borrowed fromthe Arab Christians --- to translate modern ideas; for the dichotomy which they expresswas unknown to mediaeval Muslim society and unarticulated in the mediaeval Muslimmind. The community of Islam was Church and State in one, with the twoindistinguishably interwoven; its titular head, the Caliph, was at once a secular and areligious chief.”* 
As mentioned above, an important feature of Lewis’ historiography is his paying dueattention to the religious factors that are the predominant characteristics of the Arab andMuslim peoples and which help us to understand their history. For example, inaccounting for Islam’s lack of interest in the world of Christendom, Professor Lewisoffered two principal explanations, one historical, and the other theological. I will discussthe theological reason for such disinterest. It derives from the politico-religious character of Islam. For the followers of Muhammad, Islam is the final dispensation of a revealedtruth. As such it engenders among its followers a sense of ultimate fulfillment in beingchosen to receive Allah’s final revelation through his Messenger, the ProphetMuhammad. As Professor Lewis suggested:
“The Muslim doctrine of successive revelations culminating in the final mission of  Muhammad led the Muslim to reject Christianity as an earlier and imperfect form of  something which he, himself, possessed in the final, perfect form, and to discount Christian thought and Christian civilization accordingly. After the initial impact of eastern Christianity on Islam in the earliest period, Christian influences, even from thehigh civilization of Byzantium, were reduced to a minimum. Later, by the time that theadvance of Christendom and, the retreat of Islam had created a new relationship,
 
 Islam was crystallized in its ways of thought and behavior and had become imperviousto external stimuli, especially those coming from the millennial adversary in the West.Walled off by the military might of the Ottoman Empire, still a formidable barrier evenin its decline, the peoples of Islam continued until the dawn of the modern age tocherish --- as some of us in the West still do today --- the conviction of theimmeasurable and immutable superiority of their own civilization to all others. For themedieval Muslim, from Andalusia to Persia, Europe was a backward land of ignorant infidels. It was a point of view which might perhaps have been justified at one time; bythe end of the Middle Ages it was becoming dangerously obsolete.” 
**I could go on and on and mention some other books of Professor Lewis that have been of great help to me in my teaching and writing on Islam and the Middle East. To mentiononly a few:
“What Went Wrong?” “Western Impact and Middle Eastern Response” “The Political Language of Islam” and “The Middle East: A Brief History of the Last 2,000 Years.” 
I remain grateful and indebted to his interpretive method of teachinghistory.Why then, would I want to critique this great historian? My reason is that Professor Lewis tends to draw moral and religious equivalence between Christianity and Islam. Letme explain.The online version of 
Foreign Policy Magazine
of Tuesday, September 9, 2008
,
 published
 
an article with this title:
“Seven Questions: Bernard Lewis on the Two Biggest  Myths About Islam.” 
 http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=4455
 
First, he responded to the question “What do you see as the biggest misperception aboutIslam?” The next question was: “Do you believe in the ‘clash of civilizations’ theory of Samuel P. Huntington*** that the Islamic world and the West are destined to butt heads?Bernard Lewis answered:
“Well, I don’t go into destiny; I’m a historian and I deal with the past. But I certainlythink there is something in the ‘clash of civilizations.’ What brought Islam and Christendom into conflict was not so much their differences as their resemblances.There are many religions in the world, but almost all of them are regional, local,ethnic, or whatever you choose to call it. Christianity and Islam are the only religionsthat claim universal truth. Christians and Muslims are the only people who claim theyare the fortunate recipients of God’s final message to humanity, which it is their dutynot to keep selfishly to themselves—like the Jews or the Hindus or the Buddhists—but to bring to the rest of mankind, removing whatever obstacles there may be in the way. So, we have two religions with a similar self-perception, a similar historical background, living side by side, and conflict becomes inevitable.” 
Unlike Samuel Huntington who dealt with the possible “clash” between severalcivilizations, Professor Lewis singled out only two, Christianity and Islam, as the onesthat are uniquely bent on provoking and maintaining “a clash of civilizations.”2
 
As a historian who excels in his interpretive methodology, Mr. Lewis should have singledout the fundamental difference in the way Christianity and Islam spread their ownversions of what constitutes “universal truth.” The Christian religion propagated itsmessage by peaceful means. On the other hand, Islam spread by the sword.Arabs and Muslims revel in telling the accounts of the
Futuhat 
, i.e. the conquests of theLevant, Persia, Egypt, North Africa, and the Andalus (Spain.) The Turks continued theexpansion of Islam by destroying the Byzantine Empire, and conquering Eastern andCentral Europe. Twelve years after Martin Luther began the Reformation; the Ottomans besieged Vienna, in 1529, but failed to conquer it.It is not enough to point to the fact that both Christianity and Islam make universal claimsfor their truth systems, as Bernard Lewis did. He should also have pointed out the factthat Christians seek converts to what they believe is the only true religion, through persuasion, while Muslims compel belief in their system by the sword.I may be accused of reacting too strongly to the response of Professor Lewis to thequestion put forth by FP. I don’t think so. Professor Lewis seems to be impatient withthese two theistic religions because of their universal claims. At the end of my quotationabove, he said: “
 So, we have two religions with a similar self-perception, a similar historical background, living side by side, and conflict becomes inevitable.” 
But the fact is that the “self-perception,” which Professor Lewis considers to be similar in both Islam and Christianity, is not at all identical. Other than both religions claiming thattheir religion is the only universal truth, nothing else about them is the same. Their  perception of themselves is neither morally, theologically, or practically the same. Whilein Islam “church” and state are inextricably interwoven, there is no such thing at presentwithin Christendom.As for conflict, it is true that any religion that claims to be the only true one will,
ipso facto,
be in conflict with all other religions who do not agree. But this need not causehavoc, domination and destruction, if the religion claiming to be the only true one seeksto gain adherents through persuasion and not compulsion. Even though history has shownthat some Christian leaders did attempt to enforce orthodoxy through force. That was adeparture from the Scriptural norms. The same cannot be said for Islam, which brooks noopposition, and seeks to bring the entire world under its domination, through any means possible, especially by the sword. Professor Lewis should have delineated thesedifferences when talking about “conflict.” Christianity and the Western nations where it is predominantly practiced, are not seeking any conflict with Islam. Proof of this is thatmillions of Muslims, who have moved to Western Europe and the Americas since themiddle of the twentieth century, enjoy complete freedom of worship and expression. Butthis is not so for Christians living in Muslim lands. The original Christian populations of the Middle East are still being persecuted in lands under Islamic domination, and manyhave been forced to migrate to Europe, Australia, and North and South America.3
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Tyler

If you had read more of Lewis' work you'd have discovered that the Islamic religion and the Islamic state (especially in the times of conquest) were inseperable. Islam was spread by the sword because the Islamic state was spread by the sword (arising out of the weaknesses of the Sassanid and Byzantine empires in the 7th century arabian frontier). Additionally sir you are misinformed , if you pay some attenttion to surviving Umayyad accounts (which there aren't that many) the caliphate discouraged conversion. The Umayyads were more than happy to take Jaziya from Christians and Jews. Adding to that sir, if you read about the conquest of Egypt and the levant it is almost certain that certain Christian factions aided the Islamic advance ( indeed, if you read Patricia Crone : Hagarism, you'll find that perhaps even Jewish factions aided the muslims advance).

reply07 / 27 / 2009
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