Islam and the West

230 Pages·1994·13.24 MB·English

by  Bernard Lewis

ISLAM AND
THE WEST
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ISLAM AND
THE WEST
BERNARD LEWIS
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
New York Oxford
Oxford University Press
Oxford New York
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Copyright © 1993 by Oxford University Press, Inc.
First published in 1993 by Oxford University Press, Inc.,
200 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016
First issued as an Oxford University Press paperback, 1994
Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Lewis, Bernard.
Islam and the West / Bernard Lewis.
p. cm. ISBN 0-19-507619-2
ISBN 0-19-509061-6 (Pbk.)
1. Middle East—Relations—Europe.
2. Europe—Relations—Middle East.
3. Islam—Relations—Christianity.
4. Christianity and other religions—Islam. I. Title.
DS63.2.E8L47 1993
303.48'25604—dc20 92-26938
8 1097
Printed in the United States of America
For
Ophira, Feridey, Zachary,
Jacob, and Rachel
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Preface
For more than 1,400 years, since the advent of Islam in Arabia and the
incorporation into the Islamic empire and civilization of the formerly
Christian eastern and southern shores of the Mediterranean, Islam and
Christendom have lived side by side—always as neighbors, often as rivals,
sometimes as enemies. In a sense, each is defined and delimited by the
other. "God is one, alone, and eternal," says the Qur'an. "He begetteth
not neither is He begotten and He hath no peer." In this and other explicit
rejections of Christian positions, Islam clearly distances itself from its
predecessor and asserts its own universal message and mission. Yet, at the
same time, the scripture and traditions of Islam, and the entire civilization
created under their aegis, demonstrate in a thousand ways the profound
affinities that link Islam with Christianity and with their common Judaic,
Hellenistic, and Middle Eastern antecedents.
Compared with the remoter cults and cultures of Asia and Africa,
Islam and Christianity are sister religions, with an immense shared heritage
and with a shared—or more often disputed—domain. Each saw itself as
the bearer of God's final revelation to humankind, with the duty of bring-
ing that revelation to the rest of the world. Each recognized the other as
its principal, indeed, its only, rival in this claim and in this task. The result
was a long series of conflicts, beginning with the early holy wars—jihad
and Crusade, conquest and reconquest—and continuing with the ebb and
flow of Muslim empire in Europe and of European empires in the lands
of Islam. In this long and—alas—unfinished struggle, the two civilizations
have been divided by their resemblances far more than by their differences.
Except by historians, the term "Christendom" is rarely used: the civ-
ilization formerly designated by that name has undergone a process of
reform and secularization and has come to be known, in various contexts,
as Europe, as the free world, and, nowadays, principally as the West. The
Islamic world, or as Muslims call it, "the House of Islam," is still known,
both at home and abroad, by that name, albeit with regional, national,
and—rarely—sectarian subdivisions.
viii Preface
The studies in this volume are concerned with the relations between
these two civilizations: the one defined as Islamic, the other at different
times as Christian or European or Western. They are grouped according
to three main topics: encounters, perceptions, and responses. The first
section begins with an historical survey of the interaction—in war and
peace, in commerce and culture—between Europe and its Islamic neigh-
bors to the east and to the south. It continues with a discussion of a specific
and new issue: the emergence, mainly through immigration, of large Mus-
lim minorities in Western countries. Much has been written in recent years
on the latter topic, seen principally as a problem for the majority host
societies. In this study I have tried to look at the issue not in a Western
but rather in an Islamic context, against the background of Islamic history
and law.
The second section is concerned not so much with the encounters
between the two civilizations as with the perceptions arising from these
encounters. I have dealt elsewhere at some length with Muslim views of
Europe. The five studies in this section are principally concerned with
Western views of Islam. They deal with the problems of translation from
Arabic into a Western language, with the impact on European thought
and letters of the centuries-long threat of the Turks, and with Western
scholarship on Islamic culture and history. This last theme is discussed in
three chapters, looking at the topic from three different perspectives. The
first is a case study of Gibbon's chapter on the Prophet Muhammad in
his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire; the second, an examination of
the origins, growth, and purposes of Arabic and Islamic studies in the
Western world, with some consideration of recent and current contro-
versies about "Orientalism"; the third, a more general discussion of the
legitimacy of studying "other people's" history—whether this may be done
at all, and, if so, for what purpose and subject to what rules and constraints.
The third and final section is concerned with Islamic responses and
reactions in both earlier and more recent times. Four topics are discussed:
Islamic religious revival and what is sometimes called fundamentalism;
the place in Islamic history of the ShI'a, whose importance was dramatic-
ally brought to world attention by the Islamic revolution in Iran; the
introduction and development of the Western idea of patriotism; and,
finally, the possibilities of religious coexistence. This last includes some
consideration of the rather short history of secularism in the Muslim
world.
All the essays contained in this volume have been to some extent
revised since their original publication, to correct errors, to avoid overlaps
to establish linkages, and, of course, to take account of more recent lit-
erature and developments. Three of them—"The Question of Oriental-
ism," "The Return of Islam," and "The Shf a in Islamic History"—have
been extensively revised and recast.
There remains the pleasant task of expressing my appreciation and
thanks to those who have helped in various ways in the preparation and
Preface ix
publication of this volume: to the publishers and editors of the books and
journals in which earlier versions of parts of this book were published,
who gave perrmission to reproduce them here (the details are set forth in
the bibliographical appendix); to Professors Michael Curtis, Halil Inalcik,
Charles Issawi, and Hossein Modarressi, for reading parts of my typescript
and giving me the benefit of their comments; to Nancy Lane and Irene
Pavitt of Oxford University Press, for help and advice in the production
of the book; and to my assistant Jane Baun, whose skill, care, and scholarly
acumen have both speeded the production and improved the quality of
this book. To all of them I offer my thanks for those of their many
suggestions which I accepted and my apologies for those that I resisted.
From this it will be clear that whatever faults remain are entirely my own.
Princeton, NJ. B. L.
September 1992