middle east

This is a short book that manages to give a comprehensive treatment of its subject by focusing on the key issues. It starts with the history and definition of Islam. In Islam there is no distinction between religion and state or between clergy and laity. (Although in practice this may not be true.) Lewis points out that the Prophet Mohamed started not only a religion but also a state and his successors took the title of Caliph until 1924 when the caliphate was abolished in Turkey.

The book discusses Jihad, the armed struggle to spread Islam, and then reviews the historical period from the Crusades to the 20th century when Western powers arrived in the Middle East and the Arabs sought protection first from Germany and then from the Soviet Union. America had been ignored until after World War II. With the collapse of the Soviet Union the United States became the only power in the world and it was natural to become the focus of attention for Moslems and Arabs in particular.

Religious conservatives object to the American way of life (too materialistic, too licentious) and the term "Great Satan" means the great seducer. According to the book the big problem is American support for unpopular Arab leaders, which causes the population to transform the hatred of their rulers to hatred of the United States. Lewis points out that the 9/11 highjackers were either Saudis or Egyptians, countries that are considered friendly to the United States. There is a separate chapter devoted to Saudi Arabia and how the huge oil revenue has been used to spread Wahabism, a particularly conservative version of Islam.

Several statistics are provided that show that the Arab (and Moslem) countries lag behind Europe, North America, and most Asia in economic development, education, and political freedom. Many of their people see that as a failure of modernity and hope that a return to the sacred past will right the wrongs. This provides support for the fundamentalists and the more oppressive a regime is the more opportunities exist for the religious extremists, since no other form of dissent is allowed.

The last chapter of the book is devoted to a discussion of terrorism. While only a small minority of Moslems are terrorists and their practices deviate from mainstream Islam (killing of civilians is forbidden in Jihad) they justify their acts in the name of the religion. Lewis points out that the terrorists pose a threat not only to the United States but, eventually, also to Europe and such countries as Russia, China, and India.

The book illuminates the deep roots of the current problems in the Moslem world and Middle East. Lewis sees the best hope in Western support of democratic opposition against oppressive rulers.

This short book is rich with historical insights that are in short supply in our popular culture's superficial understanding of the relationship between Islam and the West. In an age of pugnacious pundits, Bernard Lewis-a professor emeritus from Princeton-is a genuine scholar. He writes with eloquence, tact, and measured judgment. After a distinguished career as an historian of the Middle East, he has in recent years been called upon to provide perspective on the animosity between much of Islam and the West. This cannot be done in sound bites, but in 184 pages Professor Lewis succeeds admirably in summarizing and explaining the last 1400 years of Islamic-Western relations. He clears up a number of commonly held confusions and misrepresentations of Islam without sugar coating the dangers the world faces from Islamic terrorism. As such, The Crisis of Islam is a valuable primer for those seeking to make some sense of geopolitical events after September 11.

Lewis states that Muslims have long memories and root their present ambitions in their perceptions of both the recent and the very distant past. In a video from October 7, 2001, Osama bin Ladin spoke of the "humiliation and disgrace" suffered by Islam for "more than eighty years" (xv). While most Americas wondered what this might mean, Lewis points out that bin Ladin's Muslim listeners "picked up the allusion immediately and appreciated its significance" (xvi). In 1918 the Ottoman Empire, ruled by a Muslim sultan (or caliph), was defeated and its capital, Constantinople, was occupied. The empire's land was parceled out to the British and French empires. To Muslims, this was an unanticipated and unparalled reversal of their long history of global conquests, since for "Muslims, no piece of land once added to the realm of Islam can ever be finally renounced" (xxviii-xxix). This loss of social and religious influence in the face of the global influence of non-Muslim nations (particularly America) is in large part what constitutes "the crisis of Islam" today.

Muhammad, despite early setbacks in Mecca, was a very successful religious reformer, businessman, statesman, and warrior. The Qur'an proclaims Islam as the culminating manifestation of ancient monotheism that is destined to cover the earth. Lewis notes that "in Muslim tradition, the world is divided into two houses: the House of Islam (Dar al-Islam), in which Muslim governments rule and Muslim law prevails, and the House of War (Dar al-Harb), the rest of the world, still inhabited and, more important, ruled by infidels" (31).

We often hear from Western analysts that "jihad" primarily means an inner struggle for religious purity, but Lewis disagrees. For the majority of Muslim history, Jihad has been interpreted "to mean armed struggle for the defense and advancement of Islam" (31). The "presumption is that the duty of jihad will continue, interrupted only by truces, until all the world either adopts the Muslim faith or submits to Muslim rule" (31-32).

But does the concept of jihad justify the fury let loose against America on September 11, 2001? Lewis thinks not. He cites an hadith (an influential saying of the prophet recorded outside the Qur'an), where suicide is said to be "punished by eternal damnation in the form of the endless repetition of the act by which the [person] killed himself" (153). Modern Islamic terrorists today differ from the traditional Muslim martyr who was "willing to face certain death at the hand of his enemies or captors" (152-153), but not to be the direct cause of his own death. Thus, the September 11 terrorist attacks had "no justification in Islamic doctrine or law and no precedent in Islamic history" (154). One hopes Lewis is right, but how many Muslims worldwide are as knowledgeable of their own tradition as this scholar? Tragically, many seem more willing to heed the violent interpretations and pronouncements of Osama bin Ladin and cohorts.

Lewis is neither an apologist for the West, nor an antagonist of Islam. He is rather a learned and fair-minded scholar whose reflections on these vexing issues are urgently needed today.

Douglas Groothuis, Denver Seminary

Bernard Lewis does an excellent job of tracing back several of the problems plaguing the modern Islamic world to historical developments, especially during the 20th century. One learns, for example, how several destructive ideologies developed in the West were imported in the Arab-Muslim world by much-too-eager students like Nasser in Egypt. How the ideology of the Baath party in Syria partly derives from Nazi rhetoric introduced to the country (under French mandate during World War II) when they came under the Vichy government. How Nazi-inspired anti-semitic propaganda is still alive and well in that part of the world. How the fundamentailist Wahhabis, nowadays the main sponsors and promoters of Islam around the non-islamic world, would have been "a fringe group in a marginal country" if Saudi Arabia didn't happen to have oil. And much more. Highly recommended.