Islam and the West [Paperback]

The author points out that many popular interpretations and beliefs about Islam, which are common currency in the Christian West, are actually incorrect. Still more notions which are common in the West have no real equivalents in the Islamic paradigm.

It is not hard to see, with a deep understanding of the Islam faith and the Muslim culture, that many "commonsense" formulations of, say, the Palestinian solution, simply won't work, or why most people could not comprehend the Islamic Revolution (actions of the Ayatollah Khomeini and his followers,) or of the Taliban. This is simply because the Islamic faith is not comparable to the Christian or Judaic faith, the Islamic state is not equivalent to the Western state, or any other state, for that matter, and that the Islamic teaching is central and all encompassing to the purpose in life of the "fundamentalist" Muslim. Our faith in such fundamental concepts as patriotism, peaceful co-existence, trade, and a good many others are either non-existent or even forbidden in the Islamic mind. Use of these concepts in formulating political solutions in that part of the world will inevitably fail.

Islam And The West is a must-read for politicians, journalists, scholars and ordinary Joes like myself, who have a serious interest in the Middle East issues. Besides the high quality of the studies presented, Bernard Lewis's writing style, especially with his careful choice of words, and elegantly crafted sentences, surely has helped make this book a classic.

Despite the somewhat esoteric topics, however, the book is not just for scholars. Lewis's breadth of knowledge, and a writing style much more interesting than that of most academics, makes this book intriguing reading for almost anyone with an interest in Islam and the Middle East. I picked up many intriguing facts and anecdotes from the book.

But it's not perfect. For me, the problem in Bernard Lewis's approach is summed up in one of the book's first essays -- on Muslims living in non-Muslim countries. Lewis offers a fascinating study of what various Muslim scholars have said over the centuries about the theological implications of Muslims living under the laws of non-Muslims. Then he admits that the average Muslim probably has little or no knowledge of these theological debates and it is uncertain what effect these ideas have on how real people live their lives. He insists, though, that they must have some effect, and in any case, how can we find out any information about religious ideas except by listening to religious scholars? That's pretty much like saying that papal pronouncements are the only knowledge we can have of what Catholics think. Scholarly and theological debates are interesting, but how religious ideas effect people's lives is even more so -- and that area is not only beyond the scope of Lewis's work (which is understandable), but is something that he writes off as irrelevant and unknowable (which is absurd).

And for me, this limitation is a problem throughout the book. Lewis is a marvelous and almost always interesting scholar when he is discussing the history of ideas. But he repeatedly jumps to the conclusion that those ideas filter down to ordinary people's lives with little change. It would be far more interesting, and relevant to the general reader, I think, to see how those ideas play out in the real world.