RIP Bernard Lewis
I was thinking about Bernard Lewis the other day and wondering whether he was still alive, because I remembered that even at the time of 9/11 (when I’d first heard of him) he was already pretty old. I got my answer yesterday, on reading the news that he had died the day before at the age of 101.
RIP.
Lewis was a giant in the study of Islamic culture and history. By my count of the list at this site, he wrote 33 books, 2 of which (Semites and anti-Semites; What Went Wrong?) I have read.
Lewis’ reputation depends on who you’re talking to:
“For some, I’m the towering genius,” Dr. Lewis told the Chronicle of Higher Education in 2012. “For others, I’m the devil incarnate.”
I’m in the “genius” camp.
There are few academics or historians who have matched the achievements of the emeritus Princeton University professor. He has written more than 24 books, received 15 honorary degrees, and fluently speaks, according to Ms. Churchill, eight languages which include the four languages of the Middle East – Arabic, Hebrew, Persian, and Turkish – as well as Danish.
I’m tempted to think that there will never again be anyone like Lewis ”” that he is the last of a certain type of scholar. The last of the first-class scholars. But this cannot be true. . . .
I’m sure that, in the time of Thucydides, and shortly thereafter, people said, “That’s it ”” history-writing has come to an end. There will never be another one who is up to the job.” And it wasn’t true.
Nonetheless, I can’t imagine another scholar ”” another scholar of the Middle East ”” like Lewis.
And Martin Kramer:
An entire syllabus on the history of the Middle East since the advent of Islam could be compiled exclusively from the writings of Bernard Lewis. (And, so numerous are the translations of his works, it could be done in several languages.) In this respect, he towers above all of his contemporaries and successors and arguably also over his famed Orientalist predecessors, none of whom was trained as a historian. It will be a long time, perhaps generations, before the study of Islam and the Middle East will invite and admit another genius of his caliber.
In the meantime, we have his classic works to guide us through this dark age of obfuscation.
The Nordlinger article has an excellent anecdote about Lewis’s scholarship.
That Edward Said disdained Lewis’s scholarship is an indication how good Lewis’s scholarship actually was.
After 9-11 I was renewing my dislike of Islam in study and I found Lewis a bit too moderate for my excitable taste then.
Lewis was probably right, though “How bad is Islam really?” remains a tricky question to assess.
I’m not entirely comforted that a Muslim Brotherhood brother would compliment Lewis as a “candid friend or an honorable enemy.”
“…not entirely comfortable…”
Except that by paring the quote as you’ve done, you’ve taken it out of its context. (To be sure, the context isn’t entirely clear from the entire quote…unless one is aware of the background.)
The point being that Lewis’s analyses—and criticisms—of the MB’s behavior, strategy and goals were perceived by that MB particular representative as brutally honest and incisive. And at times critical. But fair.
Brutal honesty is not exactly endemic in that part of the world, where lying, subterfuge, dishonesty, intimidation and violence are by far the norm.
The MB representative was 1) surprised at—and in admiration of—Lewis’s perspicacity, and 2) surprised at—and in admiration of—his honesty in expressing his views.
Hence the MB representative could only conclude that Lewis’s wisdom (in analysis) and fearlessness (in telling the truth) meant one of two things: that he was either “an honorable enemy” or a “candid friend”.
To be sure, Lewis, while always candid, was not then and not ever a “friend” of the MB.
Barry: The full quote was immediately above my comment, so I don’t see how I’m “paring the quote.”
Whatever the MB guy meant, I doubt he intended to applaud brutal honesty. That’s not how Islamists roll.
I can see a lot more ways to go in interpreting what an MB would mean by “candid friend or honorable enemy” than your run-down.
If a Stalinist complimented Lewis as a “candid friend or honorable enemy,” it wouldn’t endear Lewis to me either. I would put a question mark next to his name.
I dispute neither Lewis’s genius nor his expertise. Reportedly, he was a fine human being.
However, it’s my understanding that he is the expert who so thoroughly convinced George W. Bush that “Islam is a Religion of Peace” that even today Bush insists that to be the case.
In the same article in which I read that, the author expressed puzzlement at that POV from Lewis, as evidently Lewis’ prior writings do not support that viewpoint. The author speculated that age was the only plausible explanation for that contradiction.
Personally, I suspect it goes deeper than that, for all his expertise, Lewis evidently shied away from fully confronting Islam’s inherent nature. I suspect his obvious fascination with the subject is responsible, for why devote one’s entire adult life to the study of a monstrous ideology that sprang from the mind of a mass murdering pedophile?
That btw is factually and objectively true, yet were I a British citizen, publicly stating it there would land me in prison.
Ironically, I also suspect that reading aloud any of Lewis’ criticisms of Islam, regardless of how mild, would result in accusations of “Islamophobia”.
“Theresa May Announces the End of Free Speech in UK”
https://www.jihadwatch.org/2018/05/theresa-may-announces-the-end-of-free-speech-in-uk-we-value-free-speech-we-also-value-tolerance-to-others
Pretty much any of Lewis’s books are worth reading but one I would especially recommend is “The Muslim Discovery of Europe”. It is a startling demonstration of how profoundly alien the world view of Islam is to the West.
And, just a reminder, it can be ordered through our gracious hostess’s Amazon portal.
Pardon my ignorance as I have read none of Mr Lewis’ works; however, just as I don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows, I don’t need a scholar to tell me about Islam. I judge Islam by the horrendous nature of the actions of many of its followers.
Geoffrey Britain:
Lewis did not believe Islam to be a “religion of peace.”
I have never found any evidence that he told Bush it was, either.
Here’s one of many things Lewis said on the subject:
In 2008 Lewis said this:
Lewis believe that the terrorists were not the whole story of Islam today, but that they were a big and dangerous part of it.
After 9/11 I found three books to be particularly enlightening about the war we had been catapulted into. Two were by Lewis: What Went Wrong, and
the Crisis in Islam. The third was The Closed Circle by David Pryce-Jones on the political culture of Muslim culture. So interesting did I find them, that when Obama entered the White House I sent him a copy of each saying that he ought to read them to understand what was going on. I never saw any evidence he even opened them. Unlike Dubya, Obama is not a serious reader.
Lewis’ books are quite good and readable. One delightful one is his book on The Assassins. The Twelver Shia of Iran and Iraq are weird enough, but the Ismaili Assassins were outright crazy.
It’s almost funny. Naipul’s, “Among the Believers” which I read right out of college was so incisive in describing the Muslim attitude, that there should have been a monument built to it, and a statue of him as a prophet, erected.
It made a little splash, and then disappeared until the tsunami it implied awaited us, washed all memory of it from our minds.
It reminds me of James Mill’s, Underground Empire.
They saw it coming around the bend. Step one: Americans generally shrugged. Step two: after impact, Americans, those who even care enough to respond then, ask “What the heck just happened?”