God's Crucible: Islam and the Making of Europe, 570-1215 [Paperback]

David Levering Lewis (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 12, 2009

"A furiously complex age; a powerful narrative."--New York Times Book Review, Editor's Choice

At the beginning of the eighth century, the Arabs brought a momentous revolution in power, religion, and culture to Dark Ages Europe. David Levering Lewis's masterful history begins with the fall of the Persian and Roman empires, followed by the rise of the prophet Muhammad and the creation of Muslim Spain. Five centuries of engagement between the Muslim imperium and an emerging Europe followed, from the Muslim conquest of Visigoth Hispania in 711 to Latin Christendom's declaration of unconditional warfare on the Caliphate in 1215. Lewis's narrative, filled with accounts of some of the greatest battles in world history, reveals how cosmopolitan, Muslim al-Andalus flourished--a beacon of cooperation and tolerance between Islam, Judaism, and Christianity--while proto-Europe, defining itself in opposition to Islam, made virtues out of hereditary aristocracy, religious intolerance, perpetual war, and slavery. A cautionary tale, God's Crucible provides a new interpretation of world-altering events whose influence remains as current as today's headlines. 8 pages of illustrations; 4 maps

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. This superb portrayal by NYU history professor Lewis of the fraught half-millennium during which Islam and Christianity uneasily coexisted on the continent just beginning to be known as Europe displays the formidable scholarship and magisterial ability to synthesize vast quantities of material that won him Pulitzer Prizes for both volumes of W.E.B. Du Bois.In characteristically elegant prose, Lewis shows Islam arising in the power vacuum left by the death throes of the empires of newly Christianized Rome and Persian Iran, then sweeping out of the Middle East as a fighting religion, with jihad inspiring cultural pride in hitherto marginalized Arab tribes. After Charles Martel's victory at the Battle of Poitiers in 732 sent the Muslim invaders back south of the Pyrenees, the Umayyad dynasty consolidated its rule in al-Andalus (Muslim Spain), forging a religiously tolerant, intellectually sophisticated, socially diverse and economically dynamic culture whose achievements would eventually seed the Renaissance. Meanwhile, the virtually powerless Roman popes joined forces with ambitious Frankish leaders, from Pippin the Short to Charlemagne, to create the template for feudal Europe: a religiously intolerant, intellectually impoverished, socially calcified, and economically primitive society. The collapse of the Umayyad dynasty and the rise of local leaders who embraced Muslim fundamentalism as a means to power destroyed the vitality of al-Andalus, paving the way for the Crusades and the Christian reconquista of Spain. Lewis clear-sightedly lays out the strengths and weaknesses of both worlds, though his sympathies are clearly with cosmopolitan doctor/philosophers like Ibn Rushd and Musa ibn Maymun (better known in the West as Averroës and Maimonides), who represented cultural eclecticism and creedal forbearance, sadly out of place in the increasingly fanatical 12th century. 8 pages of color illus., 4 maps. (Jan.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Review

“A magisterial work by one of America's greatest historians.” (Reza Aslan, author of No god but God )

“A wonderfully interesting contribution.” (Amartya Sen )

“In God's Crucible, answers to many urgent questions, currently in the public discourse, can be deduced.” (Eric Ormsby - New York Times )

“Lewis's treatment...is lucid, and his command of detail is encyclopedic....The book is erudite.” (James B. Reston Jr. - Washington Post )

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company; Reprint edition (January 12, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393333566
• ISBN-13: 978-0393333565
• Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.9 x 8.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (55 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #392,589 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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67 of 77 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars undercut by author's bias June 2, 2009

By John Farrell

Format:Paperback

Clearly a must-read for anyone interested in the history of Europe's origins and Islam's role in it, but it is a trial. What starts out as a fascinating narrative soon devolves into a hard slog thanks to the author's annoying habit of infusing his own anachronistic presuppositions into the history.

The central argument of the book, and a valid one I think, is that Europe might have advanced more rapidly in its development had the Franks not checked the advance of Muslim armies into Europe at the Pyrenees. Lewis' hero, Abd al-Rahman, the first self-styled Amir of Andalusian Spain, was the sole survivor of the Syrian Umayyads, once proud rulers of Islam in the East, overthrown at last by the Abbasids. The boy made one narrow escape from assassination after another until he reached Spain where he rapidly rose to become the sophisticated ruler of al-Andalus, the parts of the Iberian Peninsula and Septimania under Muslim rule.

Lewis is at his best here. His love for the culture of Andalusian Spain and his appreciation for the sophistication of Arab culture is contagious and I found his overview of the rise of Islam thoroughly engrossing. But it's fairly plain that Muhammad brought the new faith of Islam into a civilization that was already ancient, prosperous and sophisticated. And this certainly is a factor in the speed with which it spread.

The same simply cannot be assumed about Europe, the very idea of which simply did not exist, even as the young Charlemagne earned his spurs fighting back the armies of pagan Saxons, Slavs and the many petty dukes ruling in the regions that would become France. The land mass that would become Europe was a cauldron of barbarous fights for survival as isolated pockets of learning desperately fought to keep what little learning existed afloat. There was no economy to speak of, no single currency, and no established rule of law apart from that enforced at the end of a sword.

But Lewis cannot restrain repeatedly expressing his sneering contempt for this proto-society as he highlights the stark differences between Dark Age Europe and al-Andalus.

For all of his vaunted academic credentials, Lewis' writing style often leaves much to be desired.

In his New York Times review of the book, Eric Ormsby rightfully points out:

"Lewis has a penchant for awkward turns of phrase. In discussing the translation of ancient texts into Arabic, for instance, he refers often to the "Toledo conveyor belt," making the slow, meticulous translation of Greek treatises into Arabic sound like something carried out at an Ohio auto plant. Occasionally he goes even farther astray; in discussing the Prophet's views on women, he writes, "Muhammad's comparatively enlightened ideas (as explained by Allah) about gender roles positively distinguished the Koran from its misogynistic Mosaic and Pauline analogues." It's hard to know what disturbs more here, the factual inaccuracies or the personal opinions inserted under cover of jargon."

It gets worse. On page 165 for example, Lewis ludicrously refers to the English monk and historian, the Venerable Bede, as 'the Einstein of the Dark Ages', an analogy so clueless this reader could only put the book down for a moment and shake his head. What exactly Einstein and Bede have in common is never made plain, but I soldiered onward.

Almost two hundred pages later Lewis describes the rise of the monk Gerbert, who we are told learned a great deal during his sojourn in Barcelona, particularly, so the author tells us, in mathematics and astronomy. He writes of this future Pope Sylvester II: "In 980, the priest published his revolutionary four-page textbook on the new mathematics. It was a pivotal moment in the intellectual history of the West, reminiscent of the four physics papers published by Albert Einstein in 1909."

1909?

For all his merits as an historian of al-Andalus, clearly the author is as unfamiliar with the life and work of Einstein (whose 'miracle year' was 1905) as he is with the 'mumbo jumbo' of church Latin which he repeatedly condemns.

The usual ignorance of medieval scholarship is also on display throughout the book. Thomas Aquinas is once again dismissed as an over cautious scholar only interested in accepting what was 'theologically safe' from the works of Maimonides and Ibn Rushd. Lewis fails to point out that, far from being acceptable to the Christian theologians of the time, Aquinas' careful synthesis was condemned as harshly as Maimonides and Ibn Rushd were by their own communities. His detestation of Christianity's role in Europe simply blinds him to the possibility that these intellectuals were three peas in a pod, not two.

At the close of the book Lewis repeats the standard cliches about the authoritarian Pope Innocent III and his stipulations, that Jews and Muslims dwelling in Christendom should be set apart with distinctive garb. This was a hideous practice...earlier instituted in al-Andalus by Abd al-Rahman. Europe certainly benefited from the mores it learned from al-Andalus, the enlightened and the not-so-enlightened.

As I said, worth reading, but with caution over the author's political correctness.

53 of 63 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars The Perils of Extremism February 16, 2008

By William J. Bowers

Format:Hardcover

"God's Crucible" is Pulitzer-Prize winning scholar David Levering Lewis's contribution to the ever-growing body of literature that seeks a better understanding of Islam and the roots of its long and complicated struggle with the west. Unlike other scholars of Islamic and Middle Eastern history who have dashed off books in the wake of September 11 -- Bernard Lewis (whom the author consulted) and Michael Oren are among the best known -- Levering Lewis's prior books have focused on Martin Luther King Jr, W.E.B. DuBois, and the leaders of the Harlem Renaissance. This gave Lewis a fresh perspective in writing "God's Crucible" as he was not burdened by what he might have written in earlier books. Still, it is clear that Lewis himself did not really know where his research would take him, what his main points would be, or even what to call this book before he started (a friend, Sandra Masur, suggested the eventual title, "God's Crucible"). With that said, this is a useful and thoughtful book.

"God's Crucible" refers to al-Andalus, or Muslim Spain, as the site of the first clash of civilizations between Islam and the Christian west. Lewis's "God's Crucible" emphasizes three major themes: (1) the rise of Islam was enabled by perpetual conflict between the Roman Empire and the Iranian Empires (Parthian, Sassanian, Persian); (2) Islam and its Caliphates almost immediately were infected by the inevitable power struggles that plague all such institutions, and even in the so-called glory-days of the first Caliphate, Islam was not monolithic; and finally (3) coexistence between Islam and Christianity in al-Andalus (if not entirely peaceful) engendered the transmission of knowledge and ancient texts from the more-advanced civilization of the caliphs in the east to the backward, medieval Christians of Europe.

The first theme is that the centuries-old imperial struggle between Latin Rome and Persian Iran created the conditions for the disunited Arab tribes living in the deserts of Arabia to unite, found a new religion, and create a greater Islamic Empire. This "Caliphate" subsequently encompassed Arabia, all of modern Iran, and stretched west across North Africa to the pillars of Hercules and north into Europe up to the Pyrenees. Perpetual conflict arguably began in 53 BC when Marcus Crassus infamously brought an invasion force across the Euphrates River Valley. Crassus's expedition met with disaster at Carrhae, resulting in his own destruction and that of seven legions. The Roman Emperors never entirely lost their thirst for expansion into the east however, and Emperors such as Trajan, Severus, Justinian, Constantine, and Heraclius would all bring armies into the fertile crescent in an effort to subdue this troublesome region. This perpetual warfare fatally weakened both the Roman and Persian Empires to the point that although Khosrow II of Persia had thought he won a decisive victory in Jerusalem in 615 AD by bringing back the relics of the Holy Cross, his victory was largely Pyrrhic. A new force led by Muhammad was emerging from the barren sands of Arabia.

Muhammad was born in Mecca, a small town on a popular Roman trade route, in 570 AD. In the month of Ramadan in the year 610, the 40-year old Muhammad began to hear messages from God that he spread to others through his teachings. By the time he died in 632 AD, Muhammad had united all of the tribes of Arabia into a powerful military force that rapidly expanded into the vacuum left by the militarily exhausted Roman and Persian Empires. Riddled with internal decay, the Persian Empire was soon swept away by Islamic forces while these same forces concurrently spread like wildfire across formerly Roman North Africa and into Spain. By 711 AD, Islamic Armies had advanced into and established a firm foothold in Spain, or al-Andalus. But this newly created Islamic Empire was hardly united.

Lewis's second theme is that Islam itself was never monolithic, and that while the caliphs did not distinguish between church and state, both church and state suffered major cleavages early in the first Caliphate. Almost immediately after Muhammad's death, conflict arose over who his legitimate successors should be. One faction argued that it should be Muhammad's familial descendants, who became the Shi'ites, while another faction thought the community of the faithful should choose their own rulers to follow Muhammad, who became the Sunnis. These factions remain locked in perpetual conflict to this day. On the state side, the Umayyad caliphs ruled from 711-750, but suffered defeat at Poitiers (in southern France) in 732. While not catastrophic, this defeat weakened the Umayyads at a time when they were also plagued with rebellion from the North African Berbers. The Abbasids eventually took advantage of this Umayyad weakness and overthrew the caliphate, establishing their own in 750 and moving its capitol from Damascus to Baghdad. But this story gets more complicated. An incredible 19-year-old Umayyad named Abd al-Rahman I escaped from certain death in North Africa into al-Andalus, eventually establishing a power base there that enabled him to rule for 25 years. Nicknamed "The Falcon" for his cunning, and with survival being the mother of all necessity, Rahman I cooperated with Christians to defeat Abassid armies dispatched to bring him to heal. With these dynamics at play, the conditions were created in al-Andalus for Islamic and Christian coexistence in "God's Crucible."

This brings us to Lewis's third theme: that important knowledge from the center of Islamic civilization in Baghdad made its way across North Africa, onto the "conveyor belt" of Toledo, and into Christian Europe. Lewis argues that this knowledge provided critical building blocks for the Renaissance and western awakening centuries later. He also seems to lament how the Christian response to jihad, which became officially sanctioned Holy War, gradually erased the "middle ground" that had existed in al-Andalus that allowed the transmutation of such valuable knowledge. al-Andalus deteriorated into extremism on both sides. In this lament, he seems to be speaking directly to the modern world of the dangers and lasting harm caused by extremism.

In conclusion, this is a useful and thoughtful book that sheds much-needed light on a period of history that is rarely examined or understood. The book contains abundant maps, a glossary of terms, and a genealogy of both Muslim and Christian rulers. Still, I would hesitate to recommend this book to everyone as it often wanders a field, is dense with difficult names and places, and reads as if it were written for an academic rather than a general audience. Lewis himself says that this project started out as a small book that became a large one, and the reader is left to wonder if the abundance of Lewis's research and the complexity of his subject caused him to write a book that surpasses the reach of those he likely intended it for. In a larger scope though, "God's Crucible" is an important contribution to understanding Islam's long struggle with the Christian west, which is a topic that will remain with all of us for some time.

110 of 140 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Cultural Difussion January 22, 2008

By Retired Reader

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

The central argument of this rather rambling book is that the Islamic civilization that developed in the Iberian Peninsula after the Muslim conquest of the 8th Century contributed directly to the rebirth of Western European culture and learning. A secondary theme is that the Realm of Islam, after its initial and phenomenal expansion, developed into a uniquely tolerant and cultured society that compared very favorably to an intolerant and semi-barbaric Western Europe of the early Middle Ages. Yet this book is not a particularly good history. Nonetheless, it is a fun read. Lewis clearly enjoyed writing it and provides the reader with a lot of interesting detours and asides.

History is as much a matter of interpretation as a recounting of facts. It is certainly true that most Islamic fundamentalist today regard much of the period covered by this book (late 8th Century through the early 13th Century) as a `Golden Age' for Islam. It also appears accurate to argue that during this golden age at least parts of the Realm of Islam (Dar al Islam) achieved a remarkably tolerant society and a high level of culture. Yet this is a very relative conclusion. One suspects that most Muslims of the golden age were more like their contemporaneous European Christian counterparts than not. Golden age Islamic learning and culture, like contemporary European culture, were restricted to a learned minority and were scarcely universal. Also one would suspect that Islamic tolerance to religious minority groups such as the Jews and Coptic Christians was as dicey in the Golden Age as it is today. Still the Islamic society of the Iberian Peninsula had an enviable reputation for tolerance and certainly provided Western Europe with some of the intellectual horse power it needed to move into the high middle ages. Yet other influences also helped propel Europe into the pre-renaissance period. The reign of Charlemagne provided the stability needed to reinvigorate Western European learning and scholarship and by the late 10th Century Byzantine (East Roman) culture began again influencing Europe.

The great Belgian historian Henri Pirenne in 1937 wrote what even today is a brilliant book, "Mohammed and Charlemagne" (Amazon.com). In it he argued that the Muslim expansion and subsequent control of the Mediterranean Sea (7th Century) finally and completely brought an end to the commerce which kept at least the vestiges of the Roman commercial system alive in Europe long after the implosion of the Western Empire. In describing the Muslim influence on European development this is still the better book.