Customer Reviews

The Muslim Discovery of Europe

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"The Muslim Discovery of Europe" is a must-read for anyone interested in Middle Eastern history, especially the period between 1500 and 1900. Bernard Lewis writes in a silky-smooth, easy-to-read style, yet the book is erudite and not "Middle Eastern history for dummies".

Lewis explores how the "medieval iron curtain" between Christendom and Islam gradually broke down (to the extent that it did) between the Crusades and the middle of the 19th century, underscoring the Muslim world's changing views of Europe. From Islam's early days up through the Ottoman zenith in the 16th century, Islamic civilization was unquestionably more brilliant than its European counterpart. So Muslims didn't find much reason to be interested in the West. While Europe's Roman forbears might be worth a glance, the average Middle Easterner's image of a European before 1800 was the one (perhaps mythic) symbolized by the filthy Austrian soldiers who, in a 17th-century assault on Budapest (then an Ottoman city), turned an immaculate Turkish bath-house into a horse stable and then washed themselves in their animals' urine. With some justification, Muslim scholars reasoned that Europe had no important ideas and no important literature: the most noteworthy European writer of the Middle Ages, after all, was St. Thomas Aquinas, whose books obviously didn't have anything interesting to say to Muslims. Consequently, for centuries, educated Muslims thought it was a waste of time to learn about Europe. As late as the 18th century, Ottoman officialdom was still referring to Europeans -- in government documents -- with nifty little derogatory jingles like "Ingiliz dinsiz" (Englishman without religion), "Fransiz jansiz" (soulless Frenchman), and "Engurus menhus" (inauspicious Hungarian), not to mention the standard and official use of the term "infidel" (kafr). In a way, though, their ignorance is surprising only in hindsight.

By 1800, all this had changed. Napoleon's Egyptian campaign (1798) initiated a new wave of European imperialism that over the 19th century, and for the first time since the Crusades, would establish Europeans in positions of direct or indirect power in significant parts of the Middle East. Muslims saw up-close how far Europeans had left them in the lurch: militarily, scientifically, politically, and economically. Rulers recognized that "modernizing" (that is, Europeanizing) their societies was imperative if they were going to prevent foreigners from eventually taking over (some did anyway). The 20th-century implications of these changes were huge: the struggle between tradition and Westernization was (and is) one of the keynotes of modern Middle East history.

Lewis ventures far beyond wars and politics and addresses every aspect of the subject: in fact, politics figures into very little of the book directly. Chapter 3, for example, is entirely about language and translation, examining what Muslims thought and knew about European languages and literature on the eve of their "discovery" of Europe. Other chapters explore what Muslims who traveled to Europe thought about this formerly bizarre and exotic destination and the impact made on Muslims by Europeans who traveled in the Middle East. There are also sections on the economy, the reception of European culture, religion, the military, etc.

Again, Lewis' style is extremely fluid and this is a book that everybody can enjoy.

I have just finished reading Bernard Lewis' "The Muslim Discovery of Europe" (1982 edition), and I find, once again, that Professor Lewis is a master. Just as he did in "Semites and Anti-Semites," the author provides the reader with the necessary information to start the process of acquiring an educated opinion on the subject. In this case, Professor Lewis deals, as the title implies, with the Muslim "discovery" of Europe, and what emerges is the picture of an entire civilization so certain of its own importance and so sure of its righteousness, that it does not do much to know the barbarians from the North and West, robbing itself of the chance to learn something, maybe little but most probably quite a lot, from a different culture, one that, quite unexpectedly, would turn planetary in a matter of centuries. The Muslim world appears as what great civilizations --and most big countries today-- tend to be: obsessed with itself. Professor Lewis proves that, even if the European attitude towards other cultures was similar to that of the Muslims, Europe always allowed a little window of doubt to upset the perfect order of a religion-based society. Doubt and curiosity blessed Europe. After all the bloodshed and the terrible price paid in lives and suffering, Europe could still astound the world with the "Renaissance" of the 12th century, and the true Renaissance that started in Italy in the 14th. Hand in hand with religious murders, expulsion of Jews and Moors, Inquisition, Reformation, and Thirty-Years War, Europe gave "Don Quijote," Copernicus, Tycho Brahe, Galileo, Newton, Leibnitz, Descartes, Boccaccio, Dante, and thousands of others to the world. While this was happening, Europe's most powerful neighbor was blinded by its own arrogance and its total belief in its superiority.

The Muslim world eventually "discovered" Europe, but it was more of a rude awakening than a discovery. This book also states early on what is clear in many history texts, but that tends to be forgotten by overly-sympathetic Western voices: Islam started as an eminently warrior religion, conquering places where Christianity had been established for centuries, like North Africa (Saint Augustine was from Hippo, which is Carthage), and the always improperly named Palestine area. The Muslim conquerors did not go sword in hand to those places to convert idolatrers, and they certainly did not go to Spain because the Visigothic kingdoms were atheist. Eminent historians, like the late Steven Runciman in "History of the Crusades" (3 volumes), and popular programs, like the BBC-A&E "Crusades," can badly serve their readers and viewers by blaming only Europeans for the Crusades, stating that these started in 1096 with the Cristian invasion of Syria, and ended in 1291 with the fall of the last Christian stronghold, Acre. Bur Professor Lewis knows better: the Muslim-Christian confrontation, with ups and downs, years of ferocity and years of coexistence, started when the Muslims broke out of the Arabian Peninsula to conquer the world in the name of Islam, taking the fight to Christianity in North Africa and the Levant and then to Europe itself, invading the Iberian Peninsula and France. They attacked Byzantium for centuries, until the newly-converted Muslim Turks overwhelmed the empire and this collapsed in 1453. After that, Europe was invaded again and it took the Europeans more than 250 years to remove the threat of Islamic conquest from their midst. Since this book deals with the Muslim attitude towards Europe, we get a better picture than the simplistic approach that, unfortunately, Runciman and the BBC program present of bad Christians, good Muslims. In this area, I highly recommend John Riley-Smith's work, as editor, of the "Oxford Illustrated History of the Crusades," and Malcolm Billings' "The Cross and the Cescent: a history of the Crusades." Lewis is not interested in good or bad: he presents the Muslims through their own (meagre) documents on Europe, and for us, used to self-criticism and to be very severe critics of Western Culture's shortcomings, it is refreshing and indeed necessary to realize that prejudice is not exclusive of the West. Willful ignorance of others because those others are different was very much at home in the House of Islam.

Professor Lewis divides his book into 12 chapters, such as Contact and Impact, The Muslim View of the World, Muslim Scholarship about the West, etc. My only complaint is that many original texts are mentioned but not quoted as much as I would have wanted to. However, the Notes section makes clear that the author has reviewed all the texts that he refers to, many of which are unique manuscripts. I have written before that to read just a couple of Professor Lewis' books is to realize that he realy knows his subject: his sources go beyond traditional European scholarship to the original documents in Arabic, Persian, and Turkish. What some readers might consider "bias," I see as letting the Muslims speak for themselves. It is true the the Europeans were were no more enlightened than the Muslims for a long time, but the European stirrings of the 11th and 12th centuries had no parallel in the Islamic world, and the Muslim decision to ignore the Renaissance was a sovereign and fateful one. Preofessor Lewis knows the people and the culture, and he admires what is to be admired (and as a magnificent incentive you should check "Islam, Art and Architecture," edited by Hattstein and Delius). But he does not fail the serious student, nor the serious reader, by sparing us the critical analysis of a society born in conquest, used to military victories and imperial attitudes, that sees itself --suddenly, as it happens-- left behind by those it despised for so long as weaklings and infidels. A quote from the Ottoman author Evliya Çelebi, regarding Austrians and their lack of martial qualities, could very well describe the general attitude of Muslims who should have known better about Europe, and explains in part today's anger and frustration in that region of the world, confronted with a rather dismal present but preceded by a glorious, if self-satisfied, past. The quote appears on page 155: "They [the Austrians] are just like Jews," Çelebi writes. "They have no stomach for a fight." Oh, how the world has changed!

Bernard Lewis is a historian and expert on the Islamic world or more specifically the Middle East. In the Muslim Discovery of Europe he looks at how the Islamic world came to see the West and its influence.

Throughout Lewis shows the strange duality of the Islamic regimes and culture. In some ways tolerant of Christianity and Judaism (although more dismissive and contemptuous than is commonly realized), Islamic culture became incapable of making the next leap forward into a more secular, rationale society.

Here Lewis traces the perception of writers, scientists, diplomats and traders from the Ottoman empire through their letters, edicts and other writings. It is an amazing eye opener for those unfamiliar with non-western perceptions. Lewis shows a culture that is first progressive, then increasingly unable to come to grips with either the West or its science and technology. What was progressive becomes eventually, under the latter Ottomans, the definition of decay and backwardness.

This is great historical writing in some ways as important, though not as revisionist, as Eric Wolfe's "Europe and the Peoples Without a History". Highly illuminating and highly recommended.

This book clearly demonstrates that Professor Lewis is extremely knowledgeable about the Muslim world.
The book has a great deal of information, primarily what was written by Muslims about Europe. The most striking feature is that Muslims' knowledge of (and apparent interest in) Europe was surprising sparse and poorly-informed up until the nineteenth century.

Professor Lewis discusses several reasons for this, including:
a) initially Islam was on the rise, with Europe being barbarous (the Dark Ages), hence strong feelings of cultural superiority;
b) Europe was Christian, which was viewed as a superceded religion, and the primary enemy of Islam, and hence offering little of interest;
c) Supremacy of theology in Islamic intellectual life discouraging "innovation", which became equated with heresy; and
d) Lack of Muslim communities in Europe, due both to Christian intolerance and Muslim desire to live in an Islamic state.

Only after the heavy Ottoman defeats of the late 18th century did the Ottomans start to shift their position and begin to acknowledge that there was a lot to learn from Europe. Even then the process was slow, hesitant (even back-tracking) and limited.

I found the book interesting, with a lot of information. However I thought it rather dry - I kept waiting for a section which brought it all together and and gave the "so what" factor. For me, the book would have been significantly improved by more discourse on what this all meant - hence only 3 stars.

This is not an easy read, but Professor Bernard Lewis is a skilled writer. The book is divided into various disciplines; culture, science, language, government, etc., and spans approximately 1000 years of contact between the Muslim east (Persia, Ottoman Turkey, Arabia, Mughal India) and the European west.

It is not written chronologically, as other reviewers have commented, but this didn't bother me, personally. Prof. Lewis gives real insight into a variety of Islamic views of the west. I could not ignore that for the majority of the 1000 years covered, there was just as much intolerance and arrogance exhibited by Muslims as there was by Westerners. I was hoping to find a few more positive sketches of the historical contact between east and west.

Prof. Lewis writes with skill and an authoriatative voice, and I saw no reason to believe that his conclusions were false or misleading. Many of the numerous sources he uses are amazing as well. A great book that offers a fresh view of Western history and Westerners, as well as Muslim history. It is also difficult to not apply what is read here to the current world situation. A great book.

Lewis has done the world a service in writing this book. Organized around various themes, like Religion, Economics, Science, the text takes the reader through numerous Euro-Muslim encounters, always stressing the Muslim side. It is all too easy for Europeans (and even easier for Americans) to see all of world history and culture from their own little corner of the world. What we too easily fail to recognize is that everyone else sees the world from their own corner.
The avid reader of Islamic history will enjoy this text. For the less specialized reader wanting an introduction to the Muslim view of things Lewis' other books will be more useful. Too often Lewis provides a dozen examples when a few would suffice.

Intel co-founder Andy Grove popularized the saying "only the paranoid survive," which has become a mantra for high tech companies competing in the fast-paced global market. The none-too-subtle message of Bernard Lewis' "The Muslim Discovery of Europe" is that "only the curious thrive," which could (and should) serve as a mantra for western societies, the United States above all else, during this period of staggering western power.

The subject of this book is as simple as it is sweeping: how did the Muslim world view the West (namely western Europe) from the medieval period to the early modern age? Lewis aims to tell the story of Muslim discovery and interaction with the West from their viewpoint and in their words. The picture he paints of early Islamic society is not flattering and ought to serve as a cautionary tale to modern Americans.

Lewis writes that for over a millennium (800-1800) the Islamic world was disdainful and dismissive of the West. The most remarkable aspect of the Muslim view of Europe was the utter absence of any curiosity about its cultures, languages, arts or sciences. While Europeans traveled to the Middle East, learned Arabic, and wrote a host of books on Islam and Arab culture, for centuries Muslims, Lewis argues, could not have cared less about Europeans. One comparative example is illustrative: Cambridge University established a chair in Arabic in 1633 whereas the first ever Arabic-to-Western language dictionary (in this case French) was not published until 1828 in Egypt.

The West was viewed as backward, slovenly, and above all "infidel." Lewis argues that this strong undercurrent of cultural arrogance and superiority led the Islamic world to fall further and further behind the West as technological innovations and the western economy grew at a rapid pace beginning in the sixteenth century.

So why was Western curiosity about the Islamic world not reciprocated? Lewis contends that the multi-cultural nature of early Europe fostered a need and interest in learning other languages and cultures and dealing with other religions, whereas the relatively monolithic Middle East used one language for religion, government and commerce and never had any firm ethnic or political borders. For Muslims, all Europeans were "Franks" -- that they spoke different languages, dressed uniquely, and eventually practiced different forms of Christianity was unimportant and unexplored. But the main impediment to Muslim curiosity of the West was religious. In Muslim eyes, Lewis says, Christianity was something known and discarded. Anything associated with it was ipso facto inferior and grotesque. Thus, the Muslim world ignored the Renaissance and the political implications of the Reformation, as both were deemed essentially Christian in nature. Lewis repeatedly cites the French Revolution as the first major European event that had major repercussions in the Islamic world namely because it was so overtly non-religious.

This book should give modern American readers pause. Unfortunately, an objective reader could see some parallels between the sixteenth century Islamic world and twenty-first century America. Contemporary Americans often exhibit little interest in foreign cultures and languages, tend to be dismissive of foreign methods and systems, and all too often hold their own faith to be superior to others. Let us hope that we don't wait until the barbarians are inside the gates, as the Muslims did with the Europeans, before actively trying to understand and, where appropriate, emulate others.

Its torpid reading but very insightful and eyeopening. It makes known the scientific and mathematic achievements that we take for granted that were given to us by Arabs philosphers, scientists, mathmaticians etc. Like Al-Jabr or Algebra or the medical anthology by ibn Sina commonly referred to in Europe as Avicenna.
"The Muslim Discovery of Europe" by Bernard Lewis. Published by W.W Norton its is around 350 pages. THis is another good book that has a decieving title. When read you will understand. It is sort of dry compared to other books but deals with the Ottoman Empire and the Europe in the Middle Ages and the apex of Arab civilization. It has a great explanation for the stagnation of the Muslim/Arab Empire.

Bernard Lewis is one of America's foremost scholars on the history of the Middle East. _The Muslim Discovery of Europe_ certainly demonstrates this, as he shows the political, social and economic mis-cues between Europe and the Near East over the last 1000 years. For much of that time, the rulers of the Middle East were not terribly interested in Europe (this may be suprising to Europeans), as socially and economically it was a backwater: the caliphs tended to look east. This, of course, was eventnually their undoing.

Lewis discusses at length this lack of interest in Europe by the wealthy and powerful in the MIddle East - in spite of the minor nusiance of the Crusades, the Abbysids, Il Khanids (Mongols) and later the Ottomans were primarily concerned with the internal doctrnal disputes and the control of trade routes to India and China. That Europe knew little of the Islamic world beyond their contributions in medicine, mathematics and astronomy (via Muslim Spain) is less suprising. The real "discovery" begins only after Sulieyman the Lawgiver ("the Magnificent" in the West) reached the gates of Vienna - when Britain, Portugal and the Italian city-states began to flex their muscles, exerting control over sea-routes in the Mediterranean and the Arabian Gulf.

Yet still the prejustices and misunderstandings persisted between East and West - I was struck by how little things have changed in our understanding of one another's cultures and values. Lewis' resitation is good, and he certainly was prescient in his discussion of the broader issues these parts of the world face. However, for my money, this same topic is covered much more clearly and in a more accessable manner in Destiny Disrupted: A History of the World through Islamic Eyes. If you must choose between one or the other, I recommend Ansary.

Well worth reading, although a bit tedious in places, and the occasional grammatical lapse can be distracting. I have no quarrel with the majority of the book, but the rather cursory dismissal of comparison with Japan seems only to reveal the author's lack of knowledge of east asian history, as does his complete failure to make a comparison with China. Thoughtful expansion on such comparisons would add significantly to the book. I also observe that the author is, at least to a certain extent, the victim of the rather romantic notion enshrined in our educational tradition that the Renaissance was some flowering ex nihilo, owing little to the Middle Ages. Jean Gimpel's "The Medieval Machine" would be a good starting point for those who would be disabused of such prejudice. I recommend "The Muslim Discovery of Europe" and look forward to Mr. Lewis's upcoming "What Went Wrong," even though I suffer from the preconception that I know the answer to the question. It should at the very least offer food for thought.