The Crisis of Islam: A Holy War and Unholy Terror By Bernard Lewis: A Review

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REVIEWED BY DESIREE D. LACHAPELLE, Undergraduate Student, Department of History, Government and Social Science, Biola University, La Mirada, Calif.; desiree.d.lachapelle@biola.edu

The events that transpired on September 11, 2001 continue to impact our world at large today. And ten years later, we are still no closer to finding a solution to the ‘Crisis of Islam.’ Bernard Lewis is considered to be one of the world’s foremost scholars in the history of the Middle East. Crisis of Islam is an historical review of the history of Islam and its repercussions on contemporary relations with the Islamic world. Lewis’s concise history brings the reader through 1400 years of Islamic history and its subsequent relationship with the West. I found this book to be an unbiased introduction to the history of the conflict between Muslims and Western society that began with the fall of the Ottoman Empire and the loss of the capitol city of Constantinople; followed by division land Muslims had occupied by the French and British Empires. Some of the boundaries established by those European governments remain hotly contested today.

In the introduction to the text, Lewis quotes a pronouncement made more than once by Usama bin Ladin in a video recording made on October 7, 2001 in which bin Ladin refers to the: “humiliation and disgrace that Islam has suffered for more than eighty years.”[1] Lewis’ use of this quote is to provide the context for his argument that history is deeply rooted in the beliefs of Islamic extremists that dates back to the glory of the Ottoman Empire. In chapter eleven, Lewis discusses the various meanings of jihad (religious personal struggle; religious community warfare) and homes in on one of the more important Muslim traditions to impact Islamic modernity: the House of Islam (Dar al-Islam), meaning the place in the world where Muslims rule and Muslim Law (Shari’a) prevails; and the House of War (Dar al-Harb), meaning the place in the world where the rest of humanity resides and is ruled by infidels.[2] Understanding this particular distinction is essential for non-Muslims in today’s world because per this tradition, jihad must continue until all peoples either submit to Muslim rule or convert to Islam. Another point of contention Lewis brings to the forefront for the reader is that for extremists like Usama bin Ladin, “the declaration of war against the United States marks the resumption of the struggle for religious dominance of the world that began in the seventh century.”[3] For Islamic extremists jihad must continue because once land has been conquered for, or added to the realm of Islam it can never be finally renounced.[4] This logic would indicate that the land owned by the Islamic crusaders during the rise of the Ottoman Empire was never meant to be taken by the Western infidels. According to Islam, Allah had stated that once Muslims had taken possession of a land during jihad they were to keep it forever.[5] This sentiment was amplified in Usama ‘bin Ladin’s letter to America, published in November of 2002, in which ‘bin Ladin demanded that the U.S. “pack [their] luggage and get out of our lands.”[6] Another valuable insight Lewis provides in this book is a yearning of many Muslims to return to the glory days of Islam during the period of the Ottoman Empire. Lewis makes a comparison between Islamic scholarship in the seventh century to Islamic scholarship now:

“In the period which European historians see as a dark interlude between the decline of ancient civilizations-Greece and Rome-and the rise of modern civilization-Europe, Islam was the leading civilization in the world, marked as such by its great and powerful kingdoms, its rich and varied industry and commerce, its original and creative sciences and letters…But during the past three centuries, the Islamic world has lost its dominance and its leadership, and has fallen behind both the modern West and the rapidly modernizing Orient.”[7]

Lewis amplifies the disparity by providing the reader with a statistic from a report published about Arab Human Development in 2002: “The Arab world translates about 130 books annually, one-fifth of the number that Greece translates. The accumulative total of translated books since the Capiph Maa’moun’s [sic] time [the ninth century] is about 100,000, almost the average that Spain translates in one year.”[8] The fall of the Ottoman Empire and subsequent abolishment of the Caliphate severed the unity of the Muslim people that continues to resonate today.[9]

The Crisis of Islam is a concise history of Islam intended to give the reader some background on the current hostilities between Islam and the West. It is a valuable primer for anyone seeking to make sense of today’s headlines.

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[1] Bernard Lewis, The Crisis of Islam: Holy War and Unholy Terror. (New York: Random House Incorporated, 2004), XV.

[2] Bernard Lewis, The Crisis of Islam: Holy War and Unholy Terror. (New York: Random House Incorporated, 2004), 31.

[3] Bernard Lewis, The Crisis of Islam: Holy War and Unholy Terror. (New York: Random House Incorporated, 2004), 162.

[4] Bernard Lewis, The Crisis of Islam: Holy War and Unholy Terror. (New York: Random House Incorporated, 2004), xxviii-xxix.

[5] Bernard Lewis, The Crisis of Islam: Holy War and Unholy Terror. (New York: Random House Incorporated, 2004), xxviii-xxix.

[6] Bernard Lewis, The Crisis of Islam: Holy War and Unholy Terror. (New York: Random House Incorporated, 2004), 158.

[7] Bernard Lewis, The Crisis of Islam: Holy War and Unholy Terror. (New York: Random House Incorporated, 2004), 4.

[8] Bernard Lewis, The Crisis of Islam: Holy War and Unholy Terror. (New York: Random House Incorporated, 2004), 115-6.

[9] Bernard Lewis, The Crisis of Islam: Holy War and Unholy Terror. (New York: Random House Incorporated, 2004), xvii.