1. Books By Bernard Lewis

EBOOK SYNOPSIS:Hailed in The New York Times Book Review as 'the doyen of Middle Eastern studies,' Bernard Lewis has been for half a century one of the West's foremost scholars of Islamic history and culture, the author of over two dozen books, most notably The Arabs in History, The Emergence of Modern Turkey, The Political Language of Islam, and The Muslim Discovery of Europe. Eminent French historian Robert Mantran has written of Lewis's work: 'How could one resist being attracted to the books of an author who opens for you the doors of an unknown or misunderstood universe, who leads you within to its innermost domains: religion, ways of thinking, conceptions of power, culture-an author who upsets notions too often fixed, fallacious, or partisan.' In Islam and the West, Bernard Lewis brings together in one volume eleven essays that indeed open doors to the innermost domains of Islam.

Lewis ranges far and wide in these essays. He includes long pieces, such as his capsule history of the interaction-in war and peace, in commerce and culture-between Europe and its Islamic neighbors, and shorter ones, such as his deft study of the Arabic word watan and what its linguistic history reveals about the introduction of the idea of patriotism from the West. EBOOK SYNOPSIS:Hailed as 'the doyen of Middle Eastern studies' in The New York Times Book Review, Bernard Lewis stands at the height of his field. Lewis,' wrote Fouad Ajami in The Wall Street Journal, 'is to be taken through a treacherous terrain by the coolest and most reassuring of guides.

You are in the hands of the Islamic world's foremost living historian.' Now this sure-handed guide takes us through treacherous terrain indeed-the events of 1492, a year laden with epic events and riven by political debate.With elegance and erudition, Lewis explores that climactic year as a clash of civilizations-a clash not only of the New World and the Old, but also of Christendom and Islam, of Europe and the rest. In the same year that Columbus set sail across the Atlantic, he reminds us, the Spanish monarchy captured Granada, the last Muslim stronghold on the peninsula, and also expelled the Jews. Lewis uses these three epochal events to explore the nature of the European-Islamic conflict, placing the voyages of discovery in a striking new context. He traces Christian Europe's path from being a primitive backwater on the edges of the vast, cosmopolitan Caliphate, through the heightening rivalry of the two religions, to the triumph of the West over Islam, examining the factors behind their changing fortunes and cultural qualities.Balanced and insightful, this far-reaching discussion of the encounters between Islam, the West, and the globe provides a new understanding of the distant events that gave shape to the modern world. EBOOK SYNOPSIS:The terrorist attack on the Twin Towers, the Afghan conflict, waves of migration, and the presence of twelve million Muslims in the European Union: these are just a few of the things that have helped contribute to a growing interest in Islam, its culture, and its followers. They awaken old and new questions about a religious, cultural, and political reality that 1,200,000,000 people consider themselves a part of.

This book is the result of a series of extended interviews between an internationally acclaimed expert on Islam and two journalists who have dedicated themselves for many years to studying key themes of Islam and analyzing the possibility of coexistence between people of different faiths and cultures. How was Islam born? What does the Qur'an represent for Muslims? What relationships have developed between Islam and violence, between Islamic culture and the West? How can a real integration of Islam take place in European societies?

What are the conditions for a constructive encounter between Christians and Muslims? Samir Khalil Samir-one of the world's leading experts on Islam-responds to these questions in an in-depth interview that can help one learn and judge for oneself, without prejudice or naivete. This is a contribution in the spirit of the realism needed in order to build adequate ways of living with those who have become our new neighbors. EBOOK SYNOPSIS:Shortly after the conquest of Granada in 1492 by the Catholic kings, Muslim subjects in Spain became known derogatorily as Moriscos, Moros, Muhammadans, Hagarans, and Saracens, despite the fact that they were forced to accept the sacrament of baptism. They were relegated to the margin of Christian society, considered aliens in their own land, and subjected to strictures and persecution.

In turn, the Moriscos developed their own attitude, which they expressed in an extensive literature in Alijamiado, their Spanish dialect written in Arabic script. This literature was for the most part inspired by Arabic models reiterating Islamic values through the vehicles of history, legends, epic tales, stories, wisdom sayings, and sorcery. Written mostly during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, Aljamiado literature is significant for the study of cultural change. Islam and the West: The Moriscos is the first comprehensive study of this long-neglected subject. Chejne surveys and analyzes the self-expression of the Moriscos and assesses their status as a minority struggling for survival, placing them in the social context of ideological conflict, the clash of religions and cultures, and differing perceptions. This book provides a more complete picture of the literatures and cultures of medieval Spain.

Books By Bernard Lewis

Firewatch activation key. A bestselling account of why the Islamic world has been losing the conflict with the West for 300 years – and the frustration and humiliation this has produced.For many centuries, Islam was the world’s greatest, most open, most enlightened, most creative, most powerful civilisation. And then everything changed, as the previously despised West won victory after victory, first on the battlefield and in the marketplace, then in almost every aspect of public and even private life.Bernard Lewis examines the anguished reaction of the Islamic world as it tried to understand why things had changed, and he provides a fascinating portrait of a culture in turmoil. Some Middle Easterners asked not ‘who did this to us?’ but ‘where did we go wrong?’; while others fastened blame on a series of scapegoats, both internal and external – and the results are very much with us today.