What Went Wrong? : The Clash Between Islam and Modernity in the Middle East

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Summary: Orientalist Bias Continues
Review: (...) This book, just another in a longline of redundant and reductive texts he has produced, offers nothingnew. It is about as interesting as a book that blames the fall of theroman empire on their ethnicity of the romans and the belief inchristianity. That the answers like in the 'mindset' (read, geneticmakeup) of these people who are just not able to cope because theirchristian religion is backward and regressive and opposed to thecreativity being bought forward by the new emerging empires of Islam.I doubt that the latter thesis would even see the light of day. Iwould certainly not waste my time reading such reductive hogwash.Unfortunately, we live in times where a (person) like Mr. Lewis can bepublished, repeatedly, and celebrated by a handful of people becausehe published stuff about Islam and Arabs that no one would eversuggest publishing about another people, society, dynasty orethnicity. Keep looking

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Summary: Pre-eminent Authority Examines Middle Eastern Decline
Review: When I saw Bernard Lewis, a Professor Emeritus at Princeton University, in an interview on television, I was impressed with his depth of knowledge of Middle Eastern history, culture, and the Islamic religion. This book was written before September 11th, and the predominant thought I had reading this superbly written analysis of what events and developments had led up to the decline of Middle Eastern culture was: If we had only known... Bernard Lewis, at 85 years of age, has become the most highly sought after authority on the Middle East as a result of September 11th. The book examines issues Lewis deems central to the decline of the Middle East as a world player, and leads the reader into drawing his own conclusions based on a more thorough understanding of the underlying problems. This book is a MUST READ for anyone wanting to know the cultural and historical facts which undoubtedly played a part in the terrible tragedy that resulted on 9/11.

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Summary: Lewis is a realist, always searches out accuracy
Review: This book is a yes book. There is very little opinion but what there is, is based on his research, and he did a remarkable job on that. He states what are the reasons of what went wrong from what actually is, the government, the tradition of allowing government to intermingle with the belief in Islam and visa versa. A bank of other info that brings you the mental state of this region. Men are clearly in power in this belief system which extends and perpetuates this system of oppression and firm belief. These men are for the most part in agreement which makes for some primitive conflict towards us. The shocking thought is this system will not be changed as it is imprinted on most from birth, as THE way of life. From that I conclude we will be having a long terrorist era as Bin Laden could be replaced by thousands with this way of thinking in the Middle East. If you are one of the few who think there is a solution to this, you should read this book first. After reading the book myself my opinion is We are truly at war with no foreseeable solution. I am convinced from this book we will experience more terror.
I highly recommend another book that goes into reasons why these people attacked, coming from there religious belief and offers some solutions, SB 1 or God By Karl Mark Maddox

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Summary: Indeed there is nothing wrong with this great book!
Review: Indeed there is nothing wrong with this great book! It is highly to be recommended as essential reading on what is going on in the Middle East today. Christopher Catherwood, author of CHURCHILL'S FOLLY: HOW WINSTON CHURCHILL CREATED IRAQ (Carroll and Graf 2004)

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Summary: Worthwhile introduction to a tough topic
Review: Don't read this book if you want a pat answer to the question posed in the title. What Lewis provides is an introduction to how difficult the question really is. He starts with a brief history of the interaction between Muslim countries and the West since the middle ages when the Middle East was home to the most advanced cultures on every front, from art to commerce and from science to human rights. While he proffers many anecdotes that highlight the attitudes that produced the decline of the Middle East, he settles on no clear answer. Why, for example, did it take several centuries for the printing press to become generally used in Islamic countries, even though it was well known?

Clearly, the initial arrogance and insularity of the Muslim countries gave the West a running head start once the Renaissance began, but that cannot be the complete explanation. Further, the suppression of women that leaves half the population as non-contributors also plays a role. One of the most promising lines of inquiry turns on the lack of an Islamic concept of separation of church and state such as that engendered in Christianity by the "render unto Caesar" text in the New Testament. By the end however, we are left with the conviction that there is no easy answer, and that the conflict between Islamic fundamentalists hell-bent on a return to the past and western societies intent on increasing, not decreasing, connectivity throughout the world will likely be with us for the rest of this century.

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Summary: Bernard Lewis: Politically Motivated and Hostile
Review: Not only is this book poor from a scholastic point of view, but life is too short for his terrible style that wallows through too much irrelevant and thick layered history, while addressing his thesis sparingly. His crusading overtone draws upon the comparison of Islam with Communism and Nazism: "One can only hope that, in time, the cause of freedom will triumph once again as it has already triumphed over the Nazis and the Communists. If it does not, the outlook for the Islamic world, and perhaps for the West, will be grim."(165) In keeping with his crusading tone, Lewis allies the Zionist movement with Christianity by stating "In present day Israel . . . what we see is a clash between Christendom and Islam. For Israel . . . the survival of the state . . . may depend on its largely Western-derived qualitative edge."(155) The topic Lewis has chosen to write on is good- and as an American who has worked in the Middle East I am keenly aware that there are monumental problems there- but I find his bias and hostility to be ridiculous. Edward W. Said, Professor at Columbia University, wrote in his book Orientalism: Western Conceptions of the Orient, "I also believe that it is entirely correct to read recent Orientalist authorities such as the almost comically persistent Bernard Lewis as the politically motivated and hostile witnesses that their suave accents and unconvincing displays of learning attempt to hide."(337) Said continues that at the root of these scholars' exceedingly Western bias we find their intentions to be hardly open minded or objective:

So many Islamic specialists were and still are routinely consulted by, and actively work for, governments whose designs in the Islamic world are economic exploitation, domination or outright aggression, or why so many scholars in Islam- like Lewis himself- voluntarily feel that it is part of their duty to mount attacks on Modern Arab or Islamic peoples with the pretense that "classical" Islamic culture can nevertheless be the object disinterested scholarly concern. (345)

"Lewis's work therefore is part of the present political, rather than purely intellectual, environment."(343)

Only a fool wants to hear the echo of his own voice. Lewis's short-sided arguments may sound convincing to a Westerner ignorant of the modern Middle East, and his voice has been quite influential in the polices adopted by the Bush Administration, but here is an example of a scholar that has drawn more upon his outlook for the future than the past to formulate a biased history. Greek playwright Agathon is reported by Aristotle to have declared: "Even God cannot alter the past." Samuel Butler answered back across two millennia: "It has been said that though God cannot alter the past, historians can." Robert McNamara said that we succeeded against the Soviets in the Cuban Missile Crisis because we could empathize with our enemy, and that we failed in Vietnam because we could not. In establishing a balanced understanding of the differences the West has with Islam and the Muslim world, it is of utter importance that the West comes to recognize skewed hostiles like Lewis so that it can adequately empathize with a people that, like the Vietnamese, could prove to be a costly monument to ignorance if continuously villianized.


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Summary: The Eclipse of Islam
Review: Of all the world's civilizations which had to cope with the meteoritic rise of the West in the last five hundred years, Islamic civilization seemed best placed to do so. Islam was both geographically and culturally close to the West. It formed a wide ranging empire, reaching as far east as the Pacific and as far west as the Atlantic. It was also the leader in the Arts and Sciences, and more pluralistic and accepting of minorities then was Christendom. It encountered the great technological advanced of the west as they were taking place, and could adapt to them. Compared to other world civilization, Islam suffered the least from Western Imperialism, which ruled the Islamic world only for a few short decades after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. Finally, the Middle East received the last minute blessing of oil, a source of wealth which it could have used to modernize itself and its society.

Yet Islam failed.

Today, the Islamic world competes only with sub Saharan Africa as the greatest loser of the modern age. Economically, it has been over taken not only by the West, but also by East Europe, Japan, east and south Asia, India and Latin America. Barring oil, the total exports of the Arab world are less then those of Finland (p.52). Scientifically, the former leaders of the world now make virtually no contribution, accept for individual scholars working in the West. And militarily, the Islamic world has been defeated not only by the Christian empires (whether France in the 1800s, Britain in the First World War, and the United States in the first Gulf War), but also by a small and relatively poor Jewish nation.

Bernard Lewis's wonderful, eminently readable book, "What Went Wrong: Western Impact and Middle Eastern Response" deals with all sorts of questions regarding the relations between the West and the world of Islam. A historical survey of the last thousand years, and particularly the last 300-400 years, it deals with such wide ranging issues as slavery, clock-making, women's rights, and the influence (or lack of) of western music.

In terms of answer to the failure of Islam to modernize, Lewis's views are interesting if not really original: other writers, notably David Landes, have suggested more or less the same remedies: Democracy, Capitalism, Science, and hard work.

Lewis's insight is in the details: he offers a fascinating discussion of the separation of Church and State which is ingrained in Christian thought, but foreign to Islam. There is no Islamic equivalent of "Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's; and unto God the things which are God's". Under Islam (as under Judaism), "God was Caesar" (p. 108). Christianity was formed as a suppressed, or tolerated, religion, and remained so until the conversion of Constantine, by which time its traditions were already well established. But "Muhammad was, so to speak, his own Constantine" (p.110). Until its importation from the west, in Islam there was no concept of spiritual and temporal domains.

Another factor in Islamic backwardness is the status of women. "The difference in position of women was indeed one of the most striking contrasts between Christian and Muslim practice, and is mentioned by almost all travelers in both directions", Lewis writes (p. 73). "Muslim visitors to Europe speak with astonishment, often with horror, of the immodesty and forwardness of Western women [and] of the incredible freedom and absurd deference accorded to them" (ibid). The relative liberation of women in the secular states of the Middle East is a "major target of different schools of militant Islamic revival" (p. 77). But if the Muslim world is to catch up with the west, it cannot afford to give up half of its "manpower".

When confronting their obvious weakness, some Muslims play the "blame game", whether blaming the Mongols, the French, the British, the Americans or the Jews. Yet, as Lewis writes: "The question 'Who did this to us?' has led only to neurotic fantasies and conspiracy theories. The other question - 'What did we do wrong?' - has led naturally to a second question: 'How do we put it right?' In that question, and in the various answers that are being found, lie the best hopes of the future." (p.177).

Thus there are two paths available for Islam: One is symbolized by Kemal Ataurk, the man who founded Modern Turkey and dragged it, sometimes kicking and screaming, towards Modernism. The other is the violent Islam of Osama bin Laden. Unfortunately, that is the path that the Middle East is currently pursuing.

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Summary: Is modernization westernization?
Review: If what Bernard Lewis penned in this book is entirely accurate, the real question facing all of us at this junction is the distinction between `westernization' and `modernization.' Not to seem like an apologist for Islam, but the question beyond Lewis's challenge to the Islamic world to re-examine what it rejected - and ask why not effect change? `What Went Wrong?" brought to presence to me a different response to a challenge... not better or worse, just different. Lewis admittedly is brilliant as he lays out his historiography and asks Muslims to re-examine the basic query: What went wrong?

How did such an envied, dominant and culturally rich society find itself exposed to Western imperialism? According to Lewis, the rejection of modernization (at this junction in the review a synonym westernization) resulting in a shrinking inward by the Islamic cultures inclusive of countries such as Turkey, Persia, and Arabia. Lewis's sweep of Islamic history tries to get at the core of what he sees as the quandary that the response to the western challenge according to him is predictable. Such notables as Edward Said and Albert Hourani see such a sweeping discourse as problematic. According to Lewis, the Islamic world became too self-absorbed and oblivious to ideas for useful change. In contrast to countries in East Asia - particularly Japan - who reacted differently to what seemed like an inevitable cultural encroachment - well the results are self-evident. To borrow from Lewis, clerics and rulers on the premise that modernization was westernization resisted restructuring and reform. As the West came to presence, the Islamic world saw little of value in westernizing and was leery that Western values would replace it. It can't really be called pure conservativism as Japan embraced the challenge of western influence - seeing its inevitability - but the Islamic world decided to stay with what was tried tested and true. Japan took from what it saw as the best in the west and made their own.

The challenge that Lewis posits beyond the "blame game," centering on "Who did this to us?" includes a host of players such as Mongols and of late to the Americans for their cultural and economic hegemony. While yes, blaming may uncover the issue of what went wrong (and this is a question all regions need to ask themselves...) Lewis brazenly asks Muslims to move beyond the blame game to a more productive: "How can we fix the problems we have?" To effect change does not have to mean that you are modernizing, per se or westernizing, per se. To effect structural and cultural change to allow people to have the freedoms to develop and question is not purely a western thing - therefore changed should not be feared, it should be embraced. The thing is, the world will move along without us... and it is. There is, admittedly, much to be leery about by relying on technology - but there is much that can be gained by carefully changing one's quality of life. Far be it for me to suggest such places as Singapore or Japan - which have embraced the challenge and responded - enjoy the fruits as well as ills of so called modernization. Lewis brazenly suggests a need to somewhat grab the bull by the horns of Western democracy, and like so-called `western' values and that the enemy may be less external and is really internal.

I have to give Bernard Lewis kudos for asking the hard questions about what needs to be done. The truth is, as previously mentioned, all societies need to constantly to rearticulate, reinvent and reinvigorate themselves. Sometimes it is easier from the outside looking in as one is not as `invested' in the reification of the status quo. All cultural sensitivity issues taken into consideration, re-evaluation should be seen as an opportunity for growth rather than a tenacious clinging to a past that has been somewhat constricting. That Lewis's work is provocative and a major contribution to Islamic studies is beyond question. What scholars need to do now is to test the veracity and theoretical framework (not to mention historiographic detail). The findings and suggestions are not meant to provoke and should be taken in the spirit within which it was written. It does not answer all but it certainly answers some of the issues facing the Middle East and on that note all of us.

Miguel Llora

Rating:
Summary: A short but fascinating book
Review: Many Arabs feel that compared with "Christendom, the world of Islam has become poor, weak, and ignorant." One response is to look for blame: Turks, Mongols, imperialists, Jews, Americans, or whatever. Blame all the problems on others.

This means asking the question, "Who did this to us?"

Lewis points out that a better question is "What did we do wrong?" which leads naturally to "How do we put it right?" Lewis feels that the Muslims of the Middle East have the ability to make this choice. And he feels that the alternative is to let the suicide bomber "become a metaphor for the whole region," after which there is a risk that there will be "a downward spiral of hate and spite, rage and self-pity, poverty and oppression, culminating sooner or later in yet another alien domination."

I agree. The Arab world controls a great deal of land. Rich land. That land can be lost. And if one is uncompetitive, there are others who may be willing to dominate you or your land or both. Russians, Europeans, Americans, Chinese, Indians ... it could be just about anyone. Or an alliance of some of them.

This book explains how the Muslims of the Middle East got to this point. Lewis does mention what I feel is an important moment, the big Muslim victory at Mohacs, in 1526. Anyone who has studied the accounts of this battle knows that it was, as Lewis says, a truly decisive Muslim victory. So it makes sense to start here and ask what happened next.

Some people think the turning point came as early as 1571, with the battle of Lepanto. But Lewis disagrees, explaining that only in the following century did Western economic power gained from the New World start to have a major impact. However, Muslim military power did fall apart quickly in the 1680s, with the unsuccessful Muslim siege of Vienna and the loss of Buda.

Lewis shows that after the 1680s, the Islamic world rapidly faded in military competitiveness. Its helplessness was shown by Napoleon's invasion of Egypt in 1798. By now, most Muslims realized that there was something inherently uncompetitive about their whole society. But what?

Muslims knew that Christianity alone was not the secret of Western success. Certainly, it had not been so in the past. The answer had to be elsewhere. Lewis explains that Western patriotism and nationalism were looked at as possibilities, as was Western military modernization in general. But Lewis regards three other social aspects as especially significant: treatment of women, approach to science, and attitudes towards music.

I think the author does a great job of showing how much the lack of social equality affected the Islamic world. He shows how Western secular advances had no counterparts in an Islamic world that had few examples of secular power. Meanwhile, Muslim science, which in the past had far surpassed the West, fell way behind it. And Lewis spends a little, um, time, dwelling on one aspect of this, the Muslim problems in measuring time and paying attention to it.

The Muslim world also overlooked most aspects of Westen culture: art, music, and literature.

I tend to agree with Lewis that a variety of societal differences were major in weakening the Islamic world. And I agree that the world has modernized enough so that Muslim society can make plenty of progress if it seriously wishes to do so. All that is needed is for Muslims to decide that truth is an inherent value and I think they will diagnose their problems and begin to solve them.

This is an excellent book, and I think it offers an excellent perspective on how things got to be the way they are in the Middle East.


Rating:
Summary: Disappointed
Review: I selected this book from its title hoping to find answers for the ongoing problems in the Middle East. Mr Lewis dwells extensively on the history of the Ottoman Empire as the cause for everything amiss in the Arab World. Anyone who lived in the ME or read its history will attribute the current conflicts as a direct consequence of colonialism by Britain and France, the creation of the 4,000,000 Palestinian Refugees, and the Israeli occupation. These are the problems, and not the Turkish Empire. The Middle East is not in need of scapegoats to explain its conflicts. For Lewis to state that "the Anglo-French rule and American ifluence, like the Mongol invasions, were a consequence, not a cause of the inner weakness of the Middle Eastern states and societies" reveals either ignorance or prejudice. I do not know where Mr Lewis has been residing, and what he is reading. Does Mr Lewis also believe that the victims of the Holocaust, the Armenian Genocide, and the Palestinian Exodus invited these crimes upon themselves? This book is a waste of time. I suggest Michael Fromkin's a Peace to End all Peace instead. Pat Hitchon

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