Rating: 
Summary: They Know Zilch About Us, but What Do We Know About Them?
Review: Bernard Lewis, a Professor Emeritus in Near Eastern Studies from Princeton University, has created yet another incredibly useful and timely book from articles he wrote for the New Yorker, Foreign Affairs, the Atlantic Monthly, and other publications. THE CRISIS OF ISLAM -- even more than its excellent predecessor WHAT WENT WRONG? -- is both cohesive and spot-on. All nine chapters as well as the introduction are informed by the events of September 11, 2001 and their aftermath. The final chapter, for instance, deals directly with the subject of suicide bombers, discussing the Qur'an's ban on both suicide and murder of innocent civilians, and going on to discuss the "martyrs" of Hammas and the Al-Aqsa Brigades as a form of death cult that goes against the teachings of Islam. I was particularly intrigued by Lewis's reference to some remarks made by Osama bin Laden regarding the "humiliation and disgrace" Islam has suffered for over eighty years. He refers specifically to the abolition of the Caliphate by Kemal Ataturk and his followers in 1924. For the first time since the days of Muhammad, Islam was without a leader. Lewis suggests that Osama would not be averse to the role himself -- which would be roughly equivalent to making Jeffrey Dahmer the headmaster of a boys' school. The chapter entitled "A Failure of Modernity" gives striking evidence of the backwardness of most Islamic nations. A 2002 United Nations report states that "the Arab World translates about 330 books annually, one-fifth of the number that Greece translates. The accumulative total of translated books since [the ninth century] is about 100,000, almost the average that Spain translates in one year." If we in the West have been accused of the oddest things at times, it is because ignorance of the West is endemic. And, I might add, dangerous. In order to avoid falling into the same trap ourselves -- such as by getting all our information from "The O'Reilly Report" -- we owe it to ourselves to know why over a billion Muslims have decided that we are the Great Satan. Knowledge is more powerful than an arsenal of MOABs.
Rating:
Summary: A powerful examination, not for beginers
Review: Bernard Lewis continues his lifetime devotion to teaching about the Middle East and Islamic culture in this all too thin volume. As in his last book, What Went Wrong, here again Lewis focuses on raising the average readers understanding of this crucial region and its history. Unlike many so called academics, who argue from polarized positions on CNN and FOX News, Lewis takes a complex and nuance approach to this most complex of regions. Indeed, while everyone else seems to either want to condemn all Islam and its culture or apologize for the terrorists it currently inspires, this author writes from a position of respect and appreciation for this civilization all the while refusing to be blinded by base sentimentalism. Looking through Islamic history, Lewis explains how a preoccupation with a loss of status and power, a world view looking to blame outsiders rather than looking inward for critical self-examination, and a lack of democratic tradition, continues to radicalize the Middle East. The author further seeks to explain how Islamic culture holds a different world view from those in the west and that we need to understand this world view if we are to confront the threat of terrorism. Readers should be aware that this text is not an introduction. Lewis does not write for laymen. Assuming a certain baseline of knowledge, he tends to gloss over arguments or offer evidence in a sort of short hand, expecting the educated reader to understand references and names. In a world where most non-fiction is over written, Lewis is a throw back to an earlier age, writing thin volumes that are light on detail and heavy on argument. This does not detract from the quality of his work, but it does limit what a reader without a firm grasp of the fundamentals can learn from reading it. Still, there is much to be learned from this work, in particular his examination of the Wahabbi sect being exported by Saudi Arabia and the traditional self understanding of Islam as an 'ascendant' religion that would spread over the whole world. Readers should also look to Lewis's earlier work, in particular 'the Middle East: A Brief History' and 'Islam and the West,' both essential reading for someone whishing to understand the modern Middle East.
Rating: 
Summary: Hardly Even-Handed
Review: Lewis' Grossly Prejudicial Views
Lewis, once fined by the court for concealing evidence of Armenian genocided, again neglected to reveal that his view was tainted by his experience as a longtime British government agent. His pasting-over the West's roles in history events distorts the depth of emotions of the subject of his book. I recommend that all readers read him with a critical eye (especially considering the fact that the acclaimed religious expert could make the rather obvious blunder of calling Confucious teachings a religion).
Rating:
Summary: The Crisis of the World !
Review: The book describes the circumstances that lead to the existing conflict today between the Islamic World and America, from an extremist perspective. It describes the believes of the Wahhabi teachings in Saudi Arabia and how these miss-interpreted believes were endorsed by terrorist organizations.
When describing the current events since the turn of the century the author's opinions are very true, yet when stating historical events, especially during the early days of Islam, it is very misleading and lacks clear understanding of Islamic moderate teaching, which represents more than 99.9% of the Islamic world today by proven statistics.
For example, at the beginning of the book the author tries to establish the fact that Islam is a bloody religion that was based and spread by War. He states that Prophet Mohamed was not only a prophet like Jesus and Moses, but was also a head of state and a warrior who conquered. This is true, yet it is not the whole truth. In fact, Muslims at the rise of Islam were asking the prophet to allow them to fight back and for thirteen years he did not allow them to fight. Until they were strongly tortured, killed, humiliated, driven out of their homes and forced to leave their belongings, that Muslims were finally allowed to fight back. If it wasn't for their fighting back, Islam wouldn't have survived the conspiracies plotted against it at that time. It is also worth mentioning the fact that the total number of people killed during all the conquests of the prophet have not exceeded four hundred from both sides. This is less than the number of Civilian and Children in Palestine killed every year by the Israeli occupation.
Also the author states that the Islamic terrorist groups believe that they are executing the will of God and that the Americans are against god and thus they have to fight them. The author sees this as a very strange and un-acceptable attitude. However, the author forgot that this is what the Jewish People are saying as well. Even president Regan himself said the same thing about Libya in one of his speeches in California. The belief of most of the Jewish/Israeli that they are executing the will of God by occupying the Palestinian lands! Not to mention their believe that they are the chosen people by God to execute his will on earth. So, where does this leave the rest of the world...slaves to the Israelis?? It surprises me that the author does not understand that this is a figure of speech.
Yet, the book establishes some very good arguments about the reasons why there is a such a great gap between the Middle East and America at the present time. With most of the Islam countries not having a proper democratic system - Or in Islamic terms, not a 'Shora' system - Poverty and lack of modernization have left the majority of the population with a good reason to hate the west for the decline of the Islamic/Ottoman empire. Also the double standards used by the American administration when dealing with Palestinian/Israeli conflict enforces this belief.
At the end, I I see that the author made such tremendous effort to collect uncompleted evidence and rely on un-trusted sources of information to present to the world the opinion of less than 0.1% of Islamic people as if it was the believes of the majority of Muslims !
Rating: 
Summary: ISLAM, is it our problem or their problem?
Review: An impressive name but a somewhat pretentious book. The author is a world renown authority on the Ottoman Empire in particular and Islam and the near east in general. For a non fiction book written by a scholar the, writing is easily understandable and interesting, a combination I find is sometimes lacking in scholarly publications, however, at 164 pages, The Crisis of Islam is a short book and it pretty much rehashes material from previous books After reviewing a short history of Islam, Lewis proceeds to tell us what he thinks are the problems facing the Islamic religion and how these problems affect mainstream and fundamentalist Muslims and skews their view of the west, especially America, which according to Lewis, is viewed as an extension of The Byzantine and The Holy Roman Empires. A bit of a stretch to me. While Moslems feel their religion is superior to other religions, most notably, Christianity and Judaism, they also believe they are morally superior as well and with some justification, however, in a free society such as ours you will have everything from rabid Christian Fundamentalists to criminals with most people in the middle. Having never experienced a free society, the rank and file Muslim cannot possibly understand the concept. It seems endless, the list of human rights and other humanity issues that Islamists justify in the name of religion. Oh we did that, it was Gods will. Oh, that was because Allah willed it. When Islamic hordes raced across Africa and Asia it was not to conquer but to spread the word of the Islamic God and in their minds, it probably was. All the lands they conquered around the Mediterranean Sea were Christian lands but when Christians took back or came back as protectorates, they were imperialists and colonialists. Among other things, they call America to task for having allowed slavery in our country, while conveniently forgetting the substantial Arab contribution to the slave trade, not counting having slaves into the sixties. What this seems to boil down to is that Moslems are not responsible for anything. If something good happens it's Allah's will, if something happens that they don't like, it's the Wests and specifically America's and of course Israel's fault. Accountability seems to be missing from the Arabic and Farsi dictionaries. Apparently they have no control over their own lives. Lewis brings up the point that while democracy will work with Islam, Islam, will not work with with democracy. What he means, is that Islamists, especially fundamentalists, view democracy as a vehicle to power that once achieved can be dispensed with. The rationalization is that once fundamentalists are elected and establish a religious government, they are implementing Gods law and that trumps any law of man. We have seen this in Iran where a Theocracy was elected, whereupon it enacted laws to perpetuate their power base and diminish that of reformers. Another excellent point alluded to by Lewis is that, in many cases, these peoples religion has been around a lot longer than their their countries and therefore boundaries and nationhood, don't mean that much to the average Muslim, while their religion is all important. Westerners feel pride and kinship with their countrymen. Muslims feel pride and kinship with other Muslims of all nationalities. That is why they are so personally involved in the Palestinian issue. I don't think it's any secret that many Muslims, especially Fundamentalist Muslims have been brainwashed. They go to private Islamic Schools, called Madrasas, where they study nothing but the Koran and where in many schools they hear unending diatribes about the evils of the West and America especially. While Muslims think their religion is far superior, they recognize that their society has become backward. It makes them feel outgunned and angry. As we discussed previously, the Muslims are not very good at introspection. To them what is obviously a flawed society, somehow, has been caused by the unbridled success of the west. After 9-11, we got to see and hear numerous high ranking Moslems on T.V. tell us how terrorism, at least upon non-combatants is strictly against Islam. Dr Lewis seems to confirm this in this book, stating categorically, that nothing is contained within the pages of the Koran that would either specify, nor condone such behavior. He further states that the suicide bomber phenomenon is directly contrary to the Koran and that suicide is such a sin that it will keep you out of heaven, no matter how righteous you've been. Nevertheless, extremists, such as bin Laden, have managed to find plenty adherents for their convoluted view of Islam and somehow contravened the prohibition against suicide. Conclusion As much as I would like to ignore the Muslims and their myriad of self made problems, I'm afraid for us to ignore the extremist Muslim threat would, for us, be a form of our own suicide. The extremist nuts have indeed found a cause to keep them occupied, and it is US! Should we once again stick our heads in the sand, I'm afraid our posteriors would get burned. What can we do? I'm not sure but whatever we do is going to take a long, long time. It took us seventy years to defeat communism, so we better be prepared for the long haul. Iraq might be a good start if we can pull it off, getting an appreciative citizenry there. However, many Iraqi's have already forgot how much they dreaded and hated Saddam and are now directing their wrath at us. A classic case of what have you done for me lately. Starting a gradual push for women's rights seems like a good idea, and putting pressure on various friendly governments to shut down or at least change the curriculum of the Madrasas, would seem prudent, since most terrorists started there. What we really need to do, is see if we can make life for the average poor Muslim more tolerable. If their government isn't beating them down, their religion is suffocating them. The suicide bombers are most likely brainwashed and probably drugged but I wouldn't be surprised if some of them didn't find the idea of controlling something, maybe for the first time in their life, a little intoxicating, Even if it is only their own death.
Rating: 
Summary: holy war and terror have no connection to Islam
Review: This book is a belligerent disregard to truth and fairness. The title says it all. This title has been carefully selected to foster hatred and disrespect to Muslims and toward the religion of Islam. The author goes through great effort to select "The Crisis of Islam", as a title, carefully crafted to suggest that Islam is out of control, is in deep trouble, and is heading towards extinction. History, however, reveals the exact opposite phenomenon of this powerful movement when one examines the dynamism of this powerful religion. In the past fourteen centuries, Islam has continuously gained new grounds, with its supreme ability to mutate and adapt to new challenges.
Islam, in its true and unblemished form, is robust and resilient to coercive methods and tactics. It is a religion which promotes an ideal system of life. It is the only religion that impresses upon its followers to practice the two central principles of Justice and Peace pivotal to building tolerance and peaceful coexistence among races and cultures. Top non-Muslim clerics and technocrats understand and acknowledge this fact. In retrospect, and contrary to author's view, the word "Crisis" and "Islam" are mutually disagreeable and is also a convincingly incompatible combination.
In summary, the history and traditions (hadiths) quoted in this book are often contradictory and distorted to selectively present antagonistic views. Conclusions and analyses are based on traditions (hadiths) from questionable sources, and as such, do not authenticate the author's views by virtue of their fallacious nature.
Likewise, the concepts of Jihad and Caliphate presented by the author are irrational and detestable. An example is on page 33, where the author quotes the first tradition on jihad as follows:
"Jihad is your duty under any ruler, be he godly or wicked".
This tradition (Hadith) is baseless and completely contradictory to the "Quran". The author presents no supporting evidence, and since the Quran is the primary source of the religion, this view must be rejected. Similarly, most of the traditions cited in this book are fabricated and present no substantiating evidence.
Interestingly enough, in just the past few years, an explosive growth of so called "experts on Islam" have emerged. This is rather disturbing, for the simple reason that these so- called experts have minimal knowledge of Quran and the Arabic language and seem motivated only by current political upheaval. These one-day type crash-course apprentices, venture with interpretation of Quran, Traditions (Hadiths), Jihad and Caliphate. The result is confusion, contradiction and misrepresentation of traditions (Hadiths) and Quran. The information available on Islam, Quran, and Hadiths is rather vast. To decipher it and extract impartial meaning and purpose of each of the above requires a person with high level of integrity, an open mind and a desire to seek the truth. One important aspect about Islam should be clarified, that is, "History of Islam" and "Muslim History" follows significantly different paths. Just like any other history, "Muslim history" is the history of rulers whose hands are stained with blood, atrocities and oppression.
Caliphate is an important element of Islam, and the author has grossly misinterpreted it. Caliphate is representation of Allah (God) on earth to establish justice, brotherhood, and equality as outlined in the context of Quranic principles. According to Quran, Caliphate ( vicegerency to the supreme being) is the most honored title preordained exclusively for those who are capable of demonstrating superior qualities in implementing just laws to solving complex problems. In Quranic terms, Adam was the first Caliph. His Caliphate transcended through Abraham all the way to Prophet Mohammed. After Prophet Mohammed there were only a select few who qualified for that position. Caliphate is not an elected position but an appointment by Allah. With the exception of Ali Ibne Abi Talib, all other self claimed Caliphs like Moawia Ibne abu Sufyan , the Caliphs of Abbaside dynasty, the Sultans of Ottoman empire, and numerous other recent ones do not qualify for this title.
In essence, this book caters to selected group of readers that are unsympathetic to Islam and is therefore highly biased. I recommend Edward Said's "Covering Islam" for an overview of bias and prejudices and the pitfalls involved in any reporting related to Islam.
Rating:
Summary: Good introduction and background, although likely a retread
Review: This book does a nice job of quickly summarizing a tremendous amount of information on the topic and trying to put it all in some perspective. It's very short, and can literally be read in several hours. It may, however, too quickly summarize and not quite put it all together.
The author is obviously an expert in the field and very adept at touching on topics ranging from the status of Arabia in the time of the founding of Islam to political factors in the Soviet / Afghanistan conflict, etc. But it just feels like maybe the author regurgitated this book to satisfy a timely niche demand on the subject of Islam. Looking at the list of titles of all his other works, I cannot imagine that this book in any way offers anything new to readers.
That said, it is good for introductory reading. Consider it like an outline for an academic look at the history of Islam - covers the major points very quickly and moves on, which is OK for some readers but will be a dissapointment to others.
Rating:
Summary: Understanding the Present Conflict
Review: Americans today live in difficult and dangerous times, engaged, as we are, in a global war against radical islamists committed to our eventual destruction. While we've certainly known challenges in our past, this present conflict is significantly different in many ways from past conflicts we've known. One of those major points of departure has to do with knowing who we're fighting and why. While most Americans knew who and why we were fighting during past conflicts, most Americans do not know who we're now fighting, or, more importantly, why. "The Crisis of Islam" does a remarkable job at answering these, and other fundamentally important, questions.
In the aftermath of 9/11, like so many other Americans, I asked why such a horrific act of destruction as this had occurred. What could we have done that was so "bad" as to generate the kind of hatred it would take to do such an act? Who are these people who hate us so much? And, how could they possibly justify such a villainous deed? Professor Lewis presents a clear and complete explanation of these issues. His insightful analysis gives us the historical context it takes to really understand the "who" and the "why" of this present conflict. In my opinion, this is a "must" read item - and not just for Americans. I would say this would be very useful reading for any Westerner concerned with the present threat, and for all Muslims in whose name, whether or not they realize it, this conflict is being waged. Only by fully understanding the root causes of this deadly conflict can people of good will ever hope to know how to proceed.
Rating: 
Summary: Easy read and useful summary
Review: I read this book in two days. Very easy read and good summary of Islamic history and the evolution to Islamic radicalism and terrorism. Also very good summary of Islamic and Saudi history. Very relevant and scary book given the ongoing global terrorism sponsored ny Islamic extremists. One point that sticks: "the basic unit of global relevance is the "nation" which can be broekn down into religions. However, in Islam, we have a global religion which is then broken down into nations."
Rating:
Summary: doesn't tell whole story
Review: i'm not an expert on middle-east history, but common sense tells me something is missing here. if, as prof lewis says, the soviets were agressively pursuing policies to extend their influence over the oil-rich arab states, i think it's a safe bet the americans weren't standing idly by. what exactly they did, though, is glossed over. is there something here that doesn't agree with the professor's arguments? lewis does the same with with the colonial period. it's well known that the british adopted a policy of 'divide and conquer' towards their colonies. the aim was to bequeath debilitated states that could be manipulated for britain's continued economic advantage. oil had already been discovered in the middle-east by the time most arab states achieved independence. it's hard to believe the west encouraged genuine independence when so much was at stake. there's obviously much more here than prof lewis is willing to tell us.
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