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Summary: Whatever!!!!
Review: The contents of this book are extremely offensive. I'm a muslim and from my point of view this book is biased. Lewis generalizes way too much. Sure there are some muslim extremist but what religion doesn't come with it's share of bad apples? If Islam is so "evil" and whatnot then how come even today you find old churches from way back in muslim countries yet in christian or jewish countries you only find ruins of what was once mosques? It's because Islam is a tolerant religion, and always has been, that's why. Again, what religion doesn't come with it's share of fanatics?
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Summary: Gaetan
Review: Islam is not a combination of anything to do with the Bible. If it was, Muslims would be calling Jesus "God". You need to separate the Quran from anything Christians or Jews have ever believed to understand true Islam.
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Summary: Class, let's talk about history
Review: After some quite entertaining but not convincing Baer readings; finally an objective, astonishing, enlightening description of the happenings in the arabic world. I guess Prof. Lewis has been having that figured out for a long time. I was particularly surprised by the role of the Nazis in those regions. Great job, great way of summarizing a couple of millenia in 160 pages. Thanks Prof. Lewis.
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Summary: worthy, if flawed, intro to current events
Review: THE CRISIS OF ISLAM mainly concerns itself with the past one or two hundred years of conflict between Islam and the West. Lewis does a good job of detailing the various bones of contention, and spares no one in assigning blame to the current mess. His outlook for the future is dire, indeed.Like his previous book WHAT WENT WRONG?, THE CRISIS OF ISLAM packs a lot of information into a slim volume, yet suffers from being too sketchy at times, so that the reader unfamiliar with the finer details of Middle Eastern conflict is forced to do further research in order to understand his arguments. It doesn't help that there is the occasional sentence that is awkward and unfocused. Still, worthwhile for those looking for some background into the current Mideast situation.
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Summary: Well written and documented
Review: I will keep this short. This is a very well written book. You may not agree with his points and way of looking at things, but you will not have a hard time understanding it. The author has a mission and is pushing a point of view and he is not shy about it. That is refreshing considering that many other writters tend to have a mission but pretend to be objective.
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Summary: This book tells the Middle East as it really is!
Review: This book, along with the superb books by Robert Baer, Dore Gold and Christopher Catherwood tells it as it is in the Middle East. Buy it and give another copy to your friends. This is COOL stuff!
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Summary: Even if you don't always agree with him, Lewis is readable
Review: Even if you don't agree with everything he says, Lewis is always worth reading - if you think he is wrong, you have to do your homework as to why that is so. I don't always agree with 100% of what he says, but he is always challenging, literate, balanced in his language and even if he is wrong, he is much more interesting to read than some of his enemies! So read this book, enjoy it as I have done and then make up your own mind. Christopher Catherwood, author of CHRISTIANS, MUSLIMS AND ISLAMIC RAGE (Zondervan, 2003)
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Summary: Should be read by everyone
Review: I do not have more info to add over the many good previous reviews except that this book should be read by every one who wants to figure out what is happening in the world. This is a small book that provides a brief view of Islamic history and ideas. For peple who are interested in a good understanding Islamic history and ideas you will have to look elsewhere. But if you want to find out why America is being attacked, you will find some answers here. The message I got from this book was Americans are hated by many Muslim because of what it is and what it represents. I am not sure it would apeace the American haters even if every Americans convert to Islam.
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Summary: Shows how Islam hates America
Review: Islam hates America, we are infidels! If you don't read this book, you simply won't understand how much Arabs hate Americans. It is NOT because the US is pro-Israel. Even if Israel was not around, Arabs would still hate us.
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Summary: An insightful book about history and current events.
Review: The beginning of the book provides an excellent summary of Islamic history, how it dominated the World during its Golden Age (600 to 1200); how it became the Ottoman Empire (1300 to 1920), but got ever weaker since the 1600s. And, how the Ottoman Empire got dissolved as the Middle East was restructured during the French and British mandates at the end of WWI. Lewis mentions three types of Muslims. The first type hates everything about the West and always will. This includes terrorists and fundamentalists. The second type accepts the West because of its superior might. But, this hides an animosity that will resurface the minute Islam regains enough power. The third type likes the West, and looks forward to enjoy a higher quality of life. This pro Western third type has little influence on the other two. Historical reference plays a key role in the Muslim mindset. Muslims remember the dates and places of every battles the Muslims won since Mohammed in the 600s CE. They remember these with pride as their duty to convert the world to their own belief system. They also remember equally well every defeat as insults imparted on their faith by infidels and crusaders. Osama Bin Laden often uses such historical references in his communications to motivate all Muslims to join Al-Qaida and mount a Jihad to fight the leader of the infidels the U.S. This historical mindset is Islamic centric. Besides a long list of Islamic victories and defeats, Muslims know very little of history or anything else. Even though Islam was at the apex of scientific knowledge during its Golden Age, it has ever since fallen behind. When you look at the number of scientific papers generated per capita per year in Arabic Muslim countries vs. the U.S., Japan, and Western Europe; there is no comparison whatsoever (see page 116 of book). Similarly, Arabic Muslim countries translate only several hundred books per year. This compares to more than 100,000 translated books per year in your average Western country. Thus, Muslim countries have little access to modern knowledge. The Arabic Muslim world does not compare well on measures of economic growth, quality of life, education, literacy rates, women rights, quality of governance. For many Muslims the solution to all their problems is to reject modernization, and to return to what they view is a purer way of life. Such attitude will cause Muslim societies to fall further behind.
Islam embodies different domains including religion, law, government leadership, geography, and military activities. Religion dominates politics, diplomacy. Thus, political leaders such as Bush, and Blair are commonly referred as a crusaders or leaders of the infidels. The media perpetrates lies to malign the West such as that 9/11 was a Jewish conspiracy to trigger attacks on Islam. For the Muslims, the Quran represents a combination of the Bible, constitutional, civil, and commercial law, and a self help code of conduct, all rolled into one. This fanatical allegiance to a 1400 years old document (Quran) makes it impossible for Muslim societies to modernize. Also, of concern is that the interpretation of the Quran is increasingly radicalized in both a puritanical direction (rejecting greater freedom of women in the West) and violent intolerance of others. Osama bin Laden frequently quotes the Quran to support his acts of terrorism against infidels. The concept of a secular society is unacceptable for Muslims. For them, any society whose rules and governments are not guided by religious principles represent infidels to be conquered and converted. Muslims split the World in two houses: the House of Islam and the House of War. The House of War represents the territories that the Muslims plan to conquer through Jihad to spread the word of God throughout the world. Islamic Jihad is equivalent to the crusades of Christendom. But, the difference is that the crusades were over 800 years ago. Meanwhile, Jihad has much momentum today. This view of the World suggests that tension with Islam will not be over when the Israel-Palestinian conflict will be resolved. Out of the three types of Muslims mentioned above, two do not recognize the state of Israel. And, for them the solution is to conquer it back, so it belongs again to Islam as it did 1400 years ago. Given that the U.S. represents the major counterforce to the spread of Islam, Muslims have a special hatred towards it. When the Russians invaded Afghanistan, it caused very little reaction within the Muslim World. When Muslims ruthlessly kill their own, such as when Syrian President, a-Assad, ordered the complete demolition of Hama in 1982 killing over 20,000 innocent Syrian civilians that is OK. When Saddam Hussein governs through a regime of cruelty killing hundreds of thousands of civilian Iraqis over that is OK too. But, the U.S. is blamed for everything that is wrong in the Muslim World. Many terrorist acts were not due because relations between the U.S. and Middle Eastern governments were getting worse, but because they were getting better. This was the case during the Iran crisis in the late seventies when Americans were held hostage for over a year. The goal of such act was to create a wedge between the Iranian government and the U.S. whose relationship had warmed up considerably before this tragic event. Lewis does not offer easy solution, and ends the book on this powerful note: If the fundamentalists are correct in their calculations and succeed in their war, then a dark future awaits the world, especially the part of it that embraces Islam.
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