The Muslim Discovery of Europe

Abstract

Bernard LEWIS, The Muslim Discovery of Europe (New York/London:
W.W. Norton & Co., 1982), 350 pp., Index & Illustrations. Price $19.95.
The Muslims have had a long history of relations with Western
European peoples. Some part of it was tumultous and violent and the
other was peaceful and harmonious. It was the Muslims who held the
torch of civilization when the lights went out in Europe and elsewhere in
the world. And indeed it was the Muslims who passed on to Europe in the
Middle Ages the coveted intellectual jewels of the ancient world.
However, such transactions and ties between the Western European
peoples and the Muslim world have led to two major historical
developments. The first was the renaissance in Europe, which
interestingly enough led to the distancing of Europe from the Muslim
World. The second was the subsequent development of learning and the
sciences in Europe and the rise of European power to challenge,
threaten, and finally defeat Muslim power in the world.
It is indeed against this background that one can examine this book by
the well-known but controversial British orientalist, Professor Bernard
Lewis. His book is certainly an important contribution to the limited
literature on early and medieval Muslim transactions with the
European world. But in order to do justice to the work and its author, let
us analyze its contents and see how and to what extent the author
captures the salient points about the Muslim discovery of the West.
The book is divided into twelve chapters with a preface and a note on
the source of illustrations. In the first chapter, entitled "Contact and
Impact", Professor Lewis traces the rise of Islam in the Middle East and
the geopolitical revisions that accompanied the Muslim ascendancy. He
points out that at the time the Muslim armies made their sweep over the
Mediterranean region Christianity served as the dominant worldview of
the area's inhabitants. But within a very short span of time the Muslims
were able not only to conquer Christian lands but also to Arabicize and
Islamize the hitherto non-Arabic, Christian peoples.
Professor Lewis goes on to identify important milestones in Islamic
history. Among these milestones four are of great importance. First of
all, he talks about the Western perception of the Islamic threat. This was
evident in the desperate attempt to check the tide of lslamism in
Byzantium and later in the southern part of Western Europe.
particularly in the Iberian Peninsula. He brings out an important point ...