The Sophistry of Bernard Lewis

There is no more prominent expert on Islam in the West and that Princeton professor emeritus Bernard Lewis.

ibn h7q8n H7Q8n 16298

While Lewis is a genuine expert on historical Islam, his more recent writings on the contemporary Muslim world are devoid of any serious knowledge and consist of little more than veiled hostility against Arabs, Muslims and Palestinians in the form of polemics masking as scholarship.

This is a man who believes that Islamic texts explain everything and anything in the Muslim world. This metanarrative was properly addressed and critiqued in the exceptional text by French orientalist Maxime Rodinson in “The Fascination with Islam.” In the text Rodinson coined the term “theolocentrism,” which he defined as the practice of attributing all observable phenomenas amongst Muslims to Islam. It is the belief that Muslims do as they do simply because of Islam.

The doctrine is incredibly fallacious. Those who advocate it are more obsessed with Islam than most Muslims. They seek to always find an Islamic motive when none actually exists. Instead of treating Muslims akin to all other people who compromise a diverse community and are actuated by myriad motives, the proponents of theolocentrism would instead prefer to reduce Muslims to a few characteristics and exclusively use Islam as the paradigm.

The person who championed this practice above all is Lewis who - and, please, read his recent texts to see this yourself - will discuss contemporary events in Muslim countries by going back to medieval Islamic texts. Instead of understanding the political motives - the yearning for self-determination - that sparks Palestinians resistance, for instance, Lewis prefers instead to “find” a reason in something Ibn Sine wrote in Islamic Spain that most Palestinians have never even read.

This tactic is not innocent. It serves to de-legitimize the real grievances that Arabs and Muslims might have. Instead of addressing the injustice of Zionism, of Israeli occupation, of Western footprints in the region and highlight the political causes of anger between East-West, Lewis always offers up Islam as an “explanation.” You see, that way Israel and the West are never wrong. How could they be? Lewis makes it out to be that Palestinians are angry not because they are occupied, but, simply, because of atavism within Islam.

So the problem never is “our” policy, but always “their” religion and an effort to have a thoughtful discussion about Israeli occupation and American military hegemony in the region is lost as the chance for introspection is subdued in any effort to always paint Islam as the enemy. Lewis tells us that Arabs and Muslims do not act out of any concrete political motives, but, simply, do so because of who they are.

And this is certainly not innocent for Lewis, who is a fanatical Zionist and old school imperialist who wrote after September 11th that the United States should impose its will on Arabs and Muslims because - as the cliche goes - 'Arabs understand only the language of force'.

And this man often seeks to embed in Western audiences a fear of Islam, but does so seemingly dispassionately without revealing that he yearns for a 'clash of civilization' (and it was him, not Huntington, who coined the term) because he believes that it will better serve Israeli interests in the region if the United States continued to subdue Arabs and Muslims. In addition, he also just harbors a general animosity against Islam.

Consider his recent piece in the neo-con editorial page of the 'Wall Street Journal':

For the moment, there does not seem to be much prospect of a moderate Islam in the Muslim world. This is partly because in the prevailing atmosphere the expression of moderate ideas can be dangerous—even life-threatening. Radical groups like al Qaeda and the Taliban, the likes of which in earlier times were at most minor and marginal, have acquired a powerful and even a dominant position.

Lewis would have you believe that the Taliban - a group of cave-dwelling fanatics in the periphery of the Islamic world with no basis elsewhere and whose own basis in Afghanistan is due to an amalgam of instilling fear in the local people and to the incompetency of the NATO effort - are not only apparently powerful in the Muslim world, but also dominant. And al-Qaeda - a group of cave-hiding fanatical terrorists who number in the hundreds - are also on par in their power and dominance. It is unlikely that the senile Lewis - who is nearing one hundred - even believes such false propaganda, but this is part of his effort to make Americans fear the Muslim world.

It is absurd to state that two fringe elements who have to resort to hiding in caves and to a weapon of the weak - terrorism - are powerful and dominant. Where is the power of this groups? They are not only shunned but not even thought about when it comes to 99.9% of Muslims, and where is the dominance? Where are they dominant? In Islamic cities? In countries? They clearly have no dominance and have to resort to living in No Man's Land in the Af-Pak border area. They have absolutely no standing, no power, no dominance, no pull over public opinion, no anything and that is why the conduct their grotesque affairs from the side of the weak...because they are.

And, finally, the Islam deemed "moderate" (such a patronizing term) is the norm in the Muslim world. Just look at any Muslim country.