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I mean now you have Muslims in the Muslim world who can compare their situations with people elsewhere and they find that very humiliating.

Bernard Lewis

The general perception, in much of the Middle East, is that the United States is an unreliable friend and a harmless enemy. I think we want to give the exact opposite impression.
BERNARD LEWIS

Country Enemy Treacherous Unreliable
Christianity had the great religious wars of the 17th century. Islam, fortunately for the Muslims, did not have that. Christianity worked out a system of toleration. Islam was always more tolerant of Christendom.
BERNARD LEWIS

Always Century Great Muslim People Religious Tolerant Toleration
I mean now you have Muslims in the Muslim world who can compare their situations with people elsewhere and they find that very humiliating.
BERNARD LEWIS

Community Comparing Humiliating People Religious Situation
The object of jihad is to bring the whole world under Islamic Law.
BERNARD LEWIS

Dignity Human Important Islamic Law
The myth was invented by Jews in nineteenth-century Europe as a reproach to Christians.
BERNARD LEWIS

Christians Country Invented Myth Nineteenth Reproach
Islam and Islamic values now have a level of immunity from comment and criticism in the Western world that Christianity has lost and Judaism has never had.
BERNARD LEWIS

Criticism Immunity Islamic Level World
I see encouraging signs of democracy developing in other places in the Middle East. In Tunisia, in Iraq, and now in Egypt. Tunisia is the one Muslim country that does something for girls and education.
BERNARD LEWIS

Country Democracy Developing Girl Middle Place
Mohammad founded a state which soon became an empire, so that Islam from the very beginning is involved with government, with politics. And therefore there is a very clear strong political tradition in Islam.
BERNARD LEWIS

Clear Foundedmstate Religious Soon Strong
In the Muslim world, history is important and their knowledge of history is not always accurate but is very detailed. There is a strong historical sense in the Muslim world, a feeling for the history of Islam from the time of the Prophet until the present day.
BERNARD LEWIS

Accurate Community Feeling History Knowledge Strong
Moses led his people through the wilderness and he wasn’t permitted to enter the Promised Land. Jesus was crucified.
BERNARD LEWIS

Enter Jesus Moses People Strong Wilderness
The word Islam thus denotes more than fourteen centuries of history, a billion and a third people, and a religious and cultural tradition of enormous diversity.
BERNARD LEWIS

Billion Centuries Diversity Enormous People Religious
What is happening now in Israel is that you have a coming together of Jews from the Christian world and Jews from the Muslim world with different cultures.
BERNARD LEWIS

Christian Communities Cultures Different Happening Jews People Together
In the West nowadays, it’s very common to talk about the Judeo- Christian tradition. It’s a common term. The term is relatively modern but the reality is an old one.
BERNARD LEWIS

Christian Common Nowadays Reality Term Thinking
My position on that has been misrepresented again and again and again in the media.
BERNARD LEWIS

Action Again Country Independent Media War
The idea which we so often hear expressed in the Western world, that’s how they are, that’s how they will always be and they can’t do anything else.
BERNARD LEWIS

Anything Else Expressed Idea Western World
To accept the story of the Arab destruction of the library of Alexandria, one must explain how it is that so dramatic an event was unmentioned and unnoticed not only in the rich historical literature of medieval Islam.
BERNARD LEWIS

Christian Destruction Dignity Historical Human Important Scary

I mean now you have Muslims in the Muslim world who can compare their situations with people elsewhere and they find that very humiliating.

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I mean now you have Muslims in the Muslim world who can compare their situations with people elsewhere and they find that very humiliating.

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Popular Authors

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