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 LEWISIslam 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 LEWISIn opposing we always talk about freedom in the Western world, Muslims always talk about justice.
BERNARD LEWISYou see Christians and Muslims have one thing in common which they do not share with their other religions as far as I know. They claim to be the fortunate recipient of God’s final message to mankind.
BERNARD LEWISUnless there will be some radical change, which is unlikely, I will say the tradition of Kemalism will be dead in Turkey. And Turkey is becoming a more Islamic state, in the traditional sense.
BERNARD LEWISI mean now you have Muslims in the Muslim world who can compare their situations with people elsewhere and they find that very humiliating.
BERNARD LEWISMuslims naturally saw Christendom as their arch rival. One point that is really important to bear in mind, particularly in addressing an American audience, and that is that the Islamic world has a very strong sense of history.
BERNARD LEWISWhen we talk about the Judeo-Christian or the Judeo-Muslim tradition, it’s important to remember that we are speaking of a Jewish component of civilization, but not in itself a civilization.
BERNARD LEWISIn the past, foreign intervention was obviously a major problem. Foreign domination, or if not domination, interference. But that has ended. There is no foreign domination; there is minimal foreign interference. The Cold War has ended. The Soviet Union no longer exists.
BERNARD LEWISThe myth was invented by Jews in nineteenth-century Europe as a reproach to Christians.
BERNARD LEWISOne could with equal justification talk about a Judeo-Islamic tradition or a Christian-Islamic tradition. These three religions are interlinked in many signification ways, which marks them off from the rest of the world.
BERNARD LEWISDuring the first formative centuries of its existence, Christianity was separated from and indeed antagonistic to the state, with which it only later became involved.
BERNARD LEWISChristians and Muslims share the belief that they are the fortunate recipient of the final God message.
BERNARD LEWISIn the Christian world, as you remember, Christianity is in the 21st century, Islam is in the 15th century. I don’t mean to say that Islam is backward; I mean to say that there are certain experiences that it hasn’t gone through.
BERNARD LEWISAnd I think there is a growing awareness of this among Christians and among Jews, and even to some extent to some Muslims. That’s happening for obvious reasons.
BERNARD LEWISThe Cold War philosophy of Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD), which prevented the former Soviet Union and the United States from using the nuclear weapons they had targeted at each other, would not apply to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s Iran.
BERNARD LEWISIf you look at the movement of refugees, in Vladimir Lenin’s phrase, “the people who voted with their feet,” the movement of refugees until comparatively modern times was overwhelmingly from West to East, not from East to West.
BERNARD LEWIS