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The Arabs in History
Now brought completely up to date, this classic study by one of the world's premier historians of the Middle East considers the achievement of the Arab peoples and their place in world history, from pre-Islamic times to the present-day. In a concise and readable account, Lewis examines the awakening that accompanied the advent of Islam and the political, religious, and social developments that transformed the Arab kingdom into an Islamic empire. He brings the edition up-to-the-minute with an account of recent events in the Middle East and analyzes the forces, internal and external, that have shaped the modern Arab world. Lewis shows how Western inventions and institutions have shattered the old structures and the traditional way of life, affecting every Arab, and causing a still unsatisfied demand for social, political, and cultural renewal.
Incisive and intriguing, this highly regarded and timely work--previously translated into Arabic, as well as many other European, Asian, and Middle Eastern languages--is sure to advance a greater understanding of the Arab past and present.
Incisive and intriguing, this highly regarded and timely work--previously translated into Arabic, as well as many other European, Asian, and Middle Eastern languages--is sure to advance a greater understanding of the Arab past and present.
256 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1950
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897 people want to read
About the author
Bernard Lewis
190 books501 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.
Bernard Lewis was the Cleveland E. Dodge Professor of Near Eastern Studies Emeritus at Princeton University and the author of many critially acclaimed and bestselling books, including two number one New York Times bestsellers: What Went Wrong? and Crisis of Islam. The Middle East: A Brief History of the Last 2,000 Years was a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist. Internationally recognized as the greatest historian of the Middle East, he received fifteen honorary doctorates and his books have been translated into more than twenty languages.
Bernard Lewis was the Cleveland E. Dodge Professor of Near Eastern Studies Emeritus at Princeton University and the author of many critially acclaimed and bestselling books, including two number one New York Times bestsellers: What Went Wrong? and Crisis of Islam. The Middle East: A Brief History of the Last 2,000 Years was a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist. Internationally recognized as the greatest historian of the Middle East, he received fifteen honorary doctorates and his books have been translated into more than twenty languages.
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August 25, 2024
The Arab people’s impact upon world history and culture is, of course, immense – yet there are still many people outside the Arab world who do not know the breadth of Arab achievement in every area of human endeavour. For those people, Bernard Lewis’s The Arabs in History can provide a helpful overview.
Lewis, long a professor at the University of London, was a pioneer, among Western academics, in the serious scholarly study of the Arab world, and therefore The Arabs in History made quite a splash when it was first published in 1950. Conscientiously, Lewis guides the reader through a survey of what is known about pre-Islamic Arabia, leading up to the life of the Muslim prophet Muhammad and the rise of Islam.
Lewis’s attitude toward Islam, like his attitude toward Christianity, is interesting. It is not a question of one faith being a “true” or “false” faith vis-à-vis another faith. Rather, the key point for Lewis seems to be that a monotheistic faith like Islam or Christianity provides a better basis for organizing a modern society than did the polytheistic faiths that preceded Islam in the Arab world and Christianity in Europe.
Muhammad’s Hijra (Hegira) from Mecca to Medina in 622 A.D. is, as Lewis makes clear, the event that begins the Islamic era. From there, Lewis takes the reader through the age of conquests – the time in which a caliphate, first declared in 632 A.D., spread with amazing speed across Persia, the Eastern Mediterranean, and North Africa. In that part of his survey, Lewis takes a moment to disprove an oft-leveled charge:
A story common in many books tells that after the Arab occupation of Alexandria the Caliph ordered the destruction of the great library of that city on the grounds that if the books contained what was in the Qur’ān they were unnecessary, whereas if they did not they were impious. Modern research has shown the story to be completely unfounded. None of the early chronicles, not even the Christian ones, make any reference to this tale, which is first mentioned in the thirteenth century… (p. 54)
Western readers may find particular interest in reading the chapter about the Arabs in Europe. The Islamic presence was not just in Spain and Portugal after the Muslim conquest of Iberia, as is already widely known, but also in Cyprus, on the Greek islands of Crete and Rhodes, and even in Sicily. These Muslim states in Europe were generally characterized by a legacy of tolerance for Judaism and Christianity; there was diligent translation of classical works, the formation of a distinctive culture, even an improvement of agricultural practices. And the legacy of the Arabs’ time in Spain is something that is especially enduring, on both sides of the Straits of Gibraltar:
The Arabs left their mark on Spain – in the skills of the Spanish peasant and craftsman and the words with which he describes them, in the art, architecture, music, and literature of the peninsula, and in the science and philosophy of the mediaeval West which they had enriched by the transmission of the legacy of antiquity faithfully guarded and increased. Among the Arabs themselves, the memory of Muslim Spain survived among the exiles in North Africa, many of whom still bear Andalusian names and keep the keys of their houses in Cordova and Seville hanging on their walls in Marrakesh and in Casablanca. (p. 130)
The decline of the Arab and Islamic empire might be associated, for many Westerners, with the First Crusade whose adherents first set foot on eastern Mediterranean shores in the year 1096. Lewis minces no words in setting forth his sense of the Crusaders’ true motivations:
Despite the idealistic aspect of this great movement…in the perspective of the Near East the Crusades were essentially an early experiment in expansionist imperialism, motivated by material considerations with religion as a psychological catalyst. Traders from the Italian city republics…, warlike and ambitious barons, younger sons in search of principalities and sinners in search of profitable penance – these rather than the seekers of the Holy Sepulchre were the significant and characteristic figures of the invasion from the West. (p. 150)
And yet it’s strange to reflect that, for all the terror that is still associated with words like “crusade” or “crusader” in the Muslim world, the Crusades weren’t even the worst of it – especially as the great strategist and tactician Salāh ad-Dīn [Saladin] had retaken Jerusalem from the Crusaders by 1187. Even more severe in their impact were the Mongol invasions that began with Genghis Khān in 1221 and ended with the taking of Baghdad in 1258 and the abolition of the caliphate. The Turco-Mongol conqueror Timur [Tamerlane] devastated Syria and sacked Damascus in 1400-01. Most significant of all was the rise in the fifteenth century of a rival Islamic power, the Ottoman Empire that was based in Turkish rather than Arab history and culture. All of these events, combined with the Spaniards’ ejection of the last Muslim ruler in Spain in 1492, signaled the beginning of the time that Lewis characterizes as “the Arabs in eclipse.”
When one looks at the effect of the more contemporary West upon the Arab world, Lewis’s words, though written long ago, still resonate: “The impact of the West, with its railways and printing-presses, aeroplanes and cinemas, factories and universities, oil-prospectors and archaeologists, machine-guns and ideas, has shattered beyond repair the traditional structure of economic life, affecting every Arab in his livelihood and his leisure, his private and public life, demanding a readjustment of the inherited social, political, and cultural forms” (pp. 177-78). That readjustment has taken a variety of forms, in modern states as distinctly Arab, and as different from one another, as the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
The Arabs in History was originally published in 1950 – since which time, of course, much has changed in the Middle East. The edition I have, from the library of George Mason University, is from 1967 – certainly an eventful year in the life of that region – with a paragraph of material regarding the independence of new countries awkwardly inserted, in a discernibly different typeface, at the bottom of page 176. It is my understanding that other new editions have been published since then.
I first encountered The Arabs in History when it was assigned for a first-year Western history class (“Plato to NATO”) at William & Mary. Back in those early-1980’s times, it no doubt seemed a safe way to inform North American college undergraduates regarding a region most of them didn’t know very well.
Unfortunately, though, the decades since that time saw something of a downturn in Lewis’s reputation. After he left the University of London and began a new phase of his career at Princeton, he became embroiled in a series of controversies – quarrelling with Edward Said over issues of Orientalism, conferring with U.S. neoconservatives of the George W. Bush presidential administration, losing a French lawsuit that accused him of denying the Armenian genocide – all of which might make contemporary professors at William & Mary, or many another college or university, somewhat leery about assigning this book to their undergraduates in the future.
Yet I find The Arabs in History helpful in setting forth the broad sweep of Arab history for the Western reader who is not already familiar with that history. For that reason alone, this text continues to have value. For the reader interested in getting acquainted with the history of the Arab people, it is a good place to start.
Lewis, long a professor at the University of London, was a pioneer, among Western academics, in the serious scholarly study of the Arab world, and therefore The Arabs in History made quite a splash when it was first published in 1950. Conscientiously, Lewis guides the reader through a survey of what is known about pre-Islamic Arabia, leading up to the life of the Muslim prophet Muhammad and the rise of Islam.
Lewis’s attitude toward Islam, like his attitude toward Christianity, is interesting. It is not a question of one faith being a “true” or “false” faith vis-à-vis another faith. Rather, the key point for Lewis seems to be that a monotheistic faith like Islam or Christianity provides a better basis for organizing a modern society than did the polytheistic faiths that preceded Islam in the Arab world and Christianity in Europe.
Muhammad’s Hijra (Hegira) from Mecca to Medina in 622 A.D. is, as Lewis makes clear, the event that begins the Islamic era. From there, Lewis takes the reader through the age of conquests – the time in which a caliphate, first declared in 632 A.D., spread with amazing speed across Persia, the Eastern Mediterranean, and North Africa. In that part of his survey, Lewis takes a moment to disprove an oft-leveled charge:
A story common in many books tells that after the Arab occupation of Alexandria the Caliph ordered the destruction of the great library of that city on the grounds that if the books contained what was in the Qur’ān they were unnecessary, whereas if they did not they were impious. Modern research has shown the story to be completely unfounded. None of the early chronicles, not even the Christian ones, make any reference to this tale, which is first mentioned in the thirteenth century… (p. 54)
Western readers may find particular interest in reading the chapter about the Arabs in Europe. The Islamic presence was not just in Spain and Portugal after the Muslim conquest of Iberia, as is already widely known, but also in Cyprus, on the Greek islands of Crete and Rhodes, and even in Sicily. These Muslim states in Europe were generally characterized by a legacy of tolerance for Judaism and Christianity; there was diligent translation of classical works, the formation of a distinctive culture, even an improvement of agricultural practices. And the legacy of the Arabs’ time in Spain is something that is especially enduring, on both sides of the Straits of Gibraltar:
The Arabs left their mark on Spain – in the skills of the Spanish peasant and craftsman and the words with which he describes them, in the art, architecture, music, and literature of the peninsula, and in the science and philosophy of the mediaeval West which they had enriched by the transmission of the legacy of antiquity faithfully guarded and increased. Among the Arabs themselves, the memory of Muslim Spain survived among the exiles in North Africa, many of whom still bear Andalusian names and keep the keys of their houses in Cordova and Seville hanging on their walls in Marrakesh and in Casablanca. (p. 130)
The decline of the Arab and Islamic empire might be associated, for many Westerners, with the First Crusade whose adherents first set foot on eastern Mediterranean shores in the year 1096. Lewis minces no words in setting forth his sense of the Crusaders’ true motivations:
Despite the idealistic aspect of this great movement…in the perspective of the Near East the Crusades were essentially an early experiment in expansionist imperialism, motivated by material considerations with religion as a psychological catalyst. Traders from the Italian city republics…, warlike and ambitious barons, younger sons in search of principalities and sinners in search of profitable penance – these rather than the seekers of the Holy Sepulchre were the significant and characteristic figures of the invasion from the West. (p. 150)
And yet it’s strange to reflect that, for all the terror that is still associated with words like “crusade” or “crusader” in the Muslim world, the Crusades weren’t even the worst of it – especially as the great strategist and tactician Salāh ad-Dīn [Saladin] had retaken Jerusalem from the Crusaders by 1187. Even more severe in their impact were the Mongol invasions that began with Genghis Khān in 1221 and ended with the taking of Baghdad in 1258 and the abolition of the caliphate. The Turco-Mongol conqueror Timur [Tamerlane] devastated Syria and sacked Damascus in 1400-01. Most significant of all was the rise in the fifteenth century of a rival Islamic power, the Ottoman Empire that was based in Turkish rather than Arab history and culture. All of these events, combined with the Spaniards’ ejection of the last Muslim ruler in Spain in 1492, signaled the beginning of the time that Lewis characterizes as “the Arabs in eclipse.”
When one looks at the effect of the more contemporary West upon the Arab world, Lewis’s words, though written long ago, still resonate: “The impact of the West, with its railways and printing-presses, aeroplanes and cinemas, factories and universities, oil-prospectors and archaeologists, machine-guns and ideas, has shattered beyond repair the traditional structure of economic life, affecting every Arab in his livelihood and his leisure, his private and public life, demanding a readjustment of the inherited social, political, and cultural forms” (pp. 177-78). That readjustment has taken a variety of forms, in modern states as distinctly Arab, and as different from one another, as the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
The Arabs in History was originally published in 1950 – since which time, of course, much has changed in the Middle East. The edition I have, from the library of George Mason University, is from 1967 – certainly an eventful year in the life of that region – with a paragraph of material regarding the independence of new countries awkwardly inserted, in a discernibly different typeface, at the bottom of page 176. It is my understanding that other new editions have been published since then.
I first encountered The Arabs in History when it was assigned for a first-year Western history class (“Plato to NATO”) at William & Mary. Back in those early-1980’s times, it no doubt seemed a safe way to inform North American college undergraduates regarding a region most of them didn’t know very well.
Unfortunately, though, the decades since that time saw something of a downturn in Lewis’s reputation. After he left the University of London and began a new phase of his career at Princeton, he became embroiled in a series of controversies – quarrelling with Edward Said over issues of Orientalism, conferring with U.S. neoconservatives of the George W. Bush presidential administration, losing a French lawsuit that accused him of denying the Armenian genocide – all of which might make contemporary professors at William & Mary, or many another college or university, somewhat leery about assigning this book to their undergraduates in the future.
Yet I find The Arabs in History helpful in setting forth the broad sweep of Arab history for the Western reader who is not already familiar with that history. For that reason alone, this text continues to have value. For the reader interested in getting acquainted with the history of the Arab people, it is a good place to start.
November 24, 2018
This is a good, fairly concise introduction to the richly varied history of the Arab world. In comparison with the first edition of 1950, Lewis certainly has partially assimilated the critique on 19th and 20th century orientalism (which only viewed the Muslim world from Western eyes) and removed the worst deformations. But the book remains a bit unbalanced. Lewis zooms in almost entirely on the so-called heyday of Arab civilization, from the 7th to the 12th century, and the evolutions from then on are haphazardly treated in a few dozen pages. This has to do with the fact that the Islamic expansion afterwards was mainly a Turkish, Persian, Indian and East Asian affair, and much less an Arab one. That distinction can certainly be made, but it remains artificial, because also in the so-called flowering period the Islamic civilization had various roots. Even in this updated edition of 1990, Lewis gave almost no attention to recent developments, and especially not to the rise of political islamism and its violent offspring. A pity.
August 2, 2017
It is an Orientalist perspective but not so biased. Bernard Lewis himself acknowledged that looking at the history of other societies from western perspective will be biased and unfruitful. It will only help magnify the innate prejudices of western audience. History and evolution of every society is distinct.Viewing the past& present of others with the lens of our current knowledge and values will help politicians to demonize and oppress them.
August 27, 2015
A brilliant book; concise and informative. Bernard Lewis accurately describes the evolution of the Arabs in history. What makes this book so special is the way the author conveys the mindset of people living at a particular time. He gives us an insight into the mind of the medieval Muslim and the medieval Christian. The revelation that nationalism and socialism were imported from the West came as a surprise to me. Bernard Lewis succinctly describes the ills facing modern Muslim society today and how they have failed to come to terms with nationalism or socialism.
My only criticism of the book is a point which I noticed when reading one of his earlier works: 'Islan and Modernity. What went wrong?' In that book he cites that for five hundred years Muslim scientific enquiry stopped. He does the same here but as before fails to provide an explanations for this cessation of scientific inquiry. He mentions the term atomism and defines it in context of the medieval Arab; but fails to explain how it diminished the importance of causality for Muslim thinkers. How does a tendency to view life as static disjunct entity result in a culture that stifled scientific enquiry. He also doesn't have much to say about Hellenism's effect on Islam. All he does is state it.
That aside this is a must read for all Muslims.
My only criticism of the book is a point which I noticed when reading one of his earlier works: 'Islan and Modernity. What went wrong?' In that book he cites that for five hundred years Muslim scientific enquiry stopped. He does the same here but as before fails to provide an explanations for this cessation of scientific inquiry. He mentions the term atomism and defines it in context of the medieval Arab; but fails to explain how it diminished the importance of causality for Muslim thinkers. How does a tendency to view life as static disjunct entity result in a culture that stifled scientific enquiry. He also doesn't have much to say about Hellenism's effect on Islam. All he does is state it.
That aside this is a must read for all Muslims.
December 14, 2021
Ανάλαφρο σχετικά και μικρό βιβλίο, καλύπτει την περίοδο από λίγους αιώνες π.Χ. ως και τη δεκαετία του 1980. Συνοπτικά προφανώς, είναι αρκετά αντικειμενικό, δίνει χρήσιμες πληροφορίες κι αν ξεπεράσεις τα δύσκολα ονόματα είναι ένα ευχάριστο ανάγνωσμα.
August 22, 2018
Lewis is well informed. So well informed, in fact, that his book was a bit tedious for me, a non-scholar who doesn’t know the Middle East well. I’ve recommended it to my husband who does know the region and its history. He can also absorb tightly-knit information overload. Another setback for me is an inability to see beauty in religion. I can’t empathize what motivates religious devotion. The lack of connection prevents me from understanding why people tolerate the pain, suffering and fear. On a positive note, many elites (Christians, Muslims and Jews) seem to understand their common cause. Up to a point (Palestinians). KSA, Jordan, the US and Israel are de facto allies.
I’m pretty sure Lewis’ central caveat is that it wasn’t the Arab empire that eff-d up North Africa and the Middle East, it was the Bedouins, Central Asians/Turks, Mongols. Lewis posits that the Arabs were relatively good rulers who accepted diversity. Like the Christian Crusaders, they believed the infidels would rot in hell. Unlike the Christian imperialists, the Arabs put that business in God’s hands and made money off the dhimmis.
I also think that Lewis’s take is from an informed Western view of Other People. Much history is generated by Europeans in his book. Surely other interpretations exist 😊. Although, I’m certainly a product of the West, we should look at things from multiple perspectives. That is, if we had time to do so away from FB and Twitter….
Over time language and faith made “Arabs” out of non-Arabs. The Arab Empire was smartly inclusive. “It was the Arabisation of the conquered provinces rather than their military conquest that Is the true wonder of the Arab expansion.” “The first feature that strikes us is the unique assimilative power of Arab culture, often misrepresented as merely imitative.” “From this diversity of Islamic society arises a second feature, particularly striking to the European observer—its comparative tolerance.”
“Shiism became essentially the expression in religious terms of opposition to the state and the established Order, acceptance of which meant conformity to Sunni, or orthodox Islamic doctrine.” “The Shiite propagandists appealed with great success to the disaffected….”
“…in the perspective of the Near East the Crusades were essentially an early experiment in expansionist imperialism, motivated by material considerations with religion as a psychological catalyst.”
I don’t understand this yet, but am still trying to unpack it: “The word ‘atomistic’ is often used to describe a habit of mind and outlook, recognizable in many aspects of the civilization of the Arab and dominant in the later stages of his history. By this is meant the tendency to view life and the universe as a series of static, concrete and disjunct entities, loosely linked in a sort of mechanical or even casual association by circumstances or the mind of an individual, but having no organic interrelation of their own.”
“The Crusaders brought a piece of Western Europe to the heart of the Arab East. But these contacts, fruitful for the West which had learnt much from the Arabs, had little effect on the latter. For the relations were and remained external and superficial and had but little influence on Arab life and culture. The geographical and historical literature of the mediaeval Arabs reflects their complete lack of interest in western Europe, which they regarded as an outer darkness of barbarism from which the sunlit world of Islam had little to fear and less to learn.”
Western Imperialism
Started with diplomacy and trade instigated from West. The Ottomans granted to the French while underestimating them. Colonial rule led the Arab nationalism. After WWI, “militant religious brotherhoods seemed to indicate a return to an older pattern of loyalty and association.”
I’m pretty sure Lewis’ central caveat is that it wasn’t the Arab empire that eff-d up North Africa and the Middle East, it was the Bedouins, Central Asians/Turks, Mongols. Lewis posits that the Arabs were relatively good rulers who accepted diversity. Like the Christian Crusaders, they believed the infidels would rot in hell. Unlike the Christian imperialists, the Arabs put that business in God’s hands and made money off the dhimmis.
I also think that Lewis’s take is from an informed Western view of Other People. Much history is generated by Europeans in his book. Surely other interpretations exist 😊. Although, I’m certainly a product of the West, we should look at things from multiple perspectives. That is, if we had time to do so away from FB and Twitter….
Over time language and faith made “Arabs” out of non-Arabs. The Arab Empire was smartly inclusive. “It was the Arabisation of the conquered provinces rather than their military conquest that Is the true wonder of the Arab expansion.” “The first feature that strikes us is the unique assimilative power of Arab culture, often misrepresented as merely imitative.” “From this diversity of Islamic society arises a second feature, particularly striking to the European observer—its comparative tolerance.”
“Shiism became essentially the expression in religious terms of opposition to the state and the established Order, acceptance of which meant conformity to Sunni, or orthodox Islamic doctrine.” “The Shiite propagandists appealed with great success to the disaffected….”
“…in the perspective of the Near East the Crusades were essentially an early experiment in expansionist imperialism, motivated by material considerations with religion as a psychological catalyst.”
I don’t understand this yet, but am still trying to unpack it: “The word ‘atomistic’ is often used to describe a habit of mind and outlook, recognizable in many aspects of the civilization of the Arab and dominant in the later stages of his history. By this is meant the tendency to view life and the universe as a series of static, concrete and disjunct entities, loosely linked in a sort of mechanical or even casual association by circumstances or the mind of an individual, but having no organic interrelation of their own.”
“The Crusaders brought a piece of Western Europe to the heart of the Arab East. But these contacts, fruitful for the West which had learnt much from the Arabs, had little effect on the latter. For the relations were and remained external and superficial and had but little influence on Arab life and culture. The geographical and historical literature of the mediaeval Arabs reflects their complete lack of interest in western Europe, which they regarded as an outer darkness of barbarism from which the sunlit world of Islam had little to fear and less to learn.”
Western Imperialism
Started with diplomacy and trade instigated from West. The Ottomans granted to the French while underestimating them. Colonial rule led the Arab nationalism. After WWI, “militant religious brotherhoods seemed to indicate a return to an older pattern of loyalty and association.”
January 28, 2023
Questi sono i libri di storia che ci piacciono: pubblicata per la prima volta nel 1950, l'opera è stata aggiornata e ampliata dall'autore per ben 5 riedizioni, arrivando ora nelle nostre mani come un testo contemporaneo sia nel metodo che nel linguaggio.
Lewis riesce a spiegare al grande pubblico l'origine e il ruolo che ebbero gli arabi tra il Mediterraneo e la Persia, senza mai diventare esageratamente cronistorico e senza sacrificare la successione dei fatti a favore di una maggiore leggibilità.
Consiglio il libro a chiunque inizi o voglia approfondire lo studio della cultura araba e dei popoli islamici: qui non troverete ogni singola informazione in merito, ma una struttura chiara e lineare, utile ad orientarsi meglio in un mondo vastissimo ma che spesso conosciamo solo per sentito dire.
Le cinque stelle se le merita anche perché, da vero storico, Lewis riesce in una ricostruzione realmente oggettiva dei fatti, perciò durante la lettura vedrete cadere diversi miti creati dagli europei attorno ai rozzi conquistatori islamici dalle lunghe barbe nere.
Lewis riesce a spiegare al grande pubblico l'origine e il ruolo che ebbero gli arabi tra il Mediterraneo e la Persia, senza mai diventare esageratamente cronistorico e senza sacrificare la successione dei fatti a favore di una maggiore leggibilità.
Consiglio il libro a chiunque inizi o voglia approfondire lo studio della cultura araba e dei popoli islamici: qui non troverete ogni singola informazione in merito, ma una struttura chiara e lineare, utile ad orientarsi meglio in un mondo vastissimo ma che spesso conosciamo solo per sentito dire.
Le cinque stelle se le merita anche perché, da vero storico, Lewis riesce in una ricostruzione realmente oggettiva dei fatti, perciò durante la lettura vedrete cadere diversi miti creati dagli europei attorno ai rozzi conquistatori islamici dalle lunghe barbe nere.
August 21, 2014
A concise overview of the Arabs, their history and culture, and their place in the world. This is a good companion volume to Lewis' "Constantinople and the Civilisation of the Ottoman Empire". This used to be the gold standard, but is a little dated now. That said, with first edition written in the 40s, it's nice to read a history of the Arabs not heavily flavoured by current conflicts and Western phobias and prejudices.
June 19, 2009
Very good detailed excursion into what can be called Arab history
November 27, 2011
A good abbreviated insight into Arabs. One being the difficulty, how to define an Arab.
Read
May 23, 2022One of the best ways to start learning about the history of Islam and the Arabs.
September 30, 2021
After “Jewel of Seven Stars” and (great word!) ‘avalanache’ of (ancient) egyptian phenomenons there’s a need for a brievity while reviewing the book on "the Arabs in History".
Firstly, lot of things are diminished in terms of completeness of data (even separate facts) – and accordingly casual 'enumeration' takes place. For example, specifics of religious variety of historically ‘unravelling’ islam and of beliefs which preceded Mohammed’s – were inappropriately limited as for the book on history of ethnic identity (am i wrong in defining the very undertaking of this book?), certainly glorified with their ‘fundamental religiousness’.
Yet “..on history” is not all the same as “historical..”, right?
Second, modern relations between arabic countries and liberal democracies, currencies, ‘bazaar’, peacekeepers, it seems, been discontinued with creation of the League of Arab States (March 22 1945). Smells like teen.., sorry, i mean, smells like writer’s ‘anaemia’.
Thirdly, there’s sensible modesty in means of dates, battles (which are rare enough), names (which are more modest than sensible), terms (simple quantity of which is not satisfactory), but not a plume nor feather of cultural analysis (of traditions, hierarchy, classes, laws).
Citing Lewis(not verbatim): “Analysis explains more about analyst, than about people” – one could make a suggestion that author’s had no will to talk about himself no more. Which is ‘pardonable’.
At last, this work contains too little of unique data for a ‘conversants' and All the King's Experts, specialized in social and cultural studies, ethnology, history of Middle East and North Africa, even (idealistically enough) politics. As a profane in arabic culture, i’ve found it curious, surely beneficial for own writings, yet not as lively and ludicrously inspirational as Chevalier’s 'facsimile' of cossacks' confrontation with Poland. There’s little place for casual foolishness in Lewis’ “Arabs..”, yet a prairies – for a casual seriousness. It seems, fragments of text, even con-text were cut out by restless hand for the sake of prosperous bonanzas of the entire history in the boundless universe of the Great Ost-Indian Pigeon Hole.
In conclusion, it is informative (for not-a-historian, not-an-ethnologist); the Glorious Quest of 'Introduction to the Liberal Interpretation of the Democratic Interpretation of the Arabs in Humanitarian Interpretation of History’ has been carried out with a dignity, though bit impersonalistic. Of course, what I meant is not an objectivity of author, which is +, yet – helplessness of indefinable and unfathomable Big Arab.
Firstly, lot of things are diminished in terms of completeness of data (even separate facts) – and accordingly casual 'enumeration' takes place. For example, specifics of religious variety of historically ‘unravelling’ islam and of beliefs which preceded Mohammed’s – were inappropriately limited as for the book on history of ethnic identity (am i wrong in defining the very undertaking of this book?), certainly glorified with their ‘fundamental religiousness’.
Yet “..on history” is not all the same as “historical..”, right?
Second, modern relations between arabic countries and liberal democracies, currencies, ‘bazaar’, peacekeepers, it seems, been discontinued with creation of the League of Arab States (March 22 1945). Smells like teen.., sorry, i mean, smells like writer’s ‘anaemia’.
Thirdly, there’s sensible modesty in means of dates, battles (which are rare enough), names (which are more modest than sensible), terms (simple quantity of which is not satisfactory), but not a plume nor feather of cultural analysis (of traditions, hierarchy, classes, laws).
Citing Lewis(not verbatim): “Analysis explains more about analyst, than about people” – one could make a suggestion that author’s had no will to talk about himself no more. Which is ‘pardonable’.
At last, this work contains too little of unique data for a ‘conversants' and All the King's Experts, specialized in social and cultural studies, ethnology, history of Middle East and North Africa, even (idealistically enough) politics. As a profane in arabic culture, i’ve found it curious, surely beneficial for own writings, yet not as lively and ludicrously inspirational as Chevalier’s 'facsimile' of cossacks' confrontation with Poland. There’s little place for casual foolishness in Lewis’ “Arabs..”, yet a prairies – for a casual seriousness. It seems, fragments of text, even con-text were cut out by restless hand for the sake of prosperous bonanzas of the entire history in the boundless universe of the Great Ost-Indian Pigeon Hole.
In conclusion, it is informative (for not-a-historian, not-an-ethnologist); the Glorious Quest of 'Introduction to the Liberal Interpretation of the Democratic Interpretation of the Arabs in Humanitarian Interpretation of History’ has been carried out with a dignity, though bit impersonalistic. Of course, what I meant is not an objectivity of author, which is +, yet – helplessness of indefinable and unfathomable Big Arab.
July 7, 2025
A very condensed, one-sitting book chronicling the history of the "Arab" identity in a chronological format. I found the historical aspects of this book to be serviceable for a Westerner with no prior knowledge of Islam and the Arab world to gain a basic understanding of Arab history and cultural identity, but this remains a birds-eye view of the topic that does not engage with the complexity of ancient and contemporary Arab society. For example, the interactions between the pan-Arab identity and modern nationalism are only briefly discussed, yet have defined the last hundred years of history and conflict in the region. Similarly, the primary schism of Islam between the Sunni and Shia is discussed as a background to greater political developments, while the emergence of smaller (yet extremely important) sects such as Sufism and Wahhabism is barely touched upon. The most engaging parts of this book were the introductory discussion of Arab identity as a product of religion, culture, statehood, and shared history (along with the term's initial use to exclusively refer to nomadic Bedouins) and the book's discussion of the technological and cultural developments of Muslim Spain. However, this regional focus loses sight of various other vectors of the spread of Arab culture and religion, including the spread of Islam to the Balkans and Southeast Asia. As an Indonesian, much of Indonesia's cultural, linguistic, and religious background is derived from the Arab world (a significant amount of Bahasa Indonesia is derived from Arabic loan words!), so this oversight was disappointing and failed to demonstrate the truly global, intercontinental nature of Arab culture and trade. Ultimately, Lewis provides an extremely brief but effective overview of Arab history, but the brevity and lack of focus truly demonstrate the pre-Global War on Terror deficiencies of Western scholarship on Islam and the Arab world.
April 16, 2020
Arap tarihini ve Arap coğrafyasında ortaya çıkması bakımından “ kısmen “ İslam tarihini öğrenmek için farklı açılardan olayların değerlendirildiği hissi uyanmadı bende.
Çok basit bir örnek vermek gerekirse; Osmanlı’nın yıkılışı sonrası Arap coğrafyasının “baskıcı” Osmanlı yönetiminden kurtulduğunu yazıyor. Ancak yönetimin hangi eylemlerinden dolayı baskıcı değerlendirildiğine dair hiçbir detay hatta örnek dahi yok. Bununla birlikte Osmanlı sonrası Arap coğrafyasının daha iyi duruma gelmediği gibi ifadeler de var. Detayların olmaması bu iki durumun dilemma olduğunu düşündürüyor.
13. asırdan önceki kaynaklar doğu kökenli iken , sonrasındaki olayların çoğu kaynağı ise batıdan. Nedeni ne yazık ki 13.-14. asırdan sonra kitap basımına, tarih yazımına, bilime önem verilmemesinden kaynaklanıyor.
Tüm bunlarla birlikte çapraz okuma, detaylı araştırma yapılabilmesine olanak verdiği çok başlık var.
Benim not aldığım başlıklardan bazıları şöyle;
-Mevali
-Muhammed b. El-Hanefiyye
-Hasan-ı Basri’nin vefatı, etkileri
-İran nasıl Şii oldu?
-Sicilya’daki Norman , Arap etkileri ve günğmüzde kalanlar
-Fatımiler, Memlükler
-1917 Balfour Bildirisi . İngiltere’nin İsrail belasını ortaya çıkarması
-Amerika’nın keşfi ile bulunana değerli madenler ve doğu batı güç dengesinin değişmesi.
-Cemal Abdül Nasır
İyi okumalar dilerim
Çok basit bir örnek vermek gerekirse; Osmanlı’nın yıkılışı sonrası Arap coğrafyasının “baskıcı” Osmanlı yönetiminden kurtulduğunu yazıyor. Ancak yönetimin hangi eylemlerinden dolayı baskıcı değerlendirildiğine dair hiçbir detay hatta örnek dahi yok. Bununla birlikte Osmanlı sonrası Arap coğrafyasının daha iyi duruma gelmediği gibi ifadeler de var. Detayların olmaması bu iki durumun dilemma olduğunu düşündürüyor.
13. asırdan önceki kaynaklar doğu kökenli iken , sonrasındaki olayların çoğu kaynağı ise batıdan. Nedeni ne yazık ki 13.-14. asırdan sonra kitap basımına, tarih yazımına, bilime önem verilmemesinden kaynaklanıyor.
Tüm bunlarla birlikte çapraz okuma, detaylı araştırma yapılabilmesine olanak verdiği çok başlık var.
Benim not aldığım başlıklardan bazıları şöyle;
-Mevali
-Muhammed b. El-Hanefiyye
-Hasan-ı Basri’nin vefatı, etkileri
-İran nasıl Şii oldu?
-Sicilya’daki Norman , Arap etkileri ve günğmüzde kalanlar
-Fatımiler, Memlükler
-1917 Balfour Bildirisi . İngiltere’nin İsrail belasını ortaya çıkarması
-Amerika’nın keşfi ile bulunana değerli madenler ve doğu batı güç dengesinin değişmesi.
-Cemal Abdül Nasır
İyi okumalar dilerim
December 26, 2025
A renown scholar on Islam and the Arabs, Bernard Lewis’s history of the Arabs as a people is a classic, having been reprinted and revised a number of times. The book opens with the first mentions of the Arabs in the 8th century BCE and their origins as Bedouins in the desert on the fringes of the civilised world which then comprised the Roman and Persian empires. Next was an account of Mohammed’s life, revelation, move to Media, return to Mecca and attempts to bring the Bedouin into line, although they maintained, as they do today, an independent life. This was followed by accounts of Arab conquests of Syria, Iraq, Palestine, Egypt and Iran. The book then covered the Arabic language, the tax in Moslem-controlled areas on non-Moslems, termed Dhimmīs, the succession of Caliphs after Mohammed’s death and infighting that ensued, the Mawlā (non-Arab Moslems) and the beginnings of the Arab empire which, as he put it "the whole structure of the Arab state was based on the assumption that a minority of Arabs would rule over a majority of tax-paying non-Moslems."
The book then covers how the Shī’a began as claimants for Ali, a descendent of Mohammed, to be the next Caliph, a movement which attracted many Mawlā and which challenged and ultimately defeated the Umayyad Caliphate, replacing it with the Abbāsid Caliphate with its relocation to a new city that had been created for this purpose, Bagdad. This Caliph wasn’t a cleric and not officially clerically backed, but his emphasis was on trade, not conquest and increased irrigation. The distinction between full Arabs, half Arabs and Mawlā gradually disappeared and while the Dhimmīs retained their lower status, they were better off than non-believers in Western Europe at the time.
By the 9th century CE, while under control of Arab Moslems, sections of Iran, then Spain, Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia and Syria became independent of the Caliph, leaving only Iraq under his control. Revolts were to be a defining characteristic of the Arabic lands, with several occurring in the 9th century and in due course, the Ismā’īlī movement, an offshoot of the Shī’a, conquered Syria, Palestine, Yemen, then Tunisia and, by the early 10th century, established the Fātimid Caliphate, conquered Egypt and reached Bagdad before declining. By this time, the Arab empire had established significant trade with Venice, Pisa, Spain and India. The Arabs and conquered Sicily in the 10th century and administered it with important translations of Arabic texts into Latin taking place on the island until the Arabs lost it in 1091, although the Arabic influence remains to this day.
Centuries before its discovery of the Americas, Spain was impoverished and in disarray when it was invaded, first by the Berbers then by the Arabs in the 8th century until their advance was stopped by Martel in 732 (the significance of this battle to the future of Europe and Christendom is not to be underestimated). Peace in the 10th century was followed by political instability in the 11th with Berber armies being invited in to help maintain stability taking over much of Moslem Spain before Christian armies from the north conquered all of Spain except Grenada by the end of the 13th century then Grenada in 1492 after which the Jews and Moslems were required to convert of depart.
The book continued with a discussion of the Arabic language, its use as the language of government and law even when it wasn’t the language of those governed, the absence of any separation of religion and state and the belief in god as the cause of everything prevented the acceptance of the principle of causality which put an end to speculation and research in both science and philosophy. This period was yet another of war, conquest and decline. The book then discusses the Crusades, the invasion by the Moguls in the 13th century who made Iran their capital with Iraq and Syria falling into decay. The book then cites the Vasco de Gamma’s voyage from Portugal to India in 1498 after which larger and superior vessels with superior navigation capabilities from Portugal and other European countries first establishing trade routes between the Indian Ocean to Europe, then colonies in Asia which progressively reduced the eastern Islamic lands from being commercial and trade centres to subsistence agriculture. The book then described the rule of the Ottoman Turks who, having defeated the Mamlūks in 1517, ruled the settled areas of Arabia for about 400 years during which the centre of the Arab world shifted from Iraq to Egypt.
The rest of the books covered the collision between the Arabian and Islamic lands with the rapidly modernising West. The book cited the Renaissance and Reformation in Europe as well as wheeled vehicles which were still almost unknown in Arabia in the 19th century, colonisation which prompted the rise of Arab nationalism and the arrival of the first printing press in the Arab world in 1822, in Egypt. Politically, the emerging nations in the Islamic world tried two western innovations: nationalism, which they adopted but which provided their citizens with no freedoms; and socialism, which they also tried but which provided their citizens with no prosperity. In its closing pages, the books cited the choice faced by the countries in what could be termed Arabia of whether to embrace modernity or to retreat from it to an imagined glorious past.
The book was an excellent history of the Arabs as a people, overwhelmingly but not total Islamic, from their earliest recorded use of the word Arab to the present day. Interested readers are advised to ensure the copy they read is the latest revision. Other books that certainly dovetail Lewis’s The Arabs in History I would recommend include Tom Holland’s "In the Shadow of the Sword", María Rosa Menocal’s "The Ornament of the World: How Muslims, Jews and Christians Created a Culture of Tolerance in Medieval Spain" and Robert C. Davis’s "Christian Slaves, Muslim Masters: White Slavery in the Mediterranean, the Barbary Coast and Italy, 1500-1800".
The book then covers how the Shī’a began as claimants for Ali, a descendent of Mohammed, to be the next Caliph, a movement which attracted many Mawlā and which challenged and ultimately defeated the Umayyad Caliphate, replacing it with the Abbāsid Caliphate with its relocation to a new city that had been created for this purpose, Bagdad. This Caliph wasn’t a cleric and not officially clerically backed, but his emphasis was on trade, not conquest and increased irrigation. The distinction between full Arabs, half Arabs and Mawlā gradually disappeared and while the Dhimmīs retained their lower status, they were better off than non-believers in Western Europe at the time.
By the 9th century CE, while under control of Arab Moslems, sections of Iran, then Spain, Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia and Syria became independent of the Caliph, leaving only Iraq under his control. Revolts were to be a defining characteristic of the Arabic lands, with several occurring in the 9th century and in due course, the Ismā’īlī movement, an offshoot of the Shī’a, conquered Syria, Palestine, Yemen, then Tunisia and, by the early 10th century, established the Fātimid Caliphate, conquered Egypt and reached Bagdad before declining. By this time, the Arab empire had established significant trade with Venice, Pisa, Spain and India. The Arabs and conquered Sicily in the 10th century and administered it with important translations of Arabic texts into Latin taking place on the island until the Arabs lost it in 1091, although the Arabic influence remains to this day.
Centuries before its discovery of the Americas, Spain was impoverished and in disarray when it was invaded, first by the Berbers then by the Arabs in the 8th century until their advance was stopped by Martel in 732 (the significance of this battle to the future of Europe and Christendom is not to be underestimated). Peace in the 10th century was followed by political instability in the 11th with Berber armies being invited in to help maintain stability taking over much of Moslem Spain before Christian armies from the north conquered all of Spain except Grenada by the end of the 13th century then Grenada in 1492 after which the Jews and Moslems were required to convert of depart.
The book continued with a discussion of the Arabic language, its use as the language of government and law even when it wasn’t the language of those governed, the absence of any separation of religion and state and the belief in god as the cause of everything prevented the acceptance of the principle of causality which put an end to speculation and research in both science and philosophy. This period was yet another of war, conquest and decline. The book then discusses the Crusades, the invasion by the Moguls in the 13th century who made Iran their capital with Iraq and Syria falling into decay. The book then cites the Vasco de Gamma’s voyage from Portugal to India in 1498 after which larger and superior vessels with superior navigation capabilities from Portugal and other European countries first establishing trade routes between the Indian Ocean to Europe, then colonies in Asia which progressively reduced the eastern Islamic lands from being commercial and trade centres to subsistence agriculture. The book then described the rule of the Ottoman Turks who, having defeated the Mamlūks in 1517, ruled the settled areas of Arabia for about 400 years during which the centre of the Arab world shifted from Iraq to Egypt.
The rest of the books covered the collision between the Arabian and Islamic lands with the rapidly modernising West. The book cited the Renaissance and Reformation in Europe as well as wheeled vehicles which were still almost unknown in Arabia in the 19th century, colonisation which prompted the rise of Arab nationalism and the arrival of the first printing press in the Arab world in 1822, in Egypt. Politically, the emerging nations in the Islamic world tried two western innovations: nationalism, which they adopted but which provided their citizens with no freedoms; and socialism, which they also tried but which provided their citizens with no prosperity. In its closing pages, the books cited the choice faced by the countries in what could be termed Arabia of whether to embrace modernity or to retreat from it to an imagined glorious past.
The book was an excellent history of the Arabs as a people, overwhelmingly but not total Islamic, from their earliest recorded use of the word Arab to the present day. Interested readers are advised to ensure the copy they read is the latest revision. Other books that certainly dovetail Lewis’s The Arabs in History I would recommend include Tom Holland’s "In the Shadow of the Sword", María Rosa Menocal’s "The Ornament of the World: How Muslims, Jews and Christians Created a Culture of Tolerance in Medieval Spain" and Robert C. Davis’s "Christian Slaves, Muslim Masters: White Slavery in the Mediterranean, the Barbary Coast and Italy, 1500-1800".
December 12, 2024
Bernard Lewis's The Arabs is an essential read for anyone newly interested in Arab history and culture. This book serves as an excellent introduction, offering a sweeping overview of the major epochs of Arab history—from pre-Islamic times to the collapse of colonial empires.
One of the book's greatest strengths is its engagement with primary sources, which enriches the narrative and lends it authenticity. Lewis also convincingly illustrates how the creation of major Arab empires was deeply tied to effective collaboration with other ethnicities, offering valuable insights into the diversity and adaptability of these civilizations.
While the book has its flaws—particularly the author's shallow treatment of the concept of jihad—it remains one of the best concise accounts (just around 250 pages) of Arab history. For those seeking a foundational understanding of the Arab world, this book is a compelling starting point.
One of the book's greatest strengths is its engagement with primary sources, which enriches the narrative and lends it authenticity. Lewis also convincingly illustrates how the creation of major Arab empires was deeply tied to effective collaboration with other ethnicities, offering valuable insights into the diversity and adaptability of these civilizations.
While the book has its flaws—particularly the author's shallow treatment of the concept of jihad—it remains one of the best concise accounts (just around 250 pages) of Arab history. For those seeking a foundational understanding of the Arab world, this book is a compelling starting point.
July 12, 2018
Hyvä ja tarkkanäköinen kirja arabien historiasta. Kirja käy läpi arabimaailman historian sopivan syvällisellä tasolla, ja vaikka siinä mainitaan aika paljon eri vaikuttajia ja ruhtinaita, ei hienoinen luettelomaisuus haittaa, kun sen kanssa vuorottelevat analyyttisemmät tulkinnat tapahtumista. Kirja ulottuu lähes nykypäivään, ja toteaa 2000-luvun taitteesta kirjoittaessaan että arabimaailmassa käydään tällä hetkellä kovaa vääntöä traditionalistien ja uudistushaluisten välillä. Kirjan hienoinen optimistisuus arabimaailman suhteen on todellisuudessa kääntynyt päinvastaiseen, ikävä kyllä.
June 12, 2019
جعلني هذا الكتاب أتفهم حب الإسلاميين لبرنادر لويس واستشهادهم بنظرياته وقراءاته الاستشراقية .. حيث يروي التاريخ كما رواه العرب والمسلمون مع حفاظه على الحياد العلمي، وقد تمنيت أن أجد تحليلاً تاريخياً لا سرداً مستعجلاً كهذا
إلا أنه نجح بطرح عدة تساؤلات بالنسبة لي مثل تساؤله حول فهم واستشهاد النبي عليه السلام بالانجيل والتوراة على الرغم من أميته..وكيف استخدمها في دعوة النصارى واليهود أنفسهم ليدخلوا في دينه الجديد عن طريق موائمته مع أديانهم ذاتها
إلا أنه نجح بطرح عدة تساؤلات بالنسبة لي مثل تساؤله حول فهم واستشهاد النبي عليه السلام بالانجيل والتوراة على الرغم من أميته..وكيف استخدمها في دعوة النصارى واليهود أنفسهم ليدخلوا في دينه الجديد عن طريق موائمته مع أديانهم ذاتها
January 23, 2026
A very short history of the Arab and Turkish world from pre-Islam to the present day encounter with the west. This is the revised edition which spans a huge amount of time in a small number of pages. Definitely interesting, and impressed at Lewis’s ability to summarize. Would have liked more details but still interesting. One of the big gaps I would highlight is almost nothing on move from nationalism to islamism..
Read
September 27, 2025If Nietzsche is a hammer, then I am a sword—a sword honed sharper with every pain I have lived through, one that can even cut through a concrete wall and split it into pieces. While the hammer is the purifier of the outside, the sword is the imposer of the inside. He, in his own words, was “doing philosophy with a hammer”; I, on the other hand, am “cutting philosophy with a sword.”“
October 21, 2017
Excellent summation of the long and turbulent history of the arabs. Much more could be written, but the essence, the must-know facts and analysis, are here.
November 24, 2023
This is one of those books that are usually titled something like "A Short History of..." and have a lot of information in a few pages. Makes me want to read more on the subject.
August 10, 2025
Interesting book. In the last chapter the author presents more openly his subjective opinions on the future, throwing off balance an otherwise quite "neutral" and chronicle-teller book.
March 28, 2016
I would consider this book as a very good read. The author Bernard Lewis is one of most if not the very most famous on middle eastern history with his experience in the field stretching to more than six decades of book writing where this book writing date goes back to the year 1947 with several editions added reaching this final edition in the year 1992.
In this book the author wanted to examine certain basic issues; the place of the Arabs in human history, Arab identity, Arab achievements, characteristics of the several ages of their development.
I can honestly state that the author has very well managed in achieving his objectives where the question of who is the Arab was the most interesting to me and I have gained more insight on this question thanks to the author exploration of the subject.
The place of Arabs in human history along with their achievements which I believe is the main broad subject of the book was brilliantly handled where I can highlight Chapter 8 Islamic Civilization where the author summarised Arab impact on human culture with great talent.
As for the the area of Arab development, this area was covered through the main body of the book with the early chapters exploring early pre Islamic Arab history before the major change in Arab history with the birth of Islam starting a journey which could be called Islamic history in parallel with Arab history. This journey ends with rise of Arab nationalism and the formation of the current Arab states in the middle east and north Africa in the twentieth century.
Chapter 5 The Islamic Empire is a wonderful chapter to read where the author merges both his talent and knowledge to describe the Arab / Islamic culture that formed and matured during the Abassid dynasty after Arabs actually blended with the various races and cultures of the Islamic world then.
The impact of social needs on the rise or formation of a religion or sect was an interesting aspect pointed out several times through the book.
Reading this book, I have sensed that the author did give his fair opinion on the subjects discussed demonstrating a high level of understanding.
For readers interested in the subject, this book is a recommendation as a general overview as a foundation for future more detailed reading where I also note that having a background in Islamic history would help in better understanding this book.
In this book the author wanted to examine certain basic issues; the place of the Arabs in human history, Arab identity, Arab achievements, characteristics of the several ages of their development.
I can honestly state that the author has very well managed in achieving his objectives where the question of who is the Arab was the most interesting to me and I have gained more insight on this question thanks to the author exploration of the subject.
The place of Arabs in human history along with their achievements which I believe is the main broad subject of the book was brilliantly handled where I can highlight Chapter 8 Islamic Civilization where the author summarised Arab impact on human culture with great talent.
As for the the area of Arab development, this area was covered through the main body of the book with the early chapters exploring early pre Islamic Arab history before the major change in Arab history with the birth of Islam starting a journey which could be called Islamic history in parallel with Arab history. This journey ends with rise of Arab nationalism and the formation of the current Arab states in the middle east and north Africa in the twentieth century.
Chapter 5 The Islamic Empire is a wonderful chapter to read where the author merges both his talent and knowledge to describe the Arab / Islamic culture that formed and matured during the Abassid dynasty after Arabs actually blended with the various races and cultures of the Islamic world then.
The impact of social needs on the rise or formation of a religion or sect was an interesting aspect pointed out several times through the book.
Reading this book, I have sensed that the author did give his fair opinion on the subjects discussed demonstrating a high level of understanding.
For readers interested in the subject, this book is a recommendation as a general overview as a foundation for future more detailed reading where I also note that having a background in Islamic history would help in better understanding this book.
February 20, 2017
Extremely informative, as Bernard Lewis ALWAYS is. So much scholarship crammed into a couple hundred pages. A great summary.
June 15, 2024
Another book from Lewis thick with history of the Arabs, with this work advising the Arabs to not try to replicate the West, but to balance their own unique inherited traditions with the benefits of the West.
Read in 2008, then picked up for a refresh in 2024 for some reminders:
- Hadith: Traditions - the practices and utterances of the Prophet
- Umma: community established by early agreements between the growing Islamic groups and others (Jews)
- The region of Arabia was ripe for a change like the rise of Islam due to the rule (and misrule) or the region from either the Byzantine or Persian empires.
- Caliph: Deputy of the Prophet - the line of the caliphate has been continually challenged
- Dhimmis: members of non-Islamic religions tolerated by law
- Shura: council of Sheiks summoned by the Caliph
- Shiism grew as a symbol of opposition to the established Sunni order, and spoke to the Mawali - Muslims who were not a direct descendent of an Arab tribe
- Mamluks: slaves from the Central Asian Turkish region trained in arms
- Disputed, but Spanish scholars blame the lagging of Spain behind other European countries on the Muslim occupation - held Spain back, meant energy had to be spent on the reconquest, fueled excesses after the reconquest as all Muslims (and Jews) were expelled from Spain
- Saladin: Kurdish officer who went to Egypt and united it with Syria and then retook Jerusalem from the Crusaders, but this was short-lived with the arrivals of the Mongols
- Later Tamerlane, leading the Turko-Mongol forces, ended the Mamluk rule and established the start of the Ottoman Empire. Reflecting current times, Yemen one of the few places to retain independence. Ottoman rule also drove the rise of Wahhabi doctrine among the nomadic tribes.
Read in 2008, then picked up for a refresh in 2024 for some reminders:
- Hadith: Traditions - the practices and utterances of the Prophet
- Umma: community established by early agreements between the growing Islamic groups and others (Jews)
- The region of Arabia was ripe for a change like the rise of Islam due to the rule (and misrule) or the region from either the Byzantine or Persian empires.
- Caliph: Deputy of the Prophet - the line of the caliphate has been continually challenged
- Dhimmis: members of non-Islamic religions tolerated by law
- Shura: council of Sheiks summoned by the Caliph
- Shiism grew as a symbol of opposition to the established Sunni order, and spoke to the Mawali - Muslims who were not a direct descendent of an Arab tribe
- Mamluks: slaves from the Central Asian Turkish region trained in arms
- Disputed, but Spanish scholars blame the lagging of Spain behind other European countries on the Muslim occupation - held Spain back, meant energy had to be spent on the reconquest, fueled excesses after the reconquest as all Muslims (and Jews) were expelled from Spain
- Saladin: Kurdish officer who went to Egypt and united it with Syria and then retook Jerusalem from the Crusaders, but this was short-lived with the arrivals of the Mongols
- Later Tamerlane, leading the Turko-Mongol forces, ended the Mamluk rule and established the start of the Ottoman Empire. Reflecting current times, Yemen one of the few places to retain independence. Ottoman rule also drove the rise of Wahhabi doctrine among the nomadic tribes.
August 7, 2014
I read the third edition, published in 1956. As a contemporary work of the times, an amazing piece of research. Toward the end of the book, he summarizes Arab Islamic culture in a way that I hadn't put together before that, I think, is quite apt. 1) "...the unique assimilative power of Arab culture, often misrepresented as merely imitative." 2) "its comparative tolerance" 3) "Islam became during the lifetime of its founder the guiding code of an expanding and victorious community" 4) "the tendency to view life and the universe as a series of static, concrete and disjunct entities" with an excellent explanation of this in Arabic literature, art and music 5) the collectivist approach.
Lewis also writes at length about the history of the Arabic language. As an eternally frustrated student of Arabic, I appreciated these insights very much. He showed the beauty of the language and that by understanding how the language works the reader can much better understand the Arab culture.
Highly recommended.
Lewis also writes at length about the history of the Arabic language. As an eternally frustrated student of Arabic, I appreciated these insights very much. He showed the beauty of the language and that by understanding how the language works the reader can much better understand the Arab culture.
Highly recommended.
April 3, 2012
If you're compiling a list of Driest Books of All Time, you have to consider this book. Interesting at times, but an overwhelming amount of information. It should be a ten-volume encyclopedia.
Main takeaways: a) the definition of Arab is somewhat fluid and has changed throughout history; b) Islam once conquered an area from the Iberian Peninsula (even into France) through North Africa all the way to India; c) somehow this is fine but the Crusades was not; d) Islam's resistance to other cultures and its unfortunate position in the middle of encroaching movements (Russians to the north, Mongols to the east, the West to the west) contributed to its decline in the age of modernity.
Glad to finally have this one over with.
Main takeaways: a) the definition of Arab is somewhat fluid and has changed throughout history; b) Islam once conquered an area from the Iberian Peninsula (even into France) through North Africa all the way to India; c) somehow this is fine but the Crusades was not; d) Islam's resistance to other cultures and its unfortunate position in the middle of encroaching movements (Russians to the north, Mongols to the east, the West to the west) contributed to its decline in the age of modernity.
Glad to finally have this one over with.
September 22, 2014
My edition of "The Arabs in History" was published in 1966. The author, Bernard Lewis, was a Professor of History at the University of London. This is an exceptional book with a great bibliography and chronology of significant events in the history of Islam and Muslim nation building. It provides a remarkable background for understanding the underlying forces influencing today's civil war in Syria, war in Afghanistan, emergence of ISIS, and Iraq governance struggles after the fall of Saddam Hussein. I learned much about the cultural mores and beliefs of Arab republics. The last chapter of the book is full of insight and a must read for students of world history.
August 26, 2014
I say this with a lot of Lewis' work....that I seem to lose interest by the last few chapters....regardless, this is a great work for people who might get confused by a Middle East History that emphasizes Iranian and Turkish elements (though they are crucial to understanding the Middle East).
Start here, if you're new to Lewis' work.
Start here, if you're new to Lewis' work.
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