What Went Wrong? The Clash Between Islam & Modernity in the Middle East Quotes

“Secularism in the Christian world was an attempt to resolve the long and destructive struggle of church and state. Separation, adopted in the American and French Revolutions and elsewhere after that, was designed to prevent two things: the use of religion by the state to reinforce and extend its authority; and the use of the state power by the clergy to impose their doctrines and rules on others. This is a problem long seen as purely Christian, not relevant to Muslims or for that matter to Jews, for whom a similar problem has arisen in Israel. Looking at the contemporary Middle East, both Muslim and Jewish, one must ask whether this is still true -- or whether Muslims and Jews may perhaps have caught a Christian disease and might therefore consider a Christian remedy.”
― Bernard Lewis, What Went Wrong? The Clash Between Islam & Modernity in the Middle East

“In 1940, we knew who we were, we knew who the enemy was, we knew the dangers and the issues," he told me when I pressed him for a reading of the struggle against Islamic radicalism. "In our island, we knew we would prevail, that the Americans would be drawn into the fight. It is different today. We don't know who we are, we don't know the issues, and we still do not understand the nature of the enemy.”
― Bernard Lewis, What Went Wrong? The Clash Between Islam & Modernity in the Middle East

“To a Western observer, schooled in the theory and practice of Western freedom, it is precisely the lack of freedom—freedom of the mind from constraint and indoctrination, to question and inquire and speak; freedom of the economy from corrupt and pervasive mismanagement; freedom of women from male oppression; freedom of citizens from tyranny—that underlies so many of the troubles of the Muslim world. But the road to democracy, as the Western experience amply demonstrates, is long and hard, full of pitfalls and obstacles." Page 115”
― Bernard Lewis, What Went Wrong? The Clash Between Islam & Modernity in the Middle East

“The difference between Middle Eastern and Western economic approaches can be seen even in their distinctive forms of corruption, from which neither society is exempt. In the West, one makes money in the market, and uses it to buy or influence power. In the East, one seizes power, and uses it to make money.”
― Bernard Lewis, What Went Wrong? The Clash Between Islam & Modernity in the Middle East

“The changed relationship may be seen in a simple example, that traditional Middle-Eastern indulgence, a cup of coffee. Coffee originally came from Ethiopia. It was brought up both shores of the Red Sea, through Arabia and Egypt, to Syria and to Turkey, and then exported to Europe. Sugar came from Persia and India. For a long time, both coffee and sugar were imports to Europe, either through or from the Middle East. But then the colonial powers found that they could grow coffee and sugar more abundantly and more cheaply in their new colonies. They did this so thoroughly and successfully that they began to export coffee and sugar to the Ottoman lands. By the end of the eighteenth century, if a Turk or Arab took the traditional indulgence, a cup of sweetened coffee, in all probability the coffee came from Dutch Java or Spanish America, the sugar from the British or French West Indies; only the hot water was local. In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, even that ceased to be true, as European concessionary companies took over the water supply and gas supply in Middle Eastern cities.”
― Bernard Lewis, What Went Wrong? The Clash Between Islam & Modernity in the Middle East

“Qərbdəki korrupsiya Yaxın Şərqdəkindən kəskin şəkildə fərqlənir. Məsələn, Qərb ölkələrində bir nəfər ticarətlə məşğul olur və çoxlu pul qazanır. Sonra isə zəngin olan bu şəxs siyasətə atılır və malik olduğu kapital ilə öz mövqeyini gücləndirir, hakimiyyət pillələrində irəliləyir. Şərqdə isə tam tərsinədir: pul qazanmaq üçün birinci siyasətə atılır, hakimiyyətə gəlir və bundan sonra varlanır. Doğrudur, əxlaq nöqteyi nəzərindən bu iki korrupsiya arasında heç bir fərq yoxdur. Amma iqtisadiyyata və siyasətə təsir baxımından onlar bir-birindən kəskin şəkildə fərqlənir.”
― Bernard Lewis, What Went Wrong? The Clash Between Islam & Modernity in the Middle East