Books, Arts & Manners: The Last Crusade?

Islam and the West, by Bernard Lewis (Oxford, 217 pp., $25)

ONE OF THE peculiarities of relations between the Muslim and Christian worlds over the past 13 centuries has been the minimal interest taken by Muslims in the countries and peoples of Christendom (to use a word considered outdated in our secular age). This lack of curiosity, Bernard Lewis explains in the introductory essay of this stimulating collection, derived from a profound conviction of the superority of Islam, as the final revelation of God’s truth to mankind, over both Christianity and Judaism. Muslims, in short, had nothing to learn, spiritually, morally, or intellectually, from the adherents of an imperfect and outmoded faith.

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J. B. Kelly

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Islam and the West, by Bernard Lewis (Oxford, 217 pp., $25)

ONE OF THE peculiarities of relations between the Muslim and Christian worlds over the past 13 centuries has been the minimal interest taken by Muslims in the countries and peoples of Christendom (to use a word considered outdated in our secular age). This lack of curiosity, Bernard Lewis explains in the introductory essay of this stimulating collection, derived from a profound conviction of the superority of Islam, as the final revelation of God’s truth to mankind, over both Christianity and Judaism. Muslims, in short, had nothing to learn, spiritually, morally, or intellectually, from the adherents of an imperfect and outmoded faith.