Missions Resources - Bibliography
What Went Wrong? The Clash Between Islam and Modernity in the Middle East
Authors: Bernard Lewis
ISBN: 0060516054
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Number of pages: 208
Type of cover: Soft Cover
Summary:
reviewed by Paul Grant
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Most books on Islam and the West focus on the first few centuries of Islam, tracing the roots of the conflict to the very beginning, so to speak. The problem with this approach is its historical determinism - the author uncovers some essential contradiction between Islam and Christianity, or between Islam and liberalism (as in Locke/Jefferson/Madison liberalism), and traces this conflict forward to the present day, demonstrating the inevitablity of September 11.
Instead, Bernard Lewis starts with the rise of Europe, relative to the Muslim world, in the Renaissance. His encyclopedic knowledge of early modern history, especially in the Ottoman empire, keeps him from oversimplifying. He also does not believe things necessarily got this bad, and therefore that things must stay this bad. Put simply, Lewis sees human nature, and human free will, at work.
What Went Wrong? starts with the stunning development in the early modern period, that infidel Europe was getting stronger than the Muslim world. Lewis goes to some lengths to explain the incomprehension Muslims experienced when confronted with this military, and economical fact. Since Muslims worshiped the only true God, and were therefore spiritually and morally superior to others, how was it possible that they were not as strong?
It is hard to overstate the significance of this bewilderment. Lewis describes the interaction between the modern West and the Muslim East at many levels - from music to banking, from slavery to feminism - but the discrepancy of being spiritually supreme while temporally second-tier is a constant thread.
"What went wrong?" is thus one question with two different meanings. To the American, post-Iranian revolution, the question is one of relations: Why is there such animosity between West and East? To the Middle Easterner, starting a few centuries ago, "What went wrong?" is a question of justice: Why are the pious no longer the strongest?
This question is reflected in the Old Testament, for instance in Jeremiah 12:1-2:
Why does the way of the guilty prosper?
Why do all who are treacherous thrive?
You plant them, and they take root;
They grow and bring forth fruit;
You are near in their mouths yet far in their hearts.
Asaph relates in Psalm 73:3,
For I was envious of the arrogant;
I saw the prosperity of the wicked.
These are universal problems, and they concern all humans, especially Christians. In fact, What Went Wrong? describes the Muslim response to the modern West in terms strikingly familiar to readers of Francis Schaeffer, Leslie Newbegin and Henri Nouwen. Muslims make many of the same critiques of the secular West of the materialist, capitalist and nationalist variety, as most Christians.
Take political philosophy, for example. Lewis explains that while in the West, we contrast Tyranny and Freedom, Muslims contrast Tyranny and Justice. Most Muslims, in this reading (and confirmed to me by Jim Tebbe) are not terribly offended by not having absolute freedom - like the freedom to live according to an individually defined morality. But they are deeply upset by injustice.
Shouldn't that be said of Christians as well? Shouldn't it be said that Christians preferred Justice for the weak to Liberty for ourselves? This is the value of studying other cultures, even non-Christian ones: in contrasts, we are better able to see our syncretism. We are better able to see the ways we have compromised the Gospel to fit our own society.
In the end, Lewis explores nearly every aspect of Muslim/Modern interaction, but in his failure to understand Christianity as anything more than a cultural fact, the book falls flat. As Christians we believe Jesus was not only a carpenter Jew from the early Roman empire, but also the son of God, risen from the dead and returning soon to judge the world. This faith does tend to change our view of the world! Lewis' book is very valuable for starting a conversation with Muslims, and moving beyond simplistic stereotypes, but we want more. We want all the peoples of the Middle East to know forgiveness of sin and salvation through Jesus. So, read this book. But back it up with some Christian thinking about the same issues.
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