Bernard Lewis – Questions and Answers

Ett intressant klipp som är perfekt att konvertera till en mp3 och lyssna på. För den som vill ha lite klarhet är Bernard Lewis en väldigt bra källa. Här svarar han på frågor gällande hans bok What Went Wrong som finns att ladda ner i kategorin: Ljudböcker

”Middle East scholar Bernard Lewis was interviewed about his body of work at his home in Princeton, New Jersey. He talked about Islamic culture and politics and answered questions from viewers”

 

Bernard Lewis – The Crisis of Islam [Gratis Ljudbok]

Bernard Lewis – The Crisis of Islam. Holy War and Unholy Terrorr. [Gratis Ljudbok]

Läste den efter jag läste What went Wrong och denna är riktigt bra verkligen.

Wiki:

The Crisis of Islam: Holy War and Unholy Terror is a book written byBernard Lewis. The nucleus of the book was an article published in The New Yorker in November 2001.

According to the author, the Islamic world is locked in an internal struggle over how best to address and ultimately solve the problems endemic to many of its societies: namely, widespread poverty, extreme economic inequality, the prevalence of government by despotic rulers, and the inability to keep pace with emerging economies. The crisis concerns the choice the Islamic world faces between two diametrically opposed solutions. In this work he stresses that nuclear bombs throughout the Middle East are the biggest crisis.

Opposing those within Islam who argue for the continued and peaceful spread of economic and political freedoms as a means to solve these problems are the various Muslim fundamentalist movements, most notably Wahhabism, which blame all of these ills on whatever modernization and Western influence the Islamic world has already embraced, and advocate an unreserved rejection of the West. This rejection includes violence against Western countries and interests, and most especially violence against ”impious” Muslim rulers who have adopted ”Western” ways. The fundamentalists seek the establishment of states and societies based on Islamic Law and traditional mores.

The author warns that the resolution of this struggle between Western and anti-Western influences within the Islamic world will determine whether the Islamic world takes its place alongside other countries in a global community, or whether it will regress into backwardness and intractable conflict with non-Muslim nations.

 

What Went Wrong ? The Clash Between Islam and Modernity in the Middle East [Gratis Ljudbok]

Bernard Lewis. What went wrong ? The Clash Between Islam and Modernity in the Middle East. Gratis Ljudbok.

Otroligt bra bok, Bernard Lewis är en otrolig historiker och måste nog kallas legend – trots hans syn på det armeniska folkmordet(eller rättare benämnt utplånandet av de kristna i anatolien).

Den här boken fick stor uppmärksamhet när den släpptes och är väldigt välskriven och intressant. Vill du lära dig något nytt så borde du läsa Bernard Lewis.

Betyg: 10 av 10

Recension:

Bernard Lewis, 85 year old professor emeritus at Princeton University, is the universally acknowledged dean of Middle East studies in the West, so it is only fitting and proper that we turn to him to tell us ”what went wrong” in the Islamic world to breed the hatred and violence that was so horrifically brought home to the United States on September 11th.  The fascinating case he makes here is that the early success of Islam has actually been a bane rather than a blessing, retarding the development of the Muslim Middle East and resulting in a particularly anxious reaction to the rise to world dominance of the West.

Mr. Lewis begins, as he is always careful to do, by calling our attention to the preeminence that the Islamic world once enjoyed.  He pays homage to the civilization they created and justifies the enormous pride they took in their achievements.

In its simplest terms, Mr. Lewis’s argument is that the success of Muhammad in establishing not merely the Muslim religion, but also a state dominated by that faith, served to create a society that is totalitarian by its very nature, bound by rules and strictures that make it too static to adapt and compete with a West where Christianity, in contrast, does not demand control over the political and economic spheres.  The problem is to be found at the very foundations of the respective faiths :