Bernard Lewis’s politics obscured his genuine sympathy for Arab culture
Evidence
In general, it must be clear that he has a knack of looking at awkward subjects – subjects that Muslim apologists and starry-eyed believers in an unalloyed golden age of the Arabs would rather not see discussed. Although his selection of topics might suggest an agenda, the identification of Bernard Lewis as both a friend of Israel and a supporter of American policies in the Middle East and the consequent polemics directed against his past scholarly achievements have obscured just how positive his portrayal of Arab and Islamic culture has been and how profound his knowledge of that culture is. — Robert Irwin, For Lust of Knowing, 468
Categorization
- XREF: Connects to Edward Said’s Orientalism critique and the general theme of the book about how ideological labels distort scholarly legacies.
Related
- Lewis’s scholarship attacked Muslim racial-prejudice and slavery myths and probed Muslim disinterest in Europe (similarity 0.82)
- Bernard Lewis held that the West’s triumph leaves Islam to accept Western modernity (similarity 0.81)
- Post-war British Orientalism was dominated by right-wing patricians skeptical of Arab nationalism (similarity 0.80)
- Lewis’s war service shaped his lifelong focus on Arabic political terminology (similarity 0.80)
- Bernard Lewis argued Arabs are unready for Western-style elections (similarity 0.79)
- Islamic scholarship functions as an arm of state power, not disinterested learning (similarity 0.78)
- Bernard Lewis reduced fourteen centuries of East-West to unchanging conflict. (similarity 0.78)