Bernard Lewis

Bernard Lewis, born on May thirty-first, nineteen sixteen, was a distinguished British-American historian renowned for his expertise in Oriental studies. He served as the Cleveland E. Dodge Professor Emeritus of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University, where he became a prominent public intellectual and political commentator. His scholarly work primarily focused on the history of Islam and the intricate interactions between Islam and the West.

During the Second World War, Lewis served valiantly in the British Army, contributing to the Royal Armoured Corps and Intelligence Corps before being seconded to the Foreign Office. After the war, he returned to academia, taking up a new chair in Near and Middle Eastern history at the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London, further solidifying his reputation in the field.

In two thousand seven, Lewis was hailed as the West's leading interpreter of the Middle East. However, his work was not without controversy; critics have described his approach as essentialist and generalizing towards the Muslim world. Detractors have also accused him of reviving notions of cultural inferiority regarding Islam and emphasizing the perils of jihad. His insights were often sought by neoconservative policymakers, including those in the Bush administration, particularly during the Iraq War, which has since drawn scrutiny.

Lewis was well-known for his public debates with Edward Said, who accused him of being a Zionist apologist and an Orientalist who misrepresented Arabs and Islam while promoting Western imperialism. In response, Lewis argued that Orientalism was a facet of humanism and criticized Said for politicizing the subject. Additionally, Lewis's stance on the Armenian genocide, where he denied the occurrence of a deliberate genocide by the Ottoman Empire, has been met with significant opposition from other historians, who reject his claims as ahistorical.