Almost 1300 years ago, when Europe was still deep in the Dark Ages, a tidal wave of Islamic vitality and military might swept over Spain and pressed toward the heart of the West. Islam was young and vibrant and rich, and the culture it built on the Iberian Peninsula was, for a time, dazzling.
Historian David Levering Lewis is out with a provocative new view: that Europe and the West might have been better off if Islam had swept over all of the continent.
Then and now, those sound like fighting words.
This hour, On Point: when Islam first met the West, and the long echo of that epic clash.
-Tom Ashbrook
Guests:
David Levering Lewis, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian, is a professor at New York University and author of “God’s Crucible: Islam and the Making of Europe, 570-1215.”
Christopher Dickey, Middle East Regional Editor and Paris Bureau Chief for Newsweek Magazine.
Tags: Europe, history, Islam, literature
A fantastic show!!!! Fascinating subject and I’m in complete agreement with Tom – I had a thousand more questions!
My big question – Europe in many ways emerged from the Dark Ages courtesy of the black plague. With millions decimated, there was a huge demand for labour and work, and also religion lost its authoritative grip – people started to question it.
Prof Lewis mentioned there is currently 60% male unemployment in the middle east, and the roots of their extremism are economic – extremism in a religion that otherwise preached tolerance and granted women first human rights.
My big question – what would he think would bring the Islamic world out of their current Dark Ages?
Is it largely economic? Should the invasion of Iraq been an economic one – bringing jobs, infrastructure and American know-how(as many Iraqi’s had hoped)?
Or it is that in the same way Europe found it’s renaissance through the middle east (resisting its invading approach all the way as the Prof noted), they will find a renaissance of their original ideals (tolarance, equal rights etc)through the West now, particularly now Western culture is all-pervasive? (though granted, that would seem to be the very thing the extremists are fighting against…not unlike early European resistance)
Questions that will have to wait for the sequel book.
Many thanks for producing such a great show — and now I know which book I want for Xmas
Posted by Alexander, on November 13th, 2008 at 7:50 pm EST