Interview with Bernard Lewis

[WalkerW]

Brand new interview: Bari Weiss, "'The Tyrannies Are Doomed'," The Wall Street Journal (April 2, 2011).

[zerinus]

Brand new interview: Bari Weiss, "'The Tyrannies Are Doomed'," The Wall Street Journal (April 2, 2011).

That was a good article, thank you.

[William Schryver]

I have several Bernard Lewis books in my library. Very accessible history. Very concise writing. He has been very prescient about many things over the years.

In that respect, this paragraph from the article you linked is rather disturbing:

"During the Cold War, both the Soviet Union and the United States had nuclear weapons but both knew that the other was very unlikely to use them. Because of what was known at the time as MAD

[Daniel Peterson]

In my judgment, Bernard Lewis is, and has been for many years, the greatest living Islamicist.

In many ways, he's rather appalling: He seems to have read everything, in every language, and has now published at least one book (and typically several important ones) in each of the last eight (!) decades. And he actually didn't miss a ninth decade by very far.

[volgadon]

He is superb. My mother has several of his books, including one of the sourcebooks of early Islamic history. I grew up with those.

[WalkerW]

I thought these two Public Discourse articles by Abdullah Saeed went along well with the discussion:

"The Quranic Case Against Killing Apostates."

"Hadith and Apostasy."

I'd love Dr. Peterson to weigh in.