Bernard Lewis

Bernard Lewis (1916–2018) was a historian and academic known for wide-ranging studies of Islam, the Middle East and encounters between Muslim societies and the West. The Jews of Islam compares legal and social experience across periods without reducing the subject to a single modern conflict. The Muslim Discovery of Europe reverses the usual direction of observation and asks how Muslim travellers and writers perceived Europe. Islam and the West gathers questions of cultural contact, scholarship and political power. What Went Wrong? addresses debates about modern divergence. The Jews of Islam is the strongest thematic entry for close historical comparison. Readers seeking a broader map can choose Islam and the West, then use The Muslim Discovery of Europe to follow Lewis's interest in perception across cultural boundaries.