Book Review İslam, Bernard LEWIS

Bernard Lewis, known for his studies on Islam, makes important observations in this workregarding the field of Islamic history over a period of approximately eight centuries. We willtry to focus more on theological/theological observations. He has composed his book in threeparts and fourteen chapters: 1. The Four Caliphs and the Umayyad Caliphate, 2. The Abbasids,3. Syria, Egypt, North Africa, 4. Iran and the East, 5. The Mongols, 6. After the Mongols, 7.Muslim Spain, 8. The rise of the Ottomans, 9. Religion and sovereignty, 10. The Iranian stateadministration, 11. Administration, 12. Jihad, 13. War and 14. Conquests. The subject of thisbook is Islamic history from the advent of the Prophet Muhammad to the conquest of Istanbulby Fatih Sultan Mehmet. According to the author, classical Islamic civilization has foundexpression in three main languages, the first of which is Arabic. The Prophet Muhammad wasborn, lived and died among the Arabs of the Hijaz. His holy book was also written in theirlanguage. Another is that the Persians, who both preserved the memories of the great empiresof recent history and were aware of their immense contribution to Islamic civilization,revived and reasserted their own unique identity. According to Lewis, the Persian renaissancecorresponds to a kind of interim period between the decline of the Arabs and the rise of theTurks. Medieval Islamic history begins with the influx of Arab invaders into the Middle Eastand ends with the victory of another new group, the steppe peoples of the north. Afteraccepting Islam, the Turks established a dominance that would last for a thousand years; theycreated new models of government and society, and made Turkish the third main languageof Islamic civilization.