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God's Crucible: Islam and the Making of Europe, 570-1215 | 
 enlarge | Author: David Levering Lewis
Publisher: W. W. Norton
Category: Book
List Price: $29.95
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Rating:  24 reviews
Sales Rank: 25169
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 384
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2
Dimensions (in): 9.3 x 6.2 x 1.7
ISBN: 0393064727
Dewey Decimal Number: 940.1
EAN: 9780393064728
ASIN: 0393064727
Publication Date: January 21, 2008
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Product Description
In this panoramic history of Islamic culture in early Europe, a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian reexamines what we once thought we knew.
At the beginning of the eighth century, the Arabs brought a momentous revolution in power, religion, and culture to Dark Ages Europe. David Levering Lewis's masterful history begins with the fall of the Persian and Roman empires, followed by the rise of the prophet Muhammad and the creation of Muslim Spain. Five centuries of engagement between the Muslim imperium and an emerging Europe followed, from the Muslim conquest of Visigoth Hispania in 711 to Latin Christendom's declaration of unconditional warfare on the Caliphate in 1215. Lewis's narrative, filled with accounts of some of the greatest battles in world history, reveals how cosmopolitan, Muslim al-Andalus flourished—a beacon of cooperation and tolerance between Islam, Judaism, and Christianity—while proto-Europe, defining itself in opposition to Islam, made virtues out of hereditary aristocracy, religious intolerance, perpetual war, and slavery. A cautionary tale, God's Crucible provides a new interpretation of world-altering events whose influence remains as current as today's headlines. 8 pages of color illustrations; 4 maps.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 19 more reviews...
So far off the mark January 9, 2008
Seth J. Frantzman (Jerusalem, Israel)
85 out of 165 found this review helpful
This books main argument is that the Islamic conquest of Spain led to a kingdom of tolerance in Spain and led 'proto-Europe' to become intolerant and thus European history since the 8th century has been entirel defined as being anti-Muslim. Thus while Muslim al-Andalus flourished as a perfect utopia Europe became dominated by slavery, war, religious intolerance and hereditary aristocracy. There is one slight problem with this thesis: it is completely wrong in most respects.
Europe was stamping out slavery because Christianity forbid slavery at precisely the same time that Islam brought slavery to Europe. The Islamic empire based in Spain was built on slavery and Muslim colonialistic raids into France were directed towards obtaining more slaves. Spain was not the tolerant paradise as is depicted. In fact the greatest Jewish scholars of Spain, such as Maimonadies, had to flee because of the intolerant Almohads and other Muslim dynasties. Europe didn't invent hereditary dynasties because that would be impossible given the fact that Muslim rule in Spain was also hereditary as it still is today in Syria, Morrocco and Saudi Arabia.
The idea that Muslim Spain was any different than 'proto-Europe' is completely mistaken. Muslim Spain defined itself primarily against the 'infidels' and 'kaffirs' which it waged war against. Those 'infidels' were the Christian Europeans. The idea that Spain was 'tolerant' is no more true than saying the AMerican South in the 1950s was 'tolerant'. Muslim Spain had a society where all the non-Muslim Dhimmi were second class citizens. If they rose to high places it was only due to good luck, rather than equal rights. If there were periods of tolerance they were seperated by periods of extreme intolerance. The idea that Spain had 'grandeur' while Europe was 'dark' is merely a stereotype, and it was precisely the fall of Muslim Spain in the 15th century that coincided with the Reneaisance.
Just one example should suffice. When Christians in 'tolerant' Muslim Spain insulted Islam they were forced to recount or be killed. That is hardly tolerant. Many died as martyrs or slaves. The fact that Christians were called 'Kaffir' and Jews were called 'dog' in Muslim Spain is not exactly 'tolerance'.
THe interplay between Christian Europe and the Muslim world was not a one way street or a simple contest of 'good and evil'. Slavery and intolerance existed on both sides, as did ethnic cleansing and colonialism. The Muslim imperialism in Christian Spain that lasted for 600 years was no different in substance than France's colonization of Algeria. This is a biased and rediculous book that simply ignores history in order to prove a point and transmit stereotypes.
Seth J. Frantzman
 Cultural Difussion January 22, 2008
Retired Reader (Maryland)
81 out of 94 found this review helpful
The central argument of this rather rambling book is that the Islamic civilization that developed in the Iberian Peninsula after the Muslim conquest of the 8th Century contributed directly to the rebirth of Western European culture and learning. A secondary theme is that the Realm of Islam, after its initial and phenomenal expansion, developed into a uniquely tolerant and cultured society that compared very favorably to an intolerant and semi-barbaric Western Europe of the early Middle Ages. Yet this book is not a particularly good history. Nonetheless, it is a fun read. Lewis clearly enjoyed writing it and provides the reader with a lot of interesting detours and asides.
History is as much a matter of interpretation as a recounting of facts. It is certainly true that most Islamic fundamentalist today regard much of the period covered by this book (late 8th Century through the early 13th Century) as a `Golden Age' for Islam. It also appears accurate to argue that during this golden age at least parts of the Realm of Islam (Dar al Islam) achieved a remarkably tolerant society and a high level of culture. Yet this is a very relative conclusion. One suspects that most Muslims of the golden age were more like their contemporaneous European Christian counterparts than not. Golden age Islamic learning and culture, like contemporary European culture, were restricted to a learned minority and were scarcely universal. Also one would suspect that Islamic tolerance to religious minority groups such as the Jews and Coptic Christians was as dicey in the Golden Age as it is today. Still the Islamic society of the Iberian Peninsula had an enviable reputation for tolerance and certainly provided Western Europe with some of the intellectual horse power it needed to move into the high middle ages. Yet other influences also helped propel Europe into the pre-renaissance period. The reign of Charlemagne provided the stability needed to reinvigorate Western European learning and scholarship and by the late 10th Century Byzantine (East Roman) culture began again influencing Europe.
The great Belgian historian Henri Pirenne in 1937 wrote what even today is a brilliant book, "Mohammed and Charlemagne" (Amazon.com). In it he argued that the Muslim expansion and subsequent control of the Mediterranean Sea (7th Century) finally and completely brought an end to the commerce which kept at least the vestiges of the Roman commercial system alive in Europe long after the implosion of the Western Empire. In describing the Muslim influence on European development this is still the better book.
 Great bits of fact lost in a sea of bad conclusions and revisionism January 30, 2008
Michael Hanson (Lansing, Il United States)
41 out of 72 found this review helpful
The Battle of Tours in 732 was a pivotal moment in world history. Historians like Gibbon consider it a seminal moment in Western Civilization. Had Charles Martel's outnumbered Franks lost that battle, we all might be turning towards Mecca every day for our daily prayers, but they defeated Al Ghafiqi's forces and halted the first of several waves of invasion of Western Europe from the Islamic world. Lewis however, thinks this was a less than ideal outcome, claiming that Europe and indeed the entire world would have been better off had the Muslim armies conquered Europe.
During the Dark Ages, Europe was excessively tribal, violent, mired in poverty, economically backwards and generally uncivilized by any definition of the term. The Islamic world during this same period was the center of the enlightenment, economically robust, scientifically advanced and unified under a common banner of Islam. Lewis, unlike many of his contemporaries, does not hide or obscure the more inconvenient truths about the Muslim who invaded the Iberian peninsula. He writes at some length about the Muslims wars of conquest, their use of slavery, and the treatment of Christians and Jews as second class citizens. Despite his acknowledgement of this he seems to be under the impression that the Islamic rule of Spain was "tolerant" and had this rule spread to Western Europe the Golden Age of Islamic society would have ended the above mentioned deficiencies in European society.
Its almost a reverse of the "White Man's Burden" where the black and brown people of Africa and the Middle East civilize the savages of Western Europe.
But we know how things played out. Western Civilization entered its golden age around the time that Isabella had managed to expel the Muslims from Spain and the Islamic world began its long, slow and painful decline. While Mongol armies stormed the Middle east, and fanatical tribalism once again crept into the Islamic world, the West was developing the seeds of the Renaissance, Scientific Theory, the widespread use of moveable type, representative democracy, abolition of slavery, capitalism and universal suffrage.
True, we don't know where we would be today if Islam conquered Europe, but a quick look at the Middle East today is a clue.
The Glory of Al-Andalus March 9, 2008
Izaak VanGaalen (San Francisco, CA USA)
34 out of 38 found this review helpful
The subtitle of this work indicates that this is a history of Islamic influence on Europe from the birth of Muhammad in 510 to the Pope Innocent III's 1215 decree that all Muslims should be expelled from Iberia. That it does in a rough outline; the main focus of this story, however, is about Arab civilization on the Iberian Peninsula -know as Al-Andalus - from 711, when Arab armies intially crossed the Strait of Gibralter, to 788, with the death of Abd al-Rahman - who is in fact the main character of this narrative.
Students of the Middle Ages know this period as the golden age, a period of relative enlightenment in a long stretch of darkness. David Levering Lewis chronicles the achievements of this period. Jews, Christians, and Muslims lived in functional harmony known as "convivencia." It was a time of robust commerce and open-minded inquiry. Averroes (Ibn Rushd) wrote his works on Aristotle and Moses Maimonides his "Guide For the Perplexed." (Read also Aristotle's Children: How Christians, Muslims, and Jews Rediscovered Ancient Wisdom and Illuminated the Middle Ages by Richard Rubenstein.) This was in fact the gateway through which the classics of Ancient Greece and Rome entered Europe. Lewis takes this a step further and makes the claim that Europe would have been well served if the Muslims had conquered the entire continent. He argues that this would have given Europe a 300 hundred year headstart on the path of development.
Such claims of course are pointless unless one has an agenda, and apparently Lewis does. The point he's trying to make is that Western historians have misrepresented Islam. Taking a page from Edward Said's playbook countering Western orientalism, Lewis argues that Islam was superior to Western culture. This view naturally will not be very popular with Western audiences. It may have been true for a brief period during the Middle Ages, but it certainly hasn't been true in the modern period. Islam, as well as Christianity and other religions, went through periods of tolerance and intolerance, depending on historical circumstances. It is not by nature tolerant or intolerant. The Koran, which is a collection of writings, speaks both ways on the subject.
And when one looks more closely at the so-called golden age, we see a variety of ethnic and religious groups forced to live together, not by choice but of necessity. Jews and Christians lived more restricted lives than Muslims. They were forced to pay taxes. The only way to avoid taxation was to convert to Islam - which many did. In 732, with the tax base shrinking, the Arabs decided to cross the Pyrenees to increase their revenues. They were stopped, however, at Poitiers by Charles Martel and his ragtag band of warriors. The Arab defeat was due not so much to the superiority of the Franks but rather to the discord within Arab ranks. The Arab march into Europe had come to an end and the golden age with it.
Lewis never misses an opportunity to extol Muslim civilization and to denigrate the European. Europeans were always ignorant, rude, unwashed, violent, and they lived in makeshift settlements and encampments. Although Charlemagne was a brief bright spot in the narrative, things went into futher decline for Europe with the Viking invasions of the 9th century.
Lewis' attempt to show that Islam was a religion of tolerance and prosperity in the Middle Ages was correct as far as that period was concerned. He is not convincing when he claims that it is by nature tolerant, for it was and is many things to many people. What it becomes in the 21st century is still an open book.
The Perils of Extremism February 16, 2008
William J. Bowers (Beaufort, SC)
19 out of 23 found this review helpful
"God's Crucible" is Pulitzer-Prize winning scholar David Levering Lewis's contribution to the ever-growing body of literature that seeks a better understanding of Islam and the roots of its long and complicated struggle with the west. Unlike other scholars of Islamic and Middle Eastern history who have dashed off books in the wake of September 11 -- Bernard Lewis (whom the author consulted) and Michael Oren are among the best known -- Levering Lewis's prior books have focused on Martin Luther King Jr, W.E.B. DuBois, and the leaders of the Harlem Renaissance. This gave Lewis a fresh perspective in writing "God's Crucible" as he was not burdened by what he might have written in earlier books. Still, it is clear that Lewis himself did not really know where his research would take him, what his main points would be, or even what to call this book before he started (a friend, Sandra Masur, suggested the eventual title, "God's Crucible"). With that said, this is a useful and thoughtful book.
"God's Crucible" refers to al-Andalus, or Muslim Spain, as the site of the first clash of civilizations between Islam and the Christian west. Lewis's "God's Crucible" emphasizes three major themes: (1) the rise of Islam was enabled by perpetual conflict between the Roman Empire and the Iranian Empires (Parthian, Sassanian, Persian); (2) Islam and its Caliphates almost immediately were infected by the inevitable power struggles that plague all such institutions, and even in the so-called glory-days of the first Caliphate, Islam was not monolithic; and finally (3) coexistence between Islam and Christianity in al-Andalus (if not entirely peaceful) engendered the transmission of knowledge and ancient texts from the more-advanced civilization of the caliphs in the east to the backward, medieval Christians of Europe.
The first theme is that the centuries-old imperial struggle between Latin Rome and Persian Iran created the conditions for the disunited Arab tribes living in the deserts of Arabia to unite, found a new religion, and create a greater Islamic Empire. This "Caliphate" subsequently encompassed Arabia, all of modern Iran, and stretched west across North Africa to the pillars of Hercules and north into Europe up to the Pyrenees. Perpetual conflict arguably began in 53 BC when Marcus Crassus infamously brought an invasion force across the Euphrates River Valley. Crassus's expedition met with disaster at Carrhae, resulting in his own destruction and that of seven legions. The Roman Emperors never entirely lost their thirst for expansion into the east however, and Emperors such as Trajan, Severus, Justinian, Constantine, and Heraclius would all bring armies into the fertile crescent in an effort to subdue this troublesome region. This perpetual warfare fatally weakened both the Roman and Persian Empires to the point that although Khosrow II of Persia had thought he won a decisive victory in Jerusalem in 615 AD by bringing back the relics of the Holy Cross, his victory was largely Pyrrhic. A new force led by Muhammad was emerging from the barren sands of Arabia.
Muhammad was born in Mecca, a small town on a popular Roman trade route, in 570 AD. In the month of Ramadan in the year 610, the 40-year old Muhammad began to hear messages from God that he spread to others through his teachings. By the time he died in 632 AD, Muhammad had united all of the tribes of Arabia into a powerful military force that rapidly expanded into the vacuum left by the militarily exhausted Roman and Persian Empires. Riddled with internal decay, the Persian Empire was soon swept away by Islamic forces while these same forces concurrently spread like wildfire across formerly Roman North Africa and into Spain. By 711 AD, Islamic Armies had advanced into and established a firm foothold in Spain, or al-Andalus. But this newly created Islamic Empire was hardly united.
Lewis's second theme is that Islam itself was never monolithic, and that while the caliphs did not distinguish between church and state, both church and state suffered major cleavages early in the first Caliphate. Almost immediately after Muhammad's death, conflict arose over who his legitimate successors should be. One faction argued that it should be Muhammad's familial descendants, who became the Shi'ites, while another faction thought the community of the faithful should choose their own rulers to follow Muhammad, who became the Sunnis. These factions remain locked in perpetual conflict to this day. On the state side, the Umayyad caliphs ruled from 711-750, but suffered defeat at Poitiers (in southern France) in 732. While not catastrophic, this defeat weakened the Umayyads at a time when they were also plagued with rebellion from the North African Berbers. The Abbasids eventually took advantage of this Umayyad weakness and overthrew the caliphate, establishing their own in 750 and moving its capitol from Damascus to Baghdad. But this story gets more complicated. An incredible 19-year-old Umayyad named Abd al-Rahman I escaped from certain death in North Africa into al-Andalus, eventually establishing a power base there that enabled him to rule for 25 years. Nicknamed "The Falcon" for his cunning, and with survival being the mother of all necessity, Rahman I cooperated with Christians to defeat Abassid armies dispatched to bring him to heal. With these dynamics at play, the conditions were created in al-Andalus for Islamic and Christian coexistence in "God's Crucible."
This brings us to Lewis's third theme: that important knowledge from the center of Islamic civilization in Baghdad made its way across North Africa, onto the "conveyor belt" of Toledo, and into Christian Europe. Lewis argues that this knowledge provided critical building blocks for the Renaissance and western awakening centuries later. He also seems to lament how the Christian response to jihad, which became officially sanctioned Holy War, gradually erased the "middle ground" that had existed in al-Andalus that allowed the transmutation of such valuable knowledge. al-Andalus deteriorated into extremism on both sides. In this lament, he seems to be speaking directly to the modern world of the dangers and lasting harm caused by extremism.
In conclusion, this is a useful and thoughtful book that sheds much-needed light on a period of history that is rarely examined or understood. The book contains abundant maps, a glossary of terms, and a genealogy of both Muslim and Christian rulers. Still, I would hesitate to recommend this book to everyone as it often wanders a field, is dense with difficult names and places, and reads as if it were written for an academic rather than a general audience. Lewis himself says that this project started out as a small book that became a large one, and the reader is left to wonder if the abundance of Lewis's research and the complexity of his subject caused him to write a book that surpasses the reach of those he likely intended it for. In a larger scope though, "God's Crucible" is an important contribution to understanding Islam's long struggle with the Christian west, which is a topic that will remain with all of us for some time.
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