Notes on a Century: Reflections of A Middle East Historian

by Bernard Lewis

  During my brief interlude as a law student, in what is becoming an increasingly remote past, I remember learning two new words, which I had never seen before, and which, for that matter, I have not seen since. The two words are “barratry” and “champerty,” both denoting legal wrongdoing—that is, actions for which a lawyer, under English law at that time, could be disbarred. “Barratry” means wasting the time of the courts with frivolous litigation. “Champerty” means undertaking a lawsuit on the understanding that if one lost there would be no fee, but in the event of a successful outcome the lawyer would get an agreed percentage of the money paid to his client by the defeated opponent. This was regarded as highly unprofessional and could result in disbarment. I was therefore more than a little surprised to find that this is a common legal practice in the United States, and is moreover actively promoted by advertising, another professional offense under the British code.

  I have been told that champerty, though not by that name, is now acceptable legal practice in Britain. Some of the legal cases I read reminded me of an episode in my early life when I might have profited from champerty. While I was still living in England my doctor diagnosed a polyp on my larynx and sent me to a specialist to have it removed. The specialist said it was a simple matter. He seated me in his chair, gave me an anesthetic and set to work. When I recovered consciousness sometime later, I found that my mouth was badly battered and several of my front teeth were broken. Needless to say, I was in considerable pain. This grew worse when the surgeon informed me that he had been unable to reach the polyp. It was still there, and still needed to be removed.

  The swellings and sores in my mouth in due course disappeared, but the broken teeth were a more difficult matter and required extensive and expensive dentistry. It occurred to me that it might not be unreasonable to ask the surgeon to pay my dentist’s bill. I wrote to the surgeon accordingly, and he refused. I consulted a lawyer who sent the dentist a letter. He promptly agreed to pay. It never occurred to me then, nor to my lawyer, to ask for anything beyond the payment of that bill. Living in the United States, I realize that had this happened here, I might have become a millionaire.

  An Apprenticeship in Paris

  In 1936 I took my B.A. (Honours) final examination in history with more than a hundred others. When the list of graduates was published, I not only had First Class Honours, but I was the first among the small number who had First Class Honours out of all the branches of history. My father was stunned. He had been worried about my studies and was convinced I’d do poorly as he thought I had been spending too much time with my girlfriend. Getting that “first” was a delicious moment. Being the first of firsts earned me a prize of 100 pounds, which in 1936 was a considerable sum. The one condition attached to the prize was that I continue with postgraduate studies. I was delighted to do so.

  At the time when I was just beginning to do graduate studies I was interested, as were many young people, in radical opposition movements, and the Isma‘ilis were the most important radical opposition movement in medieval Islam. This is the sectarian Muslim group of which the present head, by hereditary succession, is the Aga Khan. This was in the 1930s, and like everybody else at that or any other time, I was influenced by what was going on—the French Popular Front, the Spanish Civil War, the rise of Nazism in Germany. One tends to read the past in terms of the present. While I think it is perfectly legitimate to put to the past questions arising from the present, I think one should be cautious in reading answers from the past into the present.

  I told Gibb that I wanted to study the Isma‘ilis and he said that he didn’t feel qualified to supervise a thesis on that subject. Looking back, I realize I should have been grateful to him because it’s not all that usual for professors to say, I don’t feel qualified to do this, you’d be better off doing it somewhere else. Gibb did, and suggested I go to Paris and work with Louis Massignon, the great French scholar. Both Gibb and Massignon were Orientalists in the classical sense of that term; that is to say their interests were linguistic, literary, cultural and religious. Both wrote history, but only incidentally, and neither really saw himself as a historian.

  I was twenty years old and the idea of going to Paris was very attractive. Paris had much to offer besides Massignon. Gibb wrote to Massignon and he also wrote to an extraordinarily brilliant man, Paul Kraus. Unfortunately Kraus had left Paris and was in Cairo. Gibb had a very high regard for Kraus, and I believe he was at least as eager for me to see and consult Kraus as for me to see Massignon. But Massignon had got Kraus a job in Cairo so I didn’t see him then.

  I did meet Paul Kraus a year or two later in Cairo where he had taken up what I can only call a rather vague appointment. By that I do not mean to imply anything sinister, only that the appointment was limited in both status and remuneration. I developed a close association with him which I found extremely rewarding. He was a superb scholar with a meticulous, detailed philological accuracy equal to that of the most extreme pedants in our profession, combined with a historian’s vision of a civilization and its many different aspects. The association was profoundly illuminating and I remain indebted to him. Later, during the war, I was appalled to learn that he had committed suicide. The circumstances and the reasons remain obscure. What a waste!

  I spent the academic year 1936–37 in France, working with Massignon and taking courses at various academic institutions.

  Louis Massignon was a very distinguished figure, a famous scholar in his day, but also a rather controversial figure. His special field was religious and sectarian history in the Islamic world. He was a moody man and reacted to me in different ways on different days. He had two prejudices against me based on two aspects of my identity; sometimes I was not quite sure what my offense was: was it crucifying Jesus (as a Jew) or burning Joan of Arc (as an Englishman)? He was certainly an effective teacher when he lectured, but my one-on-one sessions with him deteriorated as the year went on. After I left France we maintained occasional contact. As a courtesy I sent him copies of my publications and on one occasion he came to London to give a lecture and I did the honors hosting him.

  One of the courses I took was given by Marcel Mauss, one of the great names in the field of sociology. I didn’t know then that he was a great name and it wasn’t until years later when I remarked that I’d take a course with him and saw the reaction of my sociologist colleagues that I understood.

  My French improved dramatically of course, and it now became possible for me to begin my study of Persian and Turkish—in French.

  One of my favorite teachers in Paris was Adnan Bey, a Turk. He was the husband of the more famous Halide Edib, modern Turkey’s first major female writer. He was a very kind man, a superb teacher, and we got on very well indeed. Adnan Bey had played a prominent role in the Turkish Revolution, but then he and his wife fell out of favor with Atatürk and went into exile. Like other Turks at the time they had no surname, and as they were living in exile, they were not obliged to adopt surnames at the time when the surname law was enacted in Turkey. In the West he was known as Adnan Bey. “Bey” is a title equivalent to “Mister” but in Turkish usage it follows, rather than precedes, the name. When they returned to Turkey they were obliged to adopt a surname and Adnan adopted the name Adivar, which means “He has a name.”

  While in Paris I had the opportunity to meet the great Hebrew poet Zalman Schneur, who was living there. We spoke in a mixture of French and Hebrew. At some point he asked if I were reading and translating any other Hebrew poets. I said, “Yes,” and mentioned those whose works I had translated, notably Bialik and Tchernikhovsky. I also mentioned another poet, whose name brought a snort of indignation from Schneur. “You don’t like his work?” I asked. He replied with a couple of words I didn’t understand and which he wouldn’t explain. I did, however, memorize them, and was later able to ascertain their meaning. He had, in fact, described this other poet’s verses as “goat turds.”

  I attended a seminar in the medieval econom
ic history of Europe with Emile Coornaert, and that was very good for me—and also rather unfortunate in that it led to the publication of my first paper, one of which I am not particularly proud. It was on the Islamic guilds. Coornaert was giving a seminar on the guilds in medieval France, at a time when I had become interested in the Islamic guilds because of the Isma‘ili connection—or rather, I should say, because of the alleged Isma‘ili connection; the whole thing is very dubious. I went to Coornaert’s seminar, and when you go to a seminar you have to pay for your seat by doing a paper. Professor Coornaert indicated that he expected a paper from me, and he suggested that I do a paper on the Islamic guilds.

  I did the paper and he got quite excited. He said, “You know, there’s absolutely nothing available on the Islamic guilds and from a comparative point of view it’s very useful to have it; why don’t you publish this paper?” Imagine being twenty years old, a student, and a professor tells you, “Why don’t you publish this paper?” When I managed to come down from the stratosphere, I wrote to Gibb and asked him about the possibilities. Gibb asked me to send him the paper and promised to look into it. I sent him my paper, which was in French of course, and he replied that he had given the paper to Eileen Power, who was at that time the great authority on medieval economic history in England. He said that she was willing to publish it in a journal, The Economic History Review, which she edited, provided I simplify it a little and cut out the more technical stuff and the more arcane references. I translated my paper and tidied it up a bit and then she cut it down a bit and published it. I was in seventh heaven.

  But it is a poor article. I was unduly influenced by Massignon, a man of magnetic personality with much charisma. He had many ideas and he could be very persuasive. As the years went by I discarded those ideas one by one, but I was much affected, indeed dominated, by them at the time.

  Like other undergraduate Orientalists, I soon became aware that the reading lists provided by the teachers of the various courses I attended included books and articles in French and German, and sometimes also in other languages, and that I was expected to read and understand these. French and German were no problem; I had studied both at high school and had traveled in both French- and German-speaking countries with my parents. My father’s operatic interest had enabled me to add Italian, and that brought a rudimentary reading knowledge of Spanish as a freebie.

  But there was one other big and important unknown, and that was Russian. At an early stage I came to realize that Russian Orientalists had made a significant contribution to almost every aspect of scholarship on the Islamic world. Sometimes they were kind enough to write in a Western European language; sometimes excerpts or summaries of their work were available in translation. But the most important body of material remained accessible only in the original Russian. Clearly I would have to deal with this problem sooner or later, and set to work to learn this additional language.

  My first serious attempt came when I was a graduate student in Paris and I signed on for a course in Russian, which I attended for a brief time. Unfortunately, that time did not last. A change in the schedule brought the Russian course into collision with a Turkish course, and the latter was more important from my point of view. I did however continue my study of Russian, and reached the point where I was able to read Russian texts with blood, sweat and a dictionary. As was my wont, I even tried my hand at translating the great Russian poet Pushkin into English. More seriously, I began to look at Russian learned journals, conference reports and the like, and attempted to read some books.

  In the course of my reading, I made an interesting discovery. Much of the discussion of Islam in the Soviet Union was directed, indeed orchestrated, by an organization called The Union of the Militant Godless. It was, of course, a branch of the Soviet government and its task was to conduct antireligious and more specifically atheist propaganda directed against the different peoples of the Soviet Union. The Union had departments concerned with the religions that had significant followings in the Soviet Union, first Christianity, then Islam. Judaism and other religions were relatively unimportant.

  My concern was of course with the Islamic, or rather anti-Islamic, literature, of which I was able to lay my hands on a fairly considerable quantity. Some of it was openly propagandist—tirades directed against the absurdity of religious beliefs, the falsity of religious writings and traditions, and the toxicity of both. Other publications took the form of scholarship—I repeat “form”—with source references, footnotes, etc. Both kinds gave central importance to attacks on the Prophet Muhammad—his mission, his impact, his authenticity, even his historicity. According to one presentation there never was any such person; he was a fabricated myth. This organization was very active in the late twenties and throughout the thirties and produced a considerable body of literature. Not surprisingly, it evoked no response or even criticism within the Soviet Union. That was to be expected. More remarkably, it appears to have evoked no response or even protest in the Islamic world, though Muslim scholars and politicians must have had some knowledge of what was going on.

  This is one example of the exemption accorded to the Soviets by those who were ever ready to denounce Western imperialism and its Orientalist ideologues. The same is true of Edward Said and his disciples, who had nothing to say on the devastating critiques in Soviet writings on Islam, or the ruthless Soviet repression of the Muslim peoples under their rule. This privileged, exempt status of the Soviets was revealed even more dramatically in 1979 when the Soviet government, in a clear and naked act of aggression, invaded and conquered Afghanistan.

  First Trip to the Middle East

  In 1937, after I returned from Paris, I had a conversation with Professor Gibb, who said, “You’ve now been studying the Middle East for four years; don’t you think it’s time you saw the place?” I said, “Yes, but . . .” and explained to him that because of the Depression and the generally impoverished state of everybody, including my family, I could no more afford to go to the Middle East than to the moon. He understood and said he thought something could be done about that. The next thing I heard was that I had been appointed to a Royal Asiatic Society traveling fellowship carrying the princely sum of 150 pounds sterling. It took me on my very first trip to the Middle East and enabled me to spend six months there.

  My first port of call was Egypt. Arriving in Alexandria, I felt rather like a Muslim bridegroom first seeing his bride, with whom he is to spend the rest of his life, after the wedding. In my three months in Egypt I took courses in Arabic at the American University in Cairo, acquired some colloquial Arabic and enrolled as an “auditor” in the Egyptian University of Cairo. I did what students usually do—attended lectures and meetings, read books and newspapers, talked—and listened. On one occasion I even joined, or rather observed, a student riot.

  At first communication was not easy. I had started to learn a couple of Middle Eastern languages, but I had never heard them spoken except, rarely, by fellow students. When I arrived in Egypt the only Arabic I knew was classical Arabic. Colloquial Arabic differs from classical Arabic as much as Italian differs from Latin. To this day, in every Arab country they have two languages, the written language and the spoken. The written language is the same all over the Arab world with very minor variations, but spoken Arabic differs as much as French, Spanish, Italian and Portuguese do. I learned to handle Egyptian Arabic fairly well. Then, when I went to Lebanon and Syria, everyone laughed. They found it most amusing to hear this foreigner speaking Egyptian dialect.

  While at the American University in Cairo I had the good fortune to become acquainted with Professor Arthur Jeffery, one of the leading Arabic scholars in the Western world in his time. Originally Australian, he spent some years in Cairo before moving on to a chair at Columbia University in New York.

  At one point during his stay in Cairo an incident occurred which caused him profound shock. He had always been interested in the Koran, and in particular had studied the earliest manuscripts
of the Koran. In these he found some minor variations in the text, not unlike those found in the earliest manuscripts of the Old and New Testaments. He therefore set to work and produced a study of these early variant readings.

  Arthur Jeffery’s book was entitled Materials for the History of the Text of the Qur’an: The Old Codices, 1937. To his horror, his study was immediately denounced and publicly burnt by order of the leading Muslim religious authorities at Al-Azhar Mosque and University. Professor Jeffery, always respectful of Islamic values, had previously had excellent relations with the people at Al-Azhar, and was the more startled and horrified by their reaction to his book. He pointed out that what he was doing was no different from what the most pious Christians and Jews do to the texts of the Old and New Testaments. To which they replied, “But that is different. The Koran is not like the Bible. The Koran is the word of God.” By this they were not merely casting doubt on the authenticity or accuracy of the Jewish and Christian scriptures. They were pointing to the profound difference between Muslim perceptions and Judeo-Christian perceptions of the very nature of scripture. For Christians and Jews, the Bible consists of a number of books, written at different times and in different places, divinely inspired, but mostly committed to writing by human beings. For Muslims, the Koran is one book, divine, eternal and uncreated. It is not simply divinely inspired; it is literally divine and to question it in any way is blasphemy.