Bernard Lewis in his book Islam in History sets out to correct the record on the role of Islam through history and on the nature of Islam today. That record has been shaped by scholars, writers, leaders, and travelers who have looked at Islam from a Western point of view that may not present a full or accurate picture. Lewis writes a different account of Islam by going back to original sources and by looking at the role of Islam in history from a more objective point of view. In part, he writes a historiography and analyzes some of the ways Islamic history has been presented, but at the same time he offers his own analysis of Islamic history and of the forces that have led to the current conflicts in that part of the world.
He begins by noting how many of the outward manifestations of Islam were changed in the Muslim countries in the nineteenth century as the "forms, language, and to some extent even the structures of public life" (3) were given a Western appearance and so a secular appearance. One result has been that the West has viewed Islam through a distorted lens based on European and American terms and categories. Lewis finds that this has affected and distorted how Westerners view Islam. He also finds that scholarship has been one source of information but that it is only as good as the translation and understanding of Islamic texts. Another source of information for the Westerner has been accounts by travelers who have journeyed through the countries of the Middle East, and such travelers have come from a wide variety of backgrounds, from diplomats and spies to artists and scholars, many of whom have reported on their journey in writings and by other means and so disseminated their views and observations. The fact that a number of Middle Eastern countries were colonies of European nations had an effect on those regions and also on how the West perceived Islam.
Lewis gives particular attention to the economic hi...