AMERICAN THINKER: As the renowned and pioneering historian Bernard Lewis noted over 20 years ago in The Roots of Muslim Rage, "the classical Islamic view, to which many Muslims are beginning to return, [is that] the world and all mankind are divided into two: the House of Islam, where the Muslim law and faith prevail, and the rest, known as the House of Unbelief or the House of War, which it is the duty of Muslims ultimately to bring to Islam."
After the events of 9/11, Professor Lewis, in The Crisis of Islam: Holy War and Unholy Terror, also noted that much of the animosity directed toward the West, particularly the United States, is due to old-fashioned envy -- stemming from Western progress and Islamic decline. As one reviewer put it, the crux of Lewis's argument is that "the sources of rage among Muslims stem from the deep frustration over the loss of a cultural primacy that was once theirs and has now been lost to the forces of modernity, especially as represented by the United States." » | Trevor Thomas | Sunday, October 07, 2012
