What Went Wrong? W hat W ent W rong? Western Impact and Middle Eastern Response Bernard Lewis 2002 Oxford New York Athens Auckland Bangkok Bogotá Buenos Aires Cape Town Chennai Dar es Salaam Delhi Florence Hong Kong Istanbul Karachi Kolkata Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Mumbai Nairobi Paris São Paulo Shanghai Singapore Taipei Tokyo Toronto Warsaw and associated companies in Berlin Ibadan Copyright © 2002 by Bernard Lewis Published by Oxford University Press, Inc. 198 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016 Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of Oxford University Press. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Lewis, Bernard. What went wrong? : western impact and Middle Eastern response / Bernard Lewis. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-19-514420-1 1. Middle East—History—1517- I. Title. DS62.4 .L488 2000 956´.015—dc21 2001036214 Printing (last digit): 1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper Preface vii Introduction 3 Chapter 1 The Lessons of the Battlefield 18 Chapter 2 The Quest for Wealth and Power 35 Chapter 3 Social and Cultural Barriers 64 Chapter 4 Modernization and Social Equality 82 Chapter 5 Secularism and the Civil Society 96 Chapter 6 Time, Space, and Modernity 117 Chapter 7 Aspects of Cultural Change 133 Conclusion 151 Afterword 161 Notes 163 Index 173 Contents Preface This book was already in page proof when the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington took place on September 11, 2001. It does not therefore deal with them, nor with their immediate causes and after-effects. It is however related to these attacks, examining not what happened and what followed, but what went before—the larger sequence and larger pattern of events, ideas, and attitudes that pre- ceded and in some measure produced them. B.L. Princeton, N.J. October 15, 2001 What Went Wrong? WHAT WENT WRONG? 2 [...]... carracks and galleons, built for the Atlantic, and therefore bigger, heavier, better armed, and more maneuverable The impact of the new open ocean route between Europe and Asia on the transit commerce of the Middle East was less than was at one time thought Throughout the sixteenth century, the Middle Eastern transit trade in spices and other commodities between South and Southeast Asia on the one hand and. .. remained In the seventeenth century, there was still Turkish pashas ruling in Budapest and Belgrade, and Barbary Corsairs from North Africa were raiding the coasts of England and Ireland and even, 11 WHAT WENT WRONG? in 1627, Iceland, bringing back human booty for sale in the slavemarkets of Algiers In the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries Persia once again became a factor of importance in... former suppliers The growing European presence in South and Southeast Asia accelerated and expanded this process, and old-established handicrafts faced the double challenge of Asian cheap labor and European commercial skills The Western trading company, helped by its business-minded government, represented 15 WHAT WENT WRONG? a new force in the Middle East Here again an occasional voice expressed some... embassies in Istanbul, those of Britain and of the Netherlands The Ottomans at first were unwilling to accept what they regarded as Christian interference, but they soon learned to recognize and make use of such help The Western maritime and commercial states had no interest in the consolidation and extension of Austrian power and influence in Central and Eastern Europe, and thought it would be more to their... unaware of Western skills in weaponry and warfare The initial successes of the Crusaders in the Levant impressed upon Muslim war departments that in some areas at least Western arms were superior, and the inference was quickly drawn and applied Western prisoners 12 INTRODUCTION of war were set to work building fortifications; Western mercenaries and adventurers were employed, and a traffic in arms and other... be some delay before 7 WHAT WENT WRONG? the lesson is understood and applied In Christendom the final defeat of the Moors in Spain in 1492 and the liberation of Russia from the rule of the Islamized Tatars were understandably seen as decisive victories Like the Spaniards and Portuguese, the Russians too pursued their former masters into their homelands, but with far greater and more enduring success... both the civilian and the military services of the state, and proposed reforms to deal with them.6 The basic fault, according to most of these memoranda, was falling away from the good old ways, Islamic and Ottoman; the basic remedy was a return to them This diagnosis and prescription still command wide acceptance in the Middle East But these memoranda were relatively calm in tone and primarily domestic... Islam, in search of merchandise or knowledge The lands and peoples beyond the northwestern frontier of Islam had little to offer of either, and such travel was in fact actively discouraged by the doctors of the Holy Law Western captives in the East who escaped or were ransomed and returned home produced a considerable literature telling of their adventures, of the lands they had seen and the people they... the very same time, were invading Europe and Africa, India and China It was the foremost economic power in the world, trading in a wide range of commodities through a far-flung network of commerce and communications in Asia, Europe, and Africa; importing slaves and gold from Africa, slaves and wool from Europe, and exchanging a variety of foodstuffs, materials, and manufactures with the civilized countries... Ottoman state to the time of the Crusades What was new was for the Ottomans to seek European help in training and equipping their forces, and to form alliances with European powers against other European powers 19 WHAT WENT WRONG? In the first half of the eighteenth century, the struggle was indecisive, and even brought some gains for the Ottomans In 1710 and 1711 they won a significant victory over . Data Lewis, Bernard. What went wrong? : western impact and Middle Eastern response / Bernard Lewis. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-19-514420-1 1. Middle East—History—1517-. What Went Wrong? W hat W ent W rong? Western Impact and Middle Eastern Response Bernard Lewis 2002 Oxford New York Athens Auckland Bangkok Bogotá Buenos Aires Cape. N.J. October 15, 2001 What Went Wrong? WHAT WENT WRONG? 2 INTRODUCTION 3 Introduction What went wrong? For a long time people in the Islamic world, es- pecially but not exclusively in the Middle East,