Article Analysis: 'The Roots Of Muslim Rage'
The Roots of Muslim Rage
Part A: An overview of the article
1. Read the title and subtitle. What information do you expect to find in the article?
According to the title and subtitle I will expect to read about the reasons for the deep hate that Muslims feel about the West.
I assume that the author will explain how historical events created the fury of Muslims.
2. Who is the author? What is his profession? Where? How old is he?
Prof. Bernard Lewis was born in 1916. He is a British-American historian specializing in oriental studies. Lewis' expertise is in the history of Islam and its interaction with the West. Also, he is a professor at Princeton University.
Retrieved from: https://he.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D7%91%D7%A8%D7%A0%D7%A8%D7%93_%D7%9C%D7%95%D7%90%D7%99%D7%A1
3. Where was the article published? What type of …show more content…
publication is this?
The article was published in an American magazine that called: "The Atlantic" which covers political, economic, technology fields on global topics. The magazine is well known by its personal opinion columns and reviews.
4. When was the article published? Do you think it is still relevant today? Why?
September 1990. I think that now days it even more relevant than then, since the world is now facing a dramatic change and is threatened by radical extremists Muslims (ISIS).
5. Read the Introduction (pars. 1-8)) and highlight key sentences as you read. What are 4 or 5 of the most important sentences in the Introduction? Copy them here.
Islam is one of the world's great religions. But Islam, like other religions, has also known periods when it inspired in some of its followers a mood of hatred and violence
The Muslim world is far from unanimous in its rejection of the West, nor have the Muslim regions of the Third World been the most passionate and the most extreme in their hostility. There are still significant numbers, in some quarters perhaps a majority, of Muslims with whom we share certain basic cultural and moral, social and political, beliefs and aspirations; there is still an imposing Western presence—cultural, economic, diplomatic—in Muslim lands, some of which are Western allies.
Despite this monotheism, Islam, like Judaism and Christianity, was at various stages influenced, especially in Iran, by the dualist idea of a cosmic clash of good and evil, light and darkness, order and chaos, truth and falsehood, God and the Adversary, variously known as devil, Iblis, Satan, and by other names
6.
Read the ending (pars. 49-52). What heading would you suggest for these paragraphs?
Learning the "otherness of the other" is the key
7. Read paragraph 34. According to Lewis, what is truly unacceptable to Muslims and can explain their rage towards the West?
During the years the Muslim populations were ruled by non-Muslim governments and they didn’t enjoy from legal protection like other religions, which is unacceptable according to their judgment.
8. Read the last sentence in paragraph 39 and paragraphs 40 - 43. Highlight the main ideas and copy them here.
Fundamentalist leaders are not mistaken in seeing in Western civilization the greatest challenge to the way of life that they wish to retain or restore for their people.
At first the Muslim response to Western civilization was one of admiration and emulation—an immense respect for the achievements of the West, and a desire to imitate and adopt them. Several generations of reformers and modernizers tried to adapt these and introduce them to their own countries, in the hope that they would thereby be able to achieve equality with the West and perhaps restore their lost
superiority.
The introduction of Western commercial, financial, and industrial methods did indeed bring great wealth, but it accrued to transplanted Westerners and members of Westernized minorities, and to only a few among the mainstream Muslim population.
It is hardly surprising that so many were willing to listen to voices telling them that the old Islamic ways were best and that their only salvation was to throw aside the pagan innovations of the reformers and return to the True Path that God had prescribed for his people.
Part A: An overview of the article
1. Read the title and subtitle. What information do you expect to find in the article?
According to the title and subtitle I will expect to read about the reasons for the deep hate that Muslims feel about the West.
I assume that the author will explain how historical events created the fury of Muslims.
2. Who is the author? What is his profession? Where? How old is he?
Prof. Bernard Lewis was born in 1916. He is a British-American historian specializing in oriental studies. Lewis' expertise is in the history of Islam and its interaction with the West. Also, he is a professor at Princeton University.
Retrieved from: https://he.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D7%91%D7%A8%D7%A0%D7%A8%D7%93_%D7%9C%D7%95%D7%90%D7%99%D7%A1
3. Where was the article published? What type of …show more content…
publication is this?
The article was published in an American magazine that called: "The Atlantic" which covers political, economic, technology fields on global topics. The magazine is well known by its personal opinion columns and reviews.
4. When was the article published? Do you think it is still relevant today? Why?
September 1990. I think that now days it even more relevant than then, since the world is now facing a dramatic change and is threatened by radical extremists Muslims (ISIS).
5. Read the Introduction (pars. 1-8)) and highlight key sentences as you read. What are 4 or 5 of the most important sentences in the Introduction? Copy them here.
Islam is one of the world's great religions. But Islam, like other religions, has also known periods when it inspired in some of its followers a mood of hatred and violence
The Muslim world is far from unanimous in its rejection of the West, nor have the Muslim regions of the Third World been the most passionate and the most extreme in their hostility. There are still significant numbers, in some quarters perhaps a majority, of Muslims with whom we share certain basic cultural and moral, social and political, beliefs and aspirations; there is still an imposing Western presence—cultural, economic, diplomatic—in Muslim lands, some of which are Western allies.
Despite this monotheism, Islam, like Judaism and Christianity, was at various stages influenced, especially in Iran, by the dualist idea of a cosmic clash of good and evil, light and darkness, order and chaos, truth and falsehood, God and the Adversary, variously known as devil, Iblis, Satan, and by other names
6.
Read the ending (pars. 49-52). What heading would you suggest for these paragraphs?
Learning the "otherness of the other" is the key
7. Read paragraph 34. According to Lewis, what is truly unacceptable to Muslims and can explain their rage towards the West?
During the years the Muslim populations were ruled by non-Muslim governments and they didn’t enjoy from legal protection like other religions, which is unacceptable according to their judgment.
8. Read the last sentence in paragraph 39 and paragraphs 40 - 43. Highlight the main ideas and copy them here.
Fundamentalist leaders are not mistaken in seeing in Western civilization the greatest challenge to the way of life that they wish to retain or restore for their people.
At first the Muslim response to Western civilization was one of admiration and emulation—an immense respect for the achievements of the West, and a desire to imitate and adopt them. Several generations of reformers and modernizers tried to adapt these and introduce them to their own countries, in the hope that they would thereby be able to achieve equality with the West and perhaps restore their lost
superiority.
The introduction of Western commercial, financial, and industrial methods did indeed bring great wealth, but it accrued to transplanted Westerners and members of Westernized minorities, and to only a few among the mainstream Muslim population.
It is hardly surprising that so many were willing to listen to voices telling them that the old Islamic ways were best and that their only salvation was to throw aside the pagan innovations of the reformers and return to the True Path that God had prescribed for his people.