God’s Crucible: Islam and the Making of Europe, 570-1215

By David Levering Lewis

(W.W. Norton, 2008)

God’s Crucible: Islam and the Making of Europe, 570-1215, by David Levering Lewis, a University Professor at NYU, recounts the impact of Islam on Europe. Using Arabic sources rarely employed by European and American scholars, Lewis illustrates the movement and evolution of Islam through history. He begins with its initial rise in the 6th and 7th centuries from the ruins of the conflict between the empires of newly Christianized Rome and Persian Iran. Lewis also presents the mainstays to the Muslim religion, including the life of the messenger and prophet Muhammad, the violent struggle for the holy sites Mecca and Medina, the controversy of the first four caliphs (successors to Muhammad), the writing of the Koran, and the separation of the Shiite and Sunni denominations.

      In the second part of the book, Lewis, who won Pulitzer Prizes for both volumes of his biography of W.E.B. DuBois, turns to the European reaction to the rise of Islam, launched by the defeat of the Muslims in 732 at Poitiers, which is in present-day France. These centuries of struggle contribute greatly to Islam’s status as a rather marginalized religion today, Lewis contends.

      “Lewis has made an important contribution to the growing body of literature on Muslim-Christian relations that has emerged after 9/11,” concludes the Washington Post.