Comparative Civilizations Review Volume 13 Number 13 As Others See Us: Mutual Article 2 Perceptions, East and West 1-1-1985 Muslim Perceptions of the West Bernard Lewis Princeton University Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/ccr Recommended Citation Lewis, Bernard (1985) "Muslim Perceptions of the West," Comparative Civilizations Review: Vol. 13 : No. 13 , Article 2. Available at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/ccr/vol13/iss13/2 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Journals at BYU ScholarsArchive. It has been accepted for inclusion in Comparative Civilizations Review by an authorized editor of BYU ScholarsArchive. For more information, please contact
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[email protected]. Lewis: Muslim Perceptions of the West Muslim Perceptions of the West Bernard Lewis Between the two terms of this title, there is an obvious asymmetry. The perceiver is defined as a member of religion; the perceived as a compass point, representing a civilization. The inconsistency however is more apparent than real, since each is defined in its own terms. "West" is a Western term, and is the modern way of denoting part or all of the cultural entity which had previously been defined, at different times, as Europe or Christendom. "Muslim" denotes the still predominant self-identification of most of the peoples who profess Islam. Until the 19th century Muslim writers on history and geography knew little or nothing of the names which Greeks, and later Europeans, had given to the continents. Asia was unknown; an ill-defined Europe—spelled Urufa—receives no more than a passing mention, while Africa, Arabized into Ifriqia, appears only as the name of the eastern Maghrib, consisting of Tunisia and the adjoining areas.