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[G]enerally speaking, Muslim tolerance of unbelievers was far better than anything available in Christendom, until the rise of secularism in the 17th century.

— Bernard Lewis Islam: The Religion and the People (2008)

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More quotes by Bernard Lewis

The surest test of one's understanding of a text in another language is translating it into one's own.

The emergence of the new monarchies, in which one man could determine the politics and religion of the state, made assassination an effective as well as an acceptable weapon.

The overwhelming majority of classical theologians, jurists, and traditionalists [i.e., specialists in the hadith] . . . understood the obligation of jihad in a military sense.

In most Muslim countries Islam is still the ultimate criterion of group identity and loyalty. It is Islam which distinguishes between self and other, between insider and outsider, between brother and stranger.

[T]ruth is in its usual place, somewhere in the middle between the extremes.

The New Antisemitism (2006)

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Bernard Lewis (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.