This gentleman is known in much of the Islamic and Arabic worlds as an anti-Muslim and anti-Arab Zionist. I don't share that view. I wish all Zionist and enemies were as fair as he is. I accept and respect his criticisms of our world but l don't necessarily always agree with him. I respect the possibility of him promoting western, USA and Israel's interests as I equally promote my country's, Arabic and Islamic world's interests. I call on the Islamic and the Arabic worlds to accept his criticism.

Accepting criticism and being self-critical is a key to success, development and civilization .

Bernard Lewis, born 31 May 1916, is a British American historian specializing in oriental studies.

Lewis' expertise is in the history of Islam and the interaction between Islam and the West.

He is also noted in academic circles for his works on the history of the Ottoman Empire.

Question 1: Is Europe and Christians indeed in 10 to 20 years becoming ‘Themy’, slaves or second-class Citizens, to Muslims who are growing? Is Europe heading toward a ‘Themy’ state where they serve Muslims as Muslims indicate they always wanted to treat Jews?

Bernard Lewis Responds: ‘Themy’ is usually translated as second-class citizens. In our modern scale of values, talking about a second-class citizen is a condemnation. But if one looks at the earlier history of much of the world, you get a different picture. Second-class citizenship is much better than no citizenship at all.

In the Islamic State, the Muslims were the first-class citizens and the non-Muslims (primarily Christians and Jews) were the second-class citizens. But that meant that they had a recognized status, they had rights and they had a large measure of control of their own affairs. They controlled their own education, their own schools and colleges. They had their own law courts administering their own law and so on and so on.

I mean, the position of a ‘Themy’, that basically is an Othman Term, was a second-class citizenship compared to position of Muslims but it was vastly better than anything that was available to non-Christians or deviant Christians in the Christian world at that time. The obvious evidence of that was the movement of refugees for many centuries from Christendom to Islam and not the other way around.

What they (Muslims) are saying now in Europe is not that they want to reduce the Christians to ‘Themis’ but they want the same rights and privileges that they as Muslims gave to Christians and Jews in the traditional Muslim states. We let you administer your laws, enforce them in your own courts and you should allow us to do the same. The face of it seems not an unreasonable aspiration, there are of course many practical difficulties.

“Radical Islam, Israel and West”

Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

YouTube, minutes 32:17 to 35:12.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7KePJz28_GY