The Islamic community and the West - Part 1

The Ottoman history was generally neglected until the first half of the twentieth century. European writers were influenced by the contemporary trends of the Ottoman state, which remained a major problem for Europe for a hundred years: initially, it represented the Islamic response to the Crusader threat, then it opposed European colonial projects, and when it weakened, it sparked what is known in political terminology as the "Eastern Question," which occupied European minds, and only was it resolved with the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. However, interest in Ottoman documents and studying them has corrected the view of Ottoman history in recent decades, and Ottoman history has become the preferred focus of Middle Eastern studies departments in European and American universities. It is now possible to place it in its proper position within the framework of world history: the Ottoman state emerged as part of the Islamic reaction to Europe’s expansion in the eastern Mediterranean during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. It represents the strongest and most successful resistance to Europe from the East, and it also played a role in shaping what we call modern Europe, as well as in reshaping the societies of southeastern Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa. This book represents a remarkable, rare model of serious, comprehensive, objective scientific research. The authors are two of the most famous Orientalists of this century; one of them, Mr. Gibb, is the most famous British Orientalist to date. It seems that the authors were entrusted with studying the impact of Western ideas on Islamic society within the Ottoman Empire, and they approached their task with unprecedented zeal and activity. Their research plan was to start by surveying the conditions in the Ottoman Empire before the influence of European ideas seeped in, then examine these opinions regarding changes or developments. They found that the mid-eighteenth century marked the beginning of the infiltration of European ideas into Islamic society, and thus they focused in the first two sections of the first part of their book on surveying and depicting the conditions before that date. Due to the importance of this book, its valuable information, and the stature of its authors, it was translated so that Arab readers could benefit from it. Not only that, but because this book traces the emergence of systems and ideas in the Ottoman Empire and the methods of their spread, and because the Ottoman state inherited these systems, values, and ideas with all their virtues and flaws, and because it has influenced and still influences our entity profoundly, this book can be considered a necessary introduction to any scientific research dealing with the origins, emergence, and development of current Arab conditions.