Almost a decade before September 11 happened, the Muslim world was ranged against the West, especially the United States. The governments may not have been but the streets were angry, especially the heartland of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Iran and to a lesser extent, even Turkey.
Soon enough, the Western man-in-the-street reciprocated with a hostility that was all too palpable. So, the Princeton professor Bernard Lewis asks What Went Wrong? Western Impact and Middle Eastern Response (Oxford University Press, Rs 275). The answer, Lewis says lies deep in history and in an understanding of the basic tenets of Islam and how the Arab world sees the West.
Though dubbed a Zionist, Lewis is an admirer of the Arab world. He says
