رسالة برنارد لويس في الرد على اقتراحي جعله موضوع الدكتوراه

 

Princeton University

 

Near Eastern Studies Department

Jones Hall

Princeton, New Jersey 08544

Telephone: 609 452-4280

 

June 2, 1988

 

Mr. M. S. Motabagani

P.O. Box 279

Madina

Saudi Arabia

 

Dear Mr. Motabagani:

 

Thank you for your two letters of May 23rd, which have just

reached me. I am of course greatly flattered by your desire to

prepare a Ph.D. thesis on my historical methodology. I feel it

my duty however to point out to you that this topic is unlikely

to yield sufficient material for a whole doctoral thesis. My

methodology in studying and writing Islamic history is much the

same as that of other modern critical historians, dealing with

this or with other subjects. There are many countries

perhaps, alas, a majority of the states that make up the present

day world -- in which historians must conduct their researches

and publish their findings in accordance with the dictates of

political or religious authority. It is my good fortune never to

have lived or worked in any such country, and my only obligations

have been to my personal and professional conscience. In this I

do not differ significantly from the vast majority of historians

working and publishing in the Free World. Historians may differ

in their allegiances, their opinions, and their topics, but with

few exceptions they share a common commitment to fairness,

acouracy and truth. Their purpose is neither to convert nor

subvert, but to understand and to inform.

 

If I might make a suggestion -- you might extend your study

to include a number of scholars, in different countries, working

on Islamic history, and the differing responses and reactions to

their work in the Muslim world. The latter in particular is an

interesting and important subject, so far hardly examined, and

well-deserving of critical analysis. Why, for example, is the

same book by the same author welcomed in one place or at one time

as & major scholarly contribution, and denounced in another place

or at another time as hostile propaganda? It would be easy to

name many examples of this, which cannot be explained in terms

either of changing fashions or conflicting political alignments.