In the foreword to an Arabic edition of one of Bernard Lewis's recent books, published by the Muslim Brotherhood, the translator included a few words of ambiguous praise for the author. Lewis was, he wrote,"one of two things: a candid friend or an honorable enemy," but certainly not one to dodge the truth.

In the West, critics' views on the eighty-seven-year-old known as"the dean of Middle Eastern scholars" are more clear-cut. Conservatives tend to hail him as a priceless gem—the only scholar both erudite and honest enough to tell us the inflammatory truth about the condition of modern Islam. Leftists, particularly among his peers in academe, tend to regard him as a servant of imperial power, prone to making demeaning generalizations about Middle Eastern society, and arrogant enough to consider himself an objective scholar. The rift has deepened as Lewis's influence on Paul Wolfowitz, the chief architect of current White House policy in the Middle East, has become public knowledge.

For those who only know Lewis from his post-9-11 celebrity, From Babel to Dragomans, a newly published collection of Lewis' essays from the 1950s to the present, is a handy guide to his intellectual roots. Lewis's academic career spans seven decades—he enrolled in the University of London's School of Oriental Studies in 1933. A genuine scholar of Orientalism, unabashed by the recent denigration of the field by post-modernists, he believes in rigorous linguistic training, prodigious reading of primary sources, and a no-stone-unturned approach to scholarship. Before he became a national celebrity for telling us"What Went Wrong," Lewis delved as enthusiastically into such topics as the relative merits of donkeys and camels for medieval pilgrims, derivations of the Persian word for eggplant, and property law in the tenth-century Muslim provinces.

There is no doubt that Lewis's harsh critique of modern Islam stems from a deep affection for the civilization that it once was. As a student visiting Turkey in 1938, by a stroke of luck he became the first Westerner permitted to enter the Imperial Ottoman Archives. His recollection of the experience says much about his sentiments toward his field:"Feeling like a child turned loose in a toy shop, or like an intruder in Ali Baba's cave, I hardly knew where to turn first."

Lewis's two trademark preoccupations, historiography and the nuances of language, permeate his writings. The book includes a detailed essay on the evolution of propaganda in Islam, and several discussions of the meaning and uses of"history" in Muslim tradition. In an essay on Islamic revolution, he points out the absurdity of referring to Islamists as"fundamentalists.""Fundamentalist" is an American expression denoting belief in the literal divine origin of scripture–something that all Muslims, militant or otherwise, believe about the Koran. Lewis is not just being picky; language is a crucial issue in Islam. Analyzing Osama bin Laden's appeal, Lewis explains:"The first and most obvious reason for his popularity is his eloquence, a skill much admired and appreciated in the Arab world since ancient times."

Representatives of the West, Lewis says, need to pay more attention to the way they communicate with the Middle East, where their every word and signal are scrutinized for signs of weakness or uncertainty. If one had to sum up in one phrase his message to U.S. policymakers, it would be the title of his September 16, 2001, op-ed in The Washington Post:"We Must Be Clear." In trying to understand the intentions and capacities of the United States, Lewis writes, Middle Easterners have two guides:"The first is history... In this the record is not encouraging. The second is their current dealings with U.S. statesmen, soldiers, and diplomats, and the interpretations they put on what is said to them and what is asked of them." With clarity, firmness, and a show of resolve, there is"only a possibility" that the U.S. will win local support, Lewis concludes."Without them there is a certainty of failure."