The Hermeneutics of Orientalism: Bernard Lewis’s Tools for Understanding and Interpreting Islam

Abstract

Studying the nature of Orientalist discourse is one of the central paths for understanding how the image of Islam was formed in modern Western consciousness, especially in readings that use interpretive tools going beyond the surface of the text to its deeper structures and hidden meanings. In this context, Bernard Lewis (1916-2018) stands out as one of the leading representatives of the historical-analytical school in contemporary Orientalism. His writings helped shape cognitive and interpretive frameworks that remain influential in Western cultural and intellectual policies.
Lewis’s method of interpreting Islamic phenomena has generated wide debate because it does not start from methodological neutrality, but from a specific interpretive system that assigns meaning according to a prior conception of Islam, its nature, and its civilizational function. This makes the question of the “hermeneutics” underlying his works urgent for understanding his intellectual structure and epistemic influence.
The study seeks to uncover the nature of the hermeneutics Lewis used in reading Islam: is it a hermeneutics concerned with neutral historical understanding, or is it based on prior assumptions that make interpretation a tool for reshaping meaning in service of a particular view of the East? The research relies mainly on a descriptive-inductive method by reading Lewis’s texts and tracing his interpretive tools.
The study hypothesizes that Lewis does not operate within classical or philosophical hermeneutics, but rather employs selective interpretive tools that impose one-sided meanings on Islamic phenomena based on a preconceived historical vision. It also assumes that Lewis’s interpretation of Islam is linked to a specific Western epistemic model that reproduces the East/West binary within texts and meanings.