Bernard Lewis’s “The Multiple Identities of the Middle East” focuses on religion as the common denominator that identified the people of the Middle East. Under Ottoman rule the region was unified under Islam even though all the nations, countries and tribes practiced their sects respectively. This religion unification played an important role in the military campaigns that led to the expansion of the Ottoman Empire in Europe, Africa and Asia. Saladin’s victory over the Crusaders to recapture Jerusalem for the Muslim from the Christians may have helped foster the foundation for the successes of the Ottomans. It is also fair to assume that the Ottoman Empire was a religious alliance that each group or tribe to practice their own beliefs.
Lewis
Lewis