An encounter with a furious buyer of The Jews of Islam by Bernard Lewis

Answering phone-calls in a bookstore regularly,  teaches you to be expecting nearly anything, but nothing could prepare me enough for a phone call I received recently. A buyer from NJ purchased a copy of The Jews of Islam by Bernard Lewis and upon his receiving it gave us a call while screaming at the top of his lungs. He announced that he is horribly upset and angry at Bernard Lewis for misrepresentation and deceit and us for selling such a book as well as the world for letting such a book be sold.

Turns out that this fellow was born in to a Reform Jewish family, "discovered" Islam after trying out a sample of the worlds many religions and assumed that this book was about Jews who "discovered the truth" and converted to Islam. The lengthy publishers description we included in the description of the item he didn't care to read but he had plenty of time to tell me all about the evils of the world who are hating Islam for no reason and that Islam always loved the Jews and treated them well.

If only I can bring back the Jews of Medina, Joseph HaNagid, the Jewish vizier of Granada, Spain, any of the scores of Jews hung by Muslims in Iraq or Egypt or perhaps the victims of the massacre of the Jews of Fes and tell them how much the Muslims who killed them in the name of their prophet really loved them.

I was also told that all the words of hate in the Koran against non-Muslims were really out of context, even he didn't know the true context but promised me that there were scholars somewhere who knew.