Bernard Lewis, the great historian and interpreter of the Middle East, died on Saturday, two weeks shy of his 102^nd birthday.

He was born in northeast London to middle-class Jewish parents in 1916. He began teaching as an assistant lecturer (which he referred to as “the lowest form of human life in British universities”) in Islamic History at the School of Oriental and African Studies in 1938. Two years later, Lewis served in the British Army during World War II. After the War he returned to his teaching post, and at 33, became the chair of the History of the Near and Middle East at the University of London. There he taught for several decades. His teaching continued in the United States at Princeton University, where he became a professor in 1974.