Originally Posted at Tabsir on Fri 15 Sep 2006 Holy War over Papal Bull
[Pope Benedict, left: Students in the northern Indian city of Jammu demonstrate against the Pope’s remarks. Photograph: Jaipal Singh/EPA for the Guardian Unlimited, right]
The recently installed Pope Benedict gave a speech on Tuesday in his native Germany. Even though the Vatican has ruled that the pope as the prime representative of Christ on earth is as close to being infallible as anyone, such dogma has long since ceased to be newsworthy. Individuals designated as Catholics and Protestants have found other things to fight over (or even to agree with against a common secular enemy) and the thousands upon thousands of victims in Europe’s religious wars are more or less relegated to a historical footnote. Last Tuesday this doctrine of ex cathedra truth rose from the dead of church history and crashed through the gate of ecumenical tolerance.
There are Muslims protests around the world today over comments by Pope Benedict that seemingly villify the Prophet Muhammad. A resolution condemning the pope for making “derogatory†aspersions on Muhammad was passed today in Pakistan. Even the prime minister of Lebanon, Fuad Saniora, asked his ambassador to the Vatican to seek clarification on what the remarks mean. The Vatican has been quick to clarify that Pope Benedict was quoting someone else (who happened to be a Christian emperor talking with a Muslim), but the question is why he would use such a potentially misunderstandable example. Does Benedict give credence to the idea that Muslims have tended to be irrational while Christians were on the side of reason, as his examples suggest?
Perhaps Benedict’s problem is that he is too interested in history. In remembering academic life in his old university he cited a dialogue from about 1391 C.E. (and I do not mean Christian Era) between “the erudite Byzantine emperor Manuel II Paleologus and an educated Persian on the subject of Christianity and Islam, and the truth of both.†Here is the passage that has caused the uproar:
In the seventh conversation [text unclear] edited by Professor Khoury, the emperor touches on the theme of the holy war. The emperor must have known that surah 2, 256 reads: “There is no compulsion in religionâ€Â.
According to the experts, this is one of the suras of the early period, when Mohammed was still powerless and under threat. But naturally the emperor also knew the instructions, developed later and recorded in the Qur’an, concerning holy war.
Without descending to details, such as the difference in treatment accorded to those who have the “Book†and the “infidelsâ€Â, he addresses his interlocutor with a startling brusqueness on the central question about the relationship between religion and violence in general, saying: “Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preachedâ€Â.
The emperor, after having expressed himself so forcefully, goes on to explain in detail the reasons why spreading the faith through violence is something unreasonable. Violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul. “Godâ€Â, he says, “is not pleased by blood - and not acting reasonably … is contrary to God’s nature. Faith is born of the soul, not the body. Whoever would lead someone to faith needs the ability to speak well and to reason properly, without violence and threats… To convince a reasonable soul, one does not need a strong arm, or weapons of any kind, or any other means of threatening a person with death…â€Â.
In a quick reading, the kind most people would do (especially in translation), it could be assumed that Benedict agrees with his medieval eastern counterpart’s portrayal of Muhammad as only spreading things “evil and inhuman.†To be fair, he is quoting an emperor under Ottoman siege and one who lived six centuries ago. But the real damage comes in the moral lesson drawn from the anything-but-tolerant statement by the earlier Christian luminary:
The decisive statement in this argument against violent conversion is this: not to act in accordance with reason is contrary to God’s nature. The editor, Theodore Khoury, observes: For the emperor, as a Byzantine shaped by Greek philosophy, this statement is self-evident.
But for Muslim teaching, God is absolutely transcendent. His will is not bound up with any of our categories, even that of rationality. Here Khoury quotes a work of the noted French Islamist R Arnaldez, who points out that Ibn Hazn [Hazm] went so far as to state that God is not bound even by his own word, and that nothing would oblige him to reveal the truth to us. Were it God’s will, we would even have to practise idolatry.
Beyond the obvious problem that a revered pope repeated this “self-evident†commentary in the current world climate of tension over “Muslim†terrorists, it would be bull no matter who was giving the lecture. Islamic doctrine nowhere teaches that Allah can contradict his own words or divine principles of justice. To say that Muslims worship a God so fickle as to contradict the Quran and force people to worship idols is, to borrow a phrase, beyond belief. It is much closer to “Can God create a boulder so large He could not move it?†If I were that Persian interlocutor six centuries ago, I would want the self-righteous Byzantine emperor to explain how he could believe in a God who would allow his own son to be killed or insist on splitting the one supreme God into three persons of equal divinity. For the record, however, doctrinal debates are poor vehicles for talking about the role of reason.
The irony here is that Pope Benedict is appealing to reason as a necessary balance to faith by using Islam as a foil and ignoring the appalling violent history of the church he leads. All religions are spread by the sword at some point, some more than others. Throughout its long history Christianity has been coerced on people by the sword perhaps more than any other religion. Read Bartholomé de las Casas on the Christian conquistadores who enslaved and butchered hundreds of thousands of native peoples of the Americas. Read the bloody history of Europe itself, where the cross was often used to bludgeon anyone branded a heretic. There have been many violent Muslim rulers as well, so there is little point in weighing which faith has caused the least number of deaths.
The problem with Benedict’s lecture is that it perpetuates two problematic themes: the first is that Islam is a more violent religion than Christianity and the second is that religious dogma must always trump scientific reason. His talk is not really about Islam but about the need for reasonable people not to rule out the role of faith. This is a fine platitude, but the critical issue is how to reconcile dogma that asserts its own truth with the reasonable findings of modern science. The Catholic church has absorbed the teaching of evolutionary theory as a method but still gives its faithful the dogmatic right to say that God created a literal Adam out of the mud and Eve from his rib in a real place called Eden. Just as disturbing is the wording of the infallibility plank that makes Pope’s Benedicts remarks more than those of an old man returning to his academic home to give a nostalgic university address. Once again for the record, here is what the church approved over a century ago:
We teach and define that it is a dogma Divinely revealed that the Roman pontiff when he speaks ex cathedra, that is when in discharge of the office of pastor and doctor of all Christians, by virtue of his supreme Apostolic authority, he defines a doctrine regarding faith or morals to be held by the universal Church, by the Divine assistance promised to him in Blessed Peter, is possessed of that infallibility with which the Divine Redeemer willed that his Church should be endowed in defining doctrine regarding faith or morals, and that therefore such definitions of the Roman pontiff are of themselves and not from the consent of the Church irreformable.
So then, should anyone, which God forbid, have the temerity to reject this definition of ours: let him be anathema.
[from Pastor Aeternus, First Vatican Council, 1870]
Until such thinking is anathema, there can be no appeal to reason.
Daniel Martin Varisco
Our friend Varisco's piece was also picked up by the History Network.ÂÂ
God love Dan Varisco
No doubt the Pope statements and/or 'quotes' has bewildered many. It seems that the Pope is fighting a more entrenched enemy of the church in Europe: secularism. Is he using scare tactics and feeding into islamophobia to get the 'flock' back where he wants them to be?
I tend to read his comments this way knowing that church attendance in Europe is very low.
The Pope quoted a Byzantine emperor who had a rational fear of the Ottoman empire and its encrouchment on the center and power base of the Eastern Orthodox Church which survived despite earlier conquest of old Byzantine provinces in North Africa, Egypt, and the Levantine lands and Iraq.
Though the Pope quoted the emperor's Islamophobic sentiments, does this mean that the Pope believes these sentiments to be his own?
We need to realize that this speech was not about Islam, though the term jihad was mentioned, jihad has several meanings, one which entails violence and historically "jihad" was not waged only for the purposes of self-defense.
What offense did the people of Byzantium and the people of the Fire Worshippers do to the Arab tribes united under the banner of Islam to conquer and subjugate these other people of the "Books"? These other people of the "Book" who cherished an earlier revelation?
The reality is, both Christianity and Islam were and are IMPERIAL faiths as enacted by men to subjugate those outside their fold.
Christianity's early rise was not accompanied by armies, Islam's initial entrance on the world stage was.
Christianity over generations of persecution gained acceptance by the ELITE who converted and then forced their subjects to convert.
The old religious belief systems of Europe did not die out completely, instead the Church incorporated these beliefs with a Christian veneer and dressing.
Islam's history is different, initially persecuted within the lifetime of the Prophet, Islam became triumphal towards the end of the Prophet's lifetime and was not just a spiritual movement but a military movement too.
Christianity incorporated Greek philosophy early on after the death of Jesus, unlike the Prophet, Jesus was a simple carpenter who never commanded world (temporal) power. The Prophet on the other hand did. Much of the sayings of Jesus were never recorded, but Muslims have a whole library of alleged sayings and teachings, with some being deemed more valid and sound than others.
The Church consecrated Latin, a tongue not spoken by Jesus as the "sacred language" of the Universal Church. The Church became an extension of the Roman Empire when barbarians were at the gates of Rome and the banks of the Tiberius River.
Islam's Prophet imposed his language on his followers, Hijazi Arabic would become the foundations of a sacred language and the eventual emergence of Modern Standard Arabic and its various regional variations from North African, Egyptian/Sudanese, Eastern Arabic/Levantine, Iraqi, and Gulf Arabic.
The inclusion of the quote of the emperor but his reference to the Qur'an's mandate on choice and agency of being a Muslim or not, negate the emperor's bias and Islamophobia. The Pope mentions the emperor's familiarity with the Qur'an, but he still made a statement that today is deemed politically incorrect.
But the Pope's prepared speech is not dealing with his opinion on Islam and political violence used by Muslims for 14 centuries, but rather a Greek understanding of the Divine Message as developed in Europe.
Christianity preserved both Rome and the Greek philosophical legacy in the teachings and recasting of the message of Jesus.
No such development happened in Islam, Bedouin Arab cultural norms became synonymous with "Islamic norms and values" and hence why even today in non-Arab Muslim countries, we see a tension between "Islamic norms and values" (imported Bedouin Arab cultural norms) and the local indigenous tradition.
One could read into the Gospels that Jesus was an ethno-centric Jew whose message was for the tribes of Israel, and not the world. His salvation was for the "Chosen People" and messianic prophetic fulfillment, but since Jews largely rejected the message of Christ, his followers embraced a universalism based on the prevalent Greek culture of the Eastern Mediterranean cities that became centers of Christian activity and thought. What emerged as a heretical sect in Judaism, would eventually part ways as Gentiles would outnumber Jews and embrace the prevalent cultural norms of the Gentiles.
The Pope's mistake was not clarifying his position on the emperor's bias and his rationale for choosing this statement as the transition for introducing his main topic of the speech, which is the secularization of German society and Western European society in general.
And in mentioning Jihad, not giving a thorough explanation of the concept, he should have avoided the inclusion of this Muslim theological concept.
-Thoughts from a "heretical Shia" Persian Muslim.
The Pope has apologized today for his comments. He said, and I quote: "Hey, whatsa bigga deal? I'm sorry you were offended by my true remarks. No hard feelings, okay? I just kidding ok? Oh, and I am not a Nazi, ok?'
Muslims should not protest verbal or pictorial insults, they should not be so defensive by reacting to what Islam is not, but what Islam is.
But sadly, when Muslim-on-Muslim civil strife and violence kills more Muslims than all the Muslims killed by Israel, it hardly gets attention and we see no political theatre in the form of protests.
The Pope's remarks are part of a very long history of monotheistic faiths using one another as foils in their own internal disputes. The Christian gospels themselves are full of examples of dumping on Jewish sects (scribes, Pharisees) in order to make the point that only us (i.e. Christians) are getting it right. Nowadays, such anti-Jewish rhetoric doesn't go over too well, especially not from a German pope, so Islam makes a handy scapegoat.
Reading the Pope's speech as a woman who is a committed feminist and queer theorist, I couldn't help but ask myself where the Pope thinks the logic is in modern Vatican pronouncements forbidding the ordination of all women and gay men, artificial birth-control, abortion, and same-sex marriage. I guess it's much easier for him to argue that Catholic Christianity is rational through such rhetorical slights-of-hand than by actually engaging such challenging questions.
I agree with Centre, I think that the Pope is trying to win back secularized Europeans to the fold. He doesn't seem to realize that displays of intolerance aren't likely to attract many.
In the light of European Pope's calculated "folly", here is link to the article I wrote in response to another calculated European "folly" almost one year ago:
http://www.quraninstitute.org/archives/2006/01/muhammad_the_pr.html
In 1391, Catholics across Spain started a wave of massacres against Jews.
Good comment Hedonist. One must also bear in mind that dominant
groups have historically represented those they seek to dominate as
less than rational, emotional, less reasonable ect. Those lacking aql
or reason are in need of governance by more enlightened rational forces.
The colonized are marked as feminine, in need of conquering.
The ironies abound. How rational is it to denouce condom use when one
thinks of places like Africa where the Aids epidemic is ravaging entire
communities?
Muslims killed Jews and Christians killed Jews, and your point thabet?
The reality is, we could list all the atrocities committed by Christians and the atrocities committed by Muslims, but what good would that do?
I'm tired of Muslims getting angry because some bishop of Rome quotes a Byzantine emperor who had reason to fear the encrouching Ottomans, I too would blaspheme their religious founder.
Everyday, there are satirical cartoons about Muslims that were far more derogatory in nature than the Danish cartoons.
But hello Muslims, is protesting ending sectarianism is Iraq?
Is protesting ending occupation in Palestine?
Is protesting preventing the Saudis from eventually instituting further restrictions on women in the Hijaz?
No it is not, so please.
THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AT LEAST IN THEIR CATECHISM MENTIONS THAT JEWS AND MUSLIMS THOUGH DIFFERENT IN THEIR FAITH, WARRANT SALVATION AND WORSHIP THE SAME GOD.
HOW MANY HIGH-RANKING MUSLIM CLERICS AND SCHOLARS SAY JEWS AND CHRISTIANS WILL ENTER JINNAH EVEN IF THEY NEVER ACCEPT MUHAMMAD AS THE MESSENGER OF GOD?
Jews kill Muslims in Israel.
But the actions of the adherents to these faiths do not represent the spirit of these religions right?
Think about it, Laury Silvers, if she tried going to Iran with a legal name like that, I wouldn't be surprised if some Jew hating Shia would stop her and even deem her a non-Muslim because of her Jewish ancestry.
Some Muslims are not too keen about Jewish reverts to Islam, because in their eyes, they are still a Jew. And Jews are seen as being in cahoots with the Great Satan.
First, the catechism that you refer to GM was not approved of by this pope. In fact, he wrote a highly visible counter piece to the catechism protesting the idea that anyone other than Christians (and I believe Catholics) had access to salvation. I am not even sure how he feels about the Eastern Church.
This guy is not stupid. He knew exactly what he was saying. This is entirely in line with his views as stated elsewhere. He is trying to look tough on terrorism and irrationality in religious thought. For what reason? The observations here seem on target.
I love the irrationality claim though overall, I kind of want the Pope to give up his Aquinas since it is only through Ibn Rushd that guy even knew about philosophical reasoning. As Center, Hedonist, and Rauf have pointed out the Church chooses the death of people by AIDS rather than approve of condom use in a special historical situation. That was the last pope who murdered those people. How long did it take them to admit the earth was not at the center of the universe? They want to turn the pope that turned a blind eye to the Holocaust into a saint? Rationality at hard at work folks.
That said, the role of rationality in Islamic thought, even within the tradition, is very misunderstood. It has to do with types or reasoning and how they fit into the larger scope of interpretation. People think rationality is looked down on in traditional scholarship, but that is not the case.
Like all things rationality is tool, a faculty, and does not in and of itself produce good or bad. It's the folks using the tools. This pope is very smart, very rational, very unethical, and we see how it all comes together.
I disagree Laury.
The fact remains that "Islamic" thought pioneers were questioned by the conservative ulema who resisted change and innovation (Jinnah forbid that scarry word bidah). We talk about the condemnation of birth control devices, Muslims too have their issues about birth control, it seems the Islamically sanctioned method is cutting off bits of flesh around the clirotis.
We talk about Catholic compliance with the Nazis, we are all aware of Muslims who also cooperated with Nazis. But no Laury, the big bad Catholics are worthy of demonization and Muslims are "perfect and free of sin," is that what you're saying?
I'm shocked to hear these words from you.
The Vatican II issued catechism is still officially Church doctrine. And who cares if the Pope does harbor Islamophobic feelings to an audience of bishops, I don't see the Proggies protesting Ayatollah al-Sistani and his homophobic remarks?
But wait, Muslim homophobes are okay since they live in Western occupied countries, so they are victims and we need to preserve this sense of Ummah.
Jewish warhawks in the Washington Beltway were some of the chief architects of the Bush Doctrine of pre-emptive warfare with the likes of Dennis Ross and Wolfowitz.
Jewish Islamophobes are some of the chief propagators of Muslim bias and hatred in the United States with the likes of Daniel Pipes and Robert Spencer.
I never hear Jewish Muslims denouncing their ilk.
Oh give me a break. On what grounds do you impute these ideas to me? It can only be on the grounds that you like to argue since there is not one shred of evidence to support anything you say. Sorry, I'm not going to be a mark on that one.
If you would like to dispatch a list to me every morning of bad things I should speak out against going on in every corner of the Muslim world, I will be glad to post them under the do not boil puppies in hot oil heading with the words "bad, very bad." My God. As if I never speak out on anything. Silent is hardly a word that has ever been used to describe me. Rash, loud, impulsive, well-intentioned but astray, these have been used. But silent? Why don't you waste some time today reading the women's health section on the website in which I discuss birth control and circumcision. I do what I can, if it is not enough for you then do something yourself. I'm nobody's saint or slave.
Islamophobic comments are made everyday. There is nothing new about them.
But I read articles by the self-appointed "Muslim Progressive" celebs, and I sense an alarming degree of self-delusion, self-victimization, and judging the very people who judge them.
I never called you silent!
Miscommunication is the problem here.
I don't disagree with your comments, they are factual and this pope is quite cunning.
He hardly is a "Vicar of Christ" on Earth in my opinion.
Your comments suggested that because I criticized the Pope and you have yet to hear me criticize Sistani for his homophobia that I fall short in speaking out.
For the record: Sistani, homophobia, very bad.
Miscommunication resolved. No worries. Carry on troops.
Gustavo wrote:
No such development happened in Islam, Bedouin Arab cultural norms became synonymous with "Islamic norms and values" and hence why even today in non-Arab Muslim countries, we see a tension between "Islamic norms and values" (imported Bedouin Arab cultural norms) and the local indigenous tradition.
GM: the statement above, as is, makes no sense. may be you want to clarify it by providing specific examples of these Islamic norms, ingigenous tradition and so on and so forth.
One fine example in Kashmir, notice the prevalence of the black abaya, niqab, and burqa among ultra-conservative women.
This form of dress is common in the Middle East Gulf nations, but not elsewhere.
My point, Gustavo, was the irony of citing something from 1391.
Personally, I'm disappointed that no Muslim authority wanted to take him up on his offer of discussing faith and reason.
Some Muslims are not too keen about Jewish reverts to Islam
And here we see just how enamoured with "Western" ideas we really are. Muslims always seem to be interested in the worst aspects of Western traditions (totalitarianism, slobbering over the nation-state, anti-Semitism).
I see Muslims, Christians, and Jews as being members of a dysfunctional spiritual family.
I wouldn't confine the worst aspects of humanity to the West, certainly the West has been as equally ferocious as some Muslims are now.
But the better question is why do Westerners hate Islam?
You can not hate something unless that person or thing reminds you of something you hate about yourself.
In 2005, it was mildly tame and barely offensive cartoons, that by the way were published in Muslim countries like Jordan, Egypt, and Malaysia. I didn't see Muslims burning down their diplomatic missions.
And now this, a speech by a pope given to an audience of bishops.
The pope made a bad PR move and this pope is no John Paul II, he exhibits Bavarian tactlessness, but this pope does demonstrate some knowledge of the Qur'an.
Remember, the Vatican condemned Islam when it emerged as a power threatening the Byzantine provinces as a "heresy."
But in the 16th century, Buddha was sainted.
The pope is addressing issues of declining church attendance, in such countries as Germany, where only 14% of the population attends Church on a regular basis.
Germany like much of Europe is nothing more than a collection of religious museums, cathedrals and basilicas that are admired for their architecture, but hollowed and empty now.
In the United States, Latinos have revived the Catholic fold here, but the Celtic Christianity that once dominated American Catholicism is giving way to Latino Catholicism, especially Mexican Catholicism, which being half Mexican I find more colorful even if it is a hybrid between Mesoamerican and African spiritual traditions with a veneer of Old World Hispanic Christianity.
But Muslims should remember this following short surah, Surah an-Nasr:
When the victory of Allah has come and the conquest,
And you see the people entering into the religion of Allah in multitudes,
Then exalt [Him] with praise of your Lord and ask forgiveness of Him. Indeed, He is ever Accepting of repentance.
An undignified comment should be countered with a cool, calm, and collective dignified remark.
But I think these emotional outbursts are more indicative of global Muslim weakness.
We can build and finance the world's tallest skyscrapers and have some of the wealthiest billionaires in the Ummah fold, but unless we educate ourselves to handle an insult better, this reaction is more indicative of insecurities.
I don't feel completely comfortable telling people I'm Muslim or being "labeled."
And most people react with a sense of shock when I reveal this information to them.
I would like to know what Pope's opinion is on the idiotic comments by Byzantine Emperor Manuel II.
By the way, following is a synopsis of the sorry life of Manuel II. Turks kicked his rear end so much that he decided to stop being a king and started a career in "religious writing"
IDIOT!
If the Pope is being truthful about being "misunderstood", and if he had a tiny bit of diplomatic brain, he would distance himself from Manuel II, and would pay respects to the benefector of humanity, mercy to the worlds, and the human being with the best character -- the Beloved Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings be on him.
Manuel II (Manuel Palaeologus), 1350–1425, Byzantine emperor (1391–1425), son and successor of John V. In his youth he was taken captive by the Turks, and during his reign the Ottomans reduced the empire to Constantinople and its dependencies in the Peloponnesus. After the failure of the crusade of Sigismund of Hungary (later Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund) at Nikopol (1396), Manuel appealed to the West for aid and made a futile European journey (1399–1402) for that purpose. His nephew, John VII, was coemperor during that time and, with Boucicaut, defended Constantinople against the siege by Sultan Beyazid I. The victory of Timur over Beyazid at Ankara, in the same year, temporarily saved Constantinople. By 1422 the Turks were again strong enough to attack Constantinople, and in 1425 Manuel was forced to pay tribute to the sultan. Afflicted with partial paralysis in his last years, Manuel devoted himself to religious writing, entrusting the government to his son and successor, John VIII.
http://education.yahoo.com/reference/encyclopedia/entry/Manuel2Byz
Haha, IDIOT!
So us Muslims think that a document which was written hundreds of years ago can really effect us in todays society. A man in a lecture may quote a famous scientist saying something which he belived years ago, but today is seen a obserd? Surely to be true Muslims, we should understand this and accept that the context in which what was said was fine. I personally accept the Popes apology.
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