If you’re going to be anal-retentive about it, at least read the speech –

The emperor must have known that surah 2, 256 reads: “There is no compulsion in religion”. According to the experts, this is one of the suras of the early period, when Mohammed was still powerless and under threat.

and, you point out that the Pope is reading someone else’s words (from someone else’s book) –

Second, the Pope then quotes the emperor …

How is the Pope making a factual mistake here?

Juan Cole points out that the pope sets up a dichotomy here – he quotes a tolerant verse from the Qu’ran, represents it as coming from a time

which according to Cole, is not correct, and cole is convincing – saying that Mohammed was ruling Medina at the time, so “powerless” is not very accurate.
The Times of London also picked this up.

It doesn’t really contest the general thrust of your statements. Then why bring it up? Oh, you know, general anal-retentiveness

Second, the Pope then quotes the emperor 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 preached”.

Juan Cole points out that the pope sets up a dichotomy here – he quotes a tolerant verse from the Qu’ran, represents it as coming from a time when “ when Mohammed was still powerless and under threat.
which according to Cole, is not correct, and cole is convincing

Cole was convincing?

Sami:

Thank you for comments. I can appreciate that the limited characterization of Islamic teaching provided by the Pope in his speech may indeed contain inaccuracies, although I would contend that is because he was being very generally, and maybe unfairly so. Nevertheless, his speech was not about Islam, and the anecdote (which he read form a book) was only intended to set up the theme of the speech — acting contrary to reason is acting contrary to the nature of God.

That being said, I do think it is reasonable and fair to critique the Pope’s inaccuracies about Islam (although he claimed to be citing experts on the subject) and its followers. My beef is with the media seeking to exploit tensions between Christians and Muslims, apparently in an attempt to create a fight where none was needed or would have occurred absent the media’s mis-interpretation of the speech.

glasnost:

Regarding the allged inaccuracies, I answered that somewhat above, but let me be clear. Cole was wrong in attributed factual mistakes to the Pope where (i) the Pope was quoting from a book without approving of the quote’s characterization of Islam, nor giving any indication that he agreed with it (and in fact referred to the emperor’s tone as brusque and forceful) and (ii) neither of your (Cole’s?) examples are “facts” but instead the Pope reading someone else’s words and citing another’s opinion. In both instances, the Pope was merely trying to explain the background to the quote he wanted to use: “not to act in accordance with reason is contrary to God’s nature.”

Norman:

I understand that many people think that Islam is spread by force, and the perverted version of Islam promoted by Islamo-fascists is indeed often spread this way. However, the Pope’s speech was not about that, the media should never have suggested that it was, and when the leaders of Islam either remain silent as to how perverted the Islamo-fascist message and practice are (or they are ignored by a negligent and irresponsible media), that view will continue to dominate.

craig:

Excellent comment. Thank you.

Thanks for a reasoned repsonse. You haven’t converted me, but you have changed my thinking on this point. Peace.

Christians for the most part enjoy arguments/debates concerning their beliefs. Jews are very casual about their relationship with God. It appears that the majority of Muslims are ready to take the life of anyone or group who might say, “are you sure about that”?
From what little I know about the history of Islam and its followers, it appears that Muslims are a shade of their former selves. Indeed today the questions can be asked about what is new, good and positive that comes from Islam?

I’m still not sure that that was the wisest quote for the Pope to use when discussing Islam, but Mike is also right about how universally overblown this is.

At least the Pope didn’t hand out any visual aids. One picture is worth a thousands words.

So I think that, while there are Americans willing to write Muslims off altogether (”too many extremists per 100 Muslims…”) most are not there yet. After all, Muslim immigrants are strongly represented in professional occupations (Doctors, Scientists, and Technologists) and they have an average income higher than that of white Europeans. For perspective, you need only look to WWII when America rounded up Japanese immigrants and sent them to camps to ensure that they didn’t form a fifth column.

The Catholic faith is not like this; God is Logos itself — Greek “word” and “reason” both — as stated in John 1, and thus it follows that divine revelation and human reason (which is itself a gift of God) may not contradict one another. They have the same metaphysical underpinning in a rational God who created a rational universe. So Benedict critiques both sides from the middle — both the Islamic and Protestant devolutions into irrational fideism (faith without reason) and the secular devolution into metaphysically bankrupt positivism (reason without faith).

The former error requires an understanding of God as an arbitrary trickster or tyrant to be appeased, despite any verses cited to prove the contrary. The young-earth creationists, five-point Calvinists, and Moslems share this disconnect which enables them to deny that God would reveal Himself in the workings of His creation, or that God loves everyone He has created, and other non sequiturs.

The latter error, which consumed an equal amount of Benedict’s discussion, requires one to forswear metaphysical certainty about anything and thus ultimately to reject reason itself as untrustworthy. Once the moral order and the sacredness of people as beings created in His image are discarded as artifacts of the now-rejected divine revelation, the secularist world must inevitably end in Darwinian will-to-power.

Benedict’s commentary was to say to all sides that you cannot have the benefits of Western rationality without the catholic Christian faith; you can have a residue of it for a time, but as it is shunned, extirpated, and persecuted so too will be the underpinnings of civilization itself.

With regards to your question, let us examine the text:

1. The word “People” in the above mentioned Hadith refers to the Pagans of Mecca, which were at war with the Muslims at the time of mentioning this Hadith.

2. How did we know this? First, from the historcial context of the Hadith. Second, the hadith appears contradictory to the Quranic verse stating, “No compulsion in religion.” When faced with an “apparent contradiction,” scholars utilize certain logical procedures to alleviate the contradiction. One of them would be the examination of which verse applies to general settings, and which is limited to specific circumstances. In our case, the general verse stands “No compulsion in religion,” in all settings regardless of the factors of When or Why. While this Hadith has to be interpreted as “time-sensetive” and only applied to the “People” of Mecca, at that specific time in history.

3. Upon examining verses and Prophetic traditions, which deal with forced conversion, I found that all of them refer to specific situations. The vast majority were given as “rules of engagement” during the times of war.

——–

Having said that. Now let us look at the Hadith in its proper context. We would read, “I [had been given permission] to fight against [pagans of Mecca] until they testify that there is no God but Allah, and he who professes it is guaranteed the protection of his property and life on my behalf…”

So now we understand that this Hadith is actually ordering the Muslim army to refrain from fighting any individual who declares Islam as his religion. Another story explains this further. A Muslim military leader killed a soldier on battlefield. When the soldier was assured of his death, he claimed to become a Muslim. The Muslim leader knew it was a trick to get out of being killed, so he proceeded to kill the man. When the prophet learned of this, he became angry as no one had seen before, and accused the leader of killing a sacred soul.

In short, this Hadith establishes the rules of shifting of royalties during the times of war, and has nothing to do with forced conversions.

——–

glasnost,

Unfortunately, your analysis of Prophetic tradition is quite wrong. Hadith is the collection of the sayings and actions of the Prophet Muhammad. You might find some sayings of his followers, in the same books, but they are clearly distinguished from his teachings.

You are not correct about the authenticity of the Hadith. It is true that Hadith has been orally transmitted through generations until it was transcribed two hundred years later. Despite it being less authentic than Quran, Hadith has been the subject of examination of scholars throughout Islamic history. The process which is used to authenticate, whether this Hadith has been said by the prophet or not, is quite complex.

There were some Muslims who dismissed Hadith totally, but I do not know of any Muslim academic scholar who did such thing. However, there are groups of Muslims who were not satisfied with the process of authentication, and argued that Hadith is mostly fabricated. From an academic view, their argument holds no water, since the process accurately marks which text is authentic and which is fabricated.

————-

This is me trying to be brief If you need further explanation of any of the mentioned points, I will be glad to share my email with you to further discuss these matters.

I agree with Mike that the larger context of the pope’s speech was about faith and reason. Personally, I do in fact think that the section of the speech that is being cited a lot is, however, a veiled swipe at Islam and forced conversion.

There’s nothing wrong with decrying forced conversion, but quoting a figure who does in fact,seem to claim that forced conversion is inherent in the Qu’ran, is an inflammatory thing to do. Pope shouldn’t have done it. If he was going to do, he definitely shouldn’t have gotten his facts wrong.

As for the facts – here we go:

In the seventh conversation (*4V8,>4H – controversy) 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 religion”. 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 “infidels”, 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 preached”. 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.

Juan Cole points out that the pope sets up a dichotomy here – he quotes a tolerant verse from the Qu’ran, represents it as coming from a time when “ when Mohammed was still powerless and under threat.
which according to Cole, is not correct, and cole is convincing – saying that Mohammed was ruling Medina at the time, so “powerless” is not very accurate.

Second, the Pope then quotes the emperor 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 preached”.

And there is no command from Mohammed to spread the faith by the sword.

A comparable metaphor would be Thomas Aquinas’ just war theory as a perversion of the message of Christ, or the commandments in books of the Torah dealing with the treatment of slaves… modern Judaism, and I say this with religious Judaist education, has had to gloss over and essentially de jure ignore large segments of its own holy books.

I am not debating you, though even if you are right I don’t think it changes the validity of Michael’s post, though I could be wrong, but specifically what are the inaccuracies which Omar should address.

I appreciate your in depth analysis both of the Pope’s speech and the world’s response. I do think that Islamic indignity is growing, thanks mostly to a sensationalist media. Nevertheless, it brings to the forefront an issue of growing concern. Regardless of the true context of the Pope’s comments, many Christians do feel that Islam is spread by force (as well as by reason). It isn’t politically correct to say so, but there it is.

Sami,

How do we reconcile teachings from the Hadith that do appear to advocate conversion by the sword? (e.g. – The Messenger of Allah (may peace be upon him) said: I have been commanded to fight against people until they testify that there is no god but Allah, and he who professes it is guaranteed the protection of his property and life on my behalf except for a right warrant, and his affairs rest with Allah. – Hadith 11). Am I misinterpretting this? Does it not have the weight of scripture? I don’t have answers to these.

So, forced conversions? Are you for ‘em, or agin’ em? the Quran? Most Muslims?

However, the pope states a fallacious assumption. For the sake of saving time, I will use your interpretation rather than quoting his speech: “[M]uslims are people of a devout, and unquestioning faith in God, who are somewhat bewildered by the Christian faith’s insistence on using reason to comprehend God”.

If our subject of study is limited to the commons, this statement “could” be true. It “could” also be true with regards to common catholics, common Jews, and most common devout followers of almost all ideologies, religious or otherwise.

However, when examining Islamic theology itself, we find that the Pope got his facts wrong. The Quran challenges unbelievers with reason. For instance, it mentions, repeatedly, the complexity of the universe, urging everyone to analyze, examine, and study its structures and technique. Everyone is then encouraged to use this acquired knowledge to find their way to God.

In his argument, the Pope failed to realize the difference between how Muslims view “the being of God,” and “the creed of God.” In Christianity, the arguments regarding the being of God lay an important foundation to understanding faith. In Islamic tradition, talking about God’s being does not provide basis to anything practical. Hence, Ibn Hazm’s view of God’s transcendency is viewed as a part of a philosophical argument that only interests academics.

On the other hand, when examining, or implementing, God’s creed, Muslims are “ordered” to use their rationale. What you might see now is a lack of use of rational thinking by many Muslims, due to the unusual circumstances many of them are put in (poverty, poor education, intellectual censorship, political oppression, etc.) These circumstances apply to all; laymen, intellectuals, elitists, etc.

I am not angry myself, yet I understand the anger. I realize the violence, yet don’t justify it. We all understand that Muslims are now viewed in America to be the next communists. In Europe, there is a rise to Islamophobia everywhere. We are living in a time of a severed relationship between the West and not the East, but Islam. For the time being, I urge public figures (not all, just those internationally known) either talk absolute facts when mentioning Islam, or not talk about it at all. Enough Headaches, please.