The Pope and Islam

      It is indeed ironic that Westerners continue to be told about the peaceful nature of “true Islam,” even as at the first hint of criticism of their religion many Muslims the world over react with violence.  So it happened after the Holy Father, addressing an academic gathering in Regensburg, Germany, quoted a statement by Emperor Manuel II Paleologus of Byzantium (14^th century), a statement quite critical of Islam.  The Pope was not expressing a personal opinion, but using someone else’s opinion in order to make an illustration.  If the Pope was criticizing anything in his talk, it was Western secularism, and the context of his lecture shows clearly that he had no intention of offending Muslims. 

      Has it come to the point that Muslims insist on a worldwide censorship that protects their sensibilities, even as they do not hesitate to sling one slander after another at Christians and Christianity?  And this not merely by the hordes of protesters, but by, for example, officials of the Turkish government comparing Pope Benedict to Hitler and Mussolini, referring to the Pope’s “dark mentality” of the Middle Ages, and of course to those awful Crusades launched by evil Christians at such innocents as where the Muslims of that time. 

      Since most people these days, Westerners or Muslims, have little knowledge of history – an area of the academy that has been reduced, to a large extent, to one form of propaganda or another – it might serve the cause of truth to note a simple fact about the man who uttered the words quoted by Benedict.  I give the quotation in full:  “Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and in-human, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.”  Whatever one thinks of the “only evil and in-human” part, the other part, “such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached,” that is simply fact.  And history for over fourteen hundred years has illustrated it.  But back to Emperor Manuel II, who was one of the last Christian emperors to rule in Constantinople, since the city, for a thousand years the capital of eastern Christianity, was laid siege to, captured and sacked by Muslims in 1453. 

      But it all started much, much earlier. From the very beginning, the followers of Muhammad obeyed his command to conquer, and Islam spread by the sword, invading and conquering Christian lands such as Egypt, all of North Africa and into Spain, and from there launching an invasion into France itself, only to be turned back at Tours by the valiant Frankish leader Charles Martel in 732.  The Holy Land was overwhelmed, Sicily and much of southern Italy.  Christian coastal cities were often and repeatedly attacked and Christians taken captive as slaves.  Rome itself was briefly occupied in the 9^th century, the Eternal City sacked and St. Peter’s Basilica looted.  The assaults were relentless and often merciless.  The Christian response, the Crusades, the first to be launched in 1095, have to be seen in the light of these facts.  As ill-begotten as some of them were, they were defensive measures of a Europe starting to feel its strength and readiness to defend itself.  But they did little to stop the advance and pressure of Islam on its borders, so much so that after the fall of Constantinople, the Ottoman Muslims conquered Greece and most of the Balkans, Christian lands all.  Finally, the West – by this time Christendom for centuries – mustered enough strength to hand the Ottomans a massive naval defeat at Lepanto in 1571 as the Muslims were seeking yet again to invade more deeply into the West.  Still the Islamic surge continued, and did not begin to finally wane until the fateful day of September 12, 1683, when the Muslim siege of Vienna was lifted by a Christian army of Germans, Austrians and Poles under the King of Poland, Jan Sobieski.  The tide had turned, and a slow but steady decline began in the Muslim world:  with no more lands to loot and pillage, the Ottoman Empire was without resources to expand, having little ability to produce much of its own. 

      That’s the context we need to keep in mind when “the Crusades” accusation is thrown in the face of Christians, most recently by a number of prominent Muslims, who should know better, in their overwrought reaction to the Pope’s words.  “But that’s all history,” say so many trained in college to suspect all things Western and to accept much nonsense about a supposed “Islamic Golden Age.”  Well, yes, it is history, and those who do not bother to study it are doomed to repeat it. 

      So then, let’s come to the present, and what do we find?  The “Off the Record” website brings a bit of clarity, after mentioning that ambassadors of Muslim countries in Geneva are calling on the UN Human Rights Council to take up the discussion of religious tolerance, which is so very relevant now that the Pope has offended Muslims worldwide.  The site responds with the simple suggestion:  “Alternatively, the UN Human Rights Council might decide to talk about religious tolerance in the context of the question: Can Christians attend Mass freely in Islamic countries?”  Or, my own question:  how can we take seriously Saudi complaints about religious intolerance toward Muslims – who are, by the way, completely free to practice their faith in Western countries – when churches and any and all Christian worship are forbidden in the kingdom?  When will Muslim attacks on Christians in Indonesia, the Balkans, in many parts of Africa, and the West Bank cease?

      And well, too, does the Wall Street Journal observe the note of hypocrisy in present-day Muslim protests:   
 

This is not an invitation to the usual feel-good interfaith round-tables. It is dialogue with one condition -- that everyone at the table reject the irrationality of religiously motivated violence. By their reaction to the Pope's speech, some Muslim leaders showed that they are not ready. The day Muslims condemn Islamic terror with the same vehemence they condemn those who criticize Islam, an attempt at dialogue -- and at improving relations between the Western and Islamic worlds -- can begin.   
 

Finally, a note of honesty and clarity.  And of hope.  But the West is going to have to hold Muslim leaders to this.  As history reveals, their track record – and the present practice of religious tolerance in many Muslim countries – is not very good.