Benedict XVI faces Mecca | December 05, 2006
By David C. Steinmetz [December 5, 2006]
It was widely assumed that Pope Benedict XVI had made a serious diplomatic faux pas when he read a quotation from a 15th-century Byzantine emperor criticizing what the emperor regarded as the inherent violence of Islam. Critics suggested...
that, even if the pope had agreed entirely with the emperor's assessment (which was not at all clear), he should never have cited it in a public address at the University of Regensburg, where he had once served as a professor of theology.
Perhaps Benedict had forgotten that he was no longer a university teacher, whose private opinions were of limited interest outside academic circles, but the living embodiment of Christianity Inc., whose stray thoughts, ill-advisedly spoken, could reverberate around the world.
It seemed to offended Muslims that the pope had chosen to compare the best of Christianity with the worst of Islam. After all, Christianity had its own problems with violence and intolerance. Western Christians may have forgotten the fall of Jerusalem in 1099 to an invading army of crusaders, but Muslims have not. The crusaders slaughtered the inhabitants, including most of the Muslim men, women, and children, until there was no one left to kill. Only a handful escaped to Damascus.
It was a merciless ethnic cleansing that traumatized the Muslim world and permanently persuaded many Muslims that Christianity was an inherently violent and intolerant religion, and that Christians, whatever their high moral pretensions, were no better than bloodthirsty barbarians.
Nor were Muslims impressed by Christian tolerance. When the Jews were driven out of Christian Spain in 1492 (as they had already been driven out of Christian England and France), it was the relatively more tolerant Muslims of North Africa and Turkey who offered them sanctuary.
Indeed, there was a time when Islamic civilization seemed more advanced than its Christian counterpart. Christian intellectuals willingly learned from Muslim physicians, mathematicians, and astronomers new ways of thinking about old problems. They made heavy use of Arab philosophers like Avicenna (Ibn Sina) and Averroes (Ibn Rusd) and even depended for their knowledge of the ancient Greek philosopher, Aristotle, on Latin versions of already existing Arabic translations.
So it was not surprising when the pope's remarks provoked street protests throughout the Muslim world and even the murder of an Italian nun. But his comments also stimulated a thoughtful response from Muslim scholars, who wrote private letters to Benedict arguing for a different and more generous vision of Islam.
The pope responded to his critics on his recent trip to Turkey. He made clear that he had three vital concerns with respect to Islam. He wanted (1) to encourage Muslims to deal with the problem of escalating jihadist violence in a way that does not minimize or excuse Christian violence against Muslims; (2) to protect the religious freedom of minority Christians and Jews in Muslim countries and of Muslims in the West; and (3) to stimulate and sustain an intellectual exchange at the highest level between Christians and Muslims. It is time to move beyond stereotypes and bad memories.
However, dialogue requires that both sides to the exchange listen as well as talk. So the pope spent much of his time during his recent visit to Turkey doing exactly that, listening as well as talking. He was careful not to repeat the mistake of Pope Paul VI by praying in Hagia Sophia, once a Christian cathedral, but now a secular museum off-limits to religious practice. And he surprised and pleased his Turkish hosts when he faced Mecca and prayed silently in the famous Blue Mosque of Istanbul.
No one thought the pope had suddenly converted to Islam or had abandoned Jesus for the prophet Muhammad. But his act was seen as a gesture of simple good will and a mark of respect for Islam that most Turks were willing to accept at face value.
It did not erase the past. It could not erase the past. But it pointed toward the possibility of a new and better future.
Whether the new dialogue the pope now wants to encourage and support will make progress in resolving ancient grievances between Christians, Jews and Muslims, is anybody's guess. Too much innocent blood has been spilled on all sides to think that any meaningful reconciliation will be easy.
But, for the sake of the innocent blood that has not yet been spilled and should never be, one can only hope that it does.
David C. Steinmetz is the Amos Ragan Kearns Professor of the History of Christianity at The Divinity School at Duke University in Durham. He wrote this commentary for the Orlando Sentinel.
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Posted by admin at December 5, 2006 11:44 AM
