Muslim reaction to the Pope's remarks about Islam.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

Looks like Benny managed to get both of his ruby red slippers in his mouth.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/5348436.stm

In quotes: Muslim reaction to Pope
Muslim political and religious leaders around the world have been reacting to a speech by Pope Benedict XVI in which he mentioned the Prophet Muhammad.

PALESTINIAN PRIME MINISTER ISMAIL HANIYA

In the name of our Palestinian people... we express our condemnation of the statements of his Excellency the Pope, against Islam as a belief, sharia, history, and a lifestyle.

PAKISTANI PARLIAMENT

The derogatory remarks of the Pope about the philosophy of jihad and Prophet Muhammad have injured sentiments across the Muslim world and pose the danger of spreading acrimony among the religions.

HAMID ANSARI, CHAIRMAN OF INDIA'S MINORITY COMMISSION

The language used by the Pope sounds like that of his 12th-Century counterpart who ordered the crusades... It surprises me because the Vatican has a very comprehensive relationship with the Muslim world".

DIN SYAMSUDDIN, HEAD OF MUHAMMAD, INDONESIA'S SECOND LARGEST MUSLIM ORGANISATION

The Pope's statements reflect his lack of wisdom. It is obvious from the statements that the Pope doesn't have a correct understanding of Islam.

AHMAD KHATAMI, IRANIAN CLERIC

It is unfortunate to see that the leader of the world's Christians is so ill-informed about Islam and speaks so shamelessly.

Muslims around the world would surely react to such weak arguments and will invite those who misunderstand Islam to learn about the religion. We say that such insults will spread the influence of Islam further.

MOHAMMED MAHDA AKEF, EGYPTIAN MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD

The remarks do not express correct understanding of Islam and are merely wrong and distorted beliefs being repeated in the West.

SHEIKH YOUSSEF AL-QARDAWI, QATARI MUSLIM CLERIC AND HEAD OF ISLAMIC SCHOLARS' ASSOCIATION

Our hands are outstretched and our religion calls for peace, not for war, for love not for hatred, for tolerance, not for fanaticism, for knowing each other and not for disavowing each other.

We condemn this and we want to know the explanation of this and what is intended by this. We call on the pope, the pontiff, to apologise to the Islamic nation because he has insulted its religion and Prophet, its faith and Sharia without any justification."

ALI BARDAKOGLU, SENIOR TURKISH MUSLIM

I do not see any use in somebody visiting the Islamic world who thinks in this way about the holy prophet of Islam. He should first rid himself of feelings of hate.

SALIH KAPUSUZ, DEPUTY LEADER OF TURKEY'S RULING AK PARTY

He has a dark mentality that comes from the darkness of the Middle Ages. He is a poor thing that has not benefited from the spirit of reform in the Christian world. It looks like an effort to revive the mentality of the Crusades.

GRAND AYATOLLAH MOHAMMAD HUSSEIN FADLALLAH, SENIOR LEBANESE SHIA CLERIC

We do not accept the apology through Vatican channels ... and ask him to offer a personal apology - not through his officials - to Muslims for this false reading

ORGANISATION OF ISLAMIC CONFERENCE STATEMENT

The OIC hopes that this sudden campaign does not reflect a new trend for the Vatican policy toward the Islamic religion ... and it expects the Vatican to express its real vision of Islam.

YOUSEF AL-KHOEI, HEAD OF ISLAMIC CHARITY

He should really know better than quoting a 14th Century Christian emperor who was a political man who made his statements for a political reason... I do not know why people choose to quote things out of context when you have clear instructions in Islam which says no forced conversion. Why do we need a Christian emperor to tell us what Islam is?

DR MUHAMMAD ABDUL BARI, MUSLIM COUNCIL OF BRITAIN

One would expect a religious leader such as the Pope to act and speak with responsibility and repudiate the Byzantine emperor's views in the interests of truth and harmonious relations. Regrettably, the Pope did not do so and this has understandably caused a lot of dismay and hurt.

[goclark]

1. I knew when they announced his name

that he was placed there by the NeoCons.

He is just beginning to do his real dirty work.

This is about as low as it can get.

[CJCRANE]

7. There was a link on DU

at the time that he had some kind of business connection to one of the B*sh brothers (Jeb, I think).

[MADem]

2. Well, he was quoting someone else, but don't let that get in the way

of a good smackdown.

I'm no fan of Benny, but this is bullshit. A fake tempest in a teapot; the fundies in the US must be thrilled, seeing as they hate the Muslims and view the Catholics as a cult.

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/B2D66555-AF9C-4CAD-8B33-BC39B9FB2444.htm


German Chancellor Angela Merkel has defended Pope Benedict XVI against allegations that he had attacked Islam, saying critics had misunderstood comments the Pope made this week during a visit to his native Germany.



"Whoever criticises the Pope misunderstood the aim of his speech. It was an invitation to dialogue between religions and the Pope expressedly spoke in favour of this dialogue, which is something I also support and consider urgent and necessary," Merkel was quoted as saying by German newspaper Bild on Friday.

"What Benedict XVI emphasised was a decisive and uncompromising renunciation of all forms of violence in the name of religion," Merkel was quoted as saying in an article to appear on Saturday.

The Pope, born in southern Germany with the name Josef Ratzinger, ended a six-day visit to his native Bavaria on Thursday.

The Pope on Tuesday repeated criticism of Prophet Muhammad by the 14th century Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Palaeologus, who said everything Muhammad brought was evil "such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached".

Violence incompatible

The Pope, who used the terms "jihad" and "holy war" in his lecture, added "violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul"............

[Nikki Stone 1]

3. Any copies of the actual speech?

Or the relevant portions?

[MADem]

5. It was in German, but all the outrage is directed at the English

translations, it seems. Here it is in English, FWIW...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/pope/story/0,,1873277,00.html

[Nikki Stone 1]

6. Thanks

;;

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

8. Quoting it.

And agreeing with it.

[MADem]

11. That's a bit simplistic. More like using it as a springboard; a strawman

The part he agreed with was the NONVIOLENCE part--there is no evidence from his speech at all that he agreed with the characterization put forth by the Emperor, which he referred to, per the translation, as "startlingly brusque." Had he agreed with that bit, he would have called it something along the lines of "swell" or "groovy" though in more academic language.

The dialogue ranges widely over the structures of faith contained in the Bible and in the Qur'an, and deals especially with the image of God and of man, while necessarily returning repeatedly to the relationship between - as they were called - three "Laws" or "rules of life": the Old Testament, the New Testament and the Qur'an. It is not my intention to discuss this question in the present lecture; here I would like to discuss only one point - itself rather marginal to the dialogue as a whole - which, in the context of the issue of "faith and reason", I found interesting and which can serve as the starting-point for my reflections on this issue....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. Violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul. "God", 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...".

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.....

[mitchtv]

4. He's a uniter

not a divider

[originalpckelly]

9. You know he was a member of the Hitler Youth...

of course he was forced to join. (Or at least that is the story of The Vatican.)

[Nikki Stone 1]

10. Actually, after reading the speech, what seems to be most offensive

is that Ratzinger implied the superiority of Christianity to Islam because of its fundamental core idea of logos, a Greek conception of the inner logic or reasonableness of God reflected by human reason.

He perceives Christianity to have a God who "is reasonable" according to the human idea of logos and Islam to have a God that is "capricious" in his words, not logos. He takes the idea of the capriciousness of Islam's God from the Koran and the core of his debate from a medieval one (referenced in the OP). This is an old argument.

Ratzinger's speech is definitely Eurocentric, and the dialogue he asks for would involve the idea of logos:

"It is to this great logos, to this breadth of reason, that we invite our partners in the dialogue of cultures. To rediscover it constantly is the great task of the university."

It might be a gross oversimplification to say that Ratzinger's speech could be summed up as saying to Muslim scholars "Your conception of God is wrong/incomplete/problematic", but you can't help going there, especially when Ratzinger quotes the medieval scholars mentioned in the OP's quotes:

In the seventh conversation 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. Violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul. "God", 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...".

The decisive statement in this argument against violent conversion is this: not to act in accordance with reason is contrary to God's nature.

Of course, the Catholic Church did its fair share of conversion by the sword well before this quote was made. The French potentates that aided the Church in its conquest of Europe were not persuading people by reason, but by the sword. The greatest violence in the name of faith was not done by the Catholic Church during the Crusades, which were seen as a defensive action, but before that, under Clovis, Charlemagne, etc.

[MADem]

13. Well, considering his point of view, that's unsurprising in the extreme

He's not a nonpartisan observer, here. He's a cheerleader. He is of course going to drag out the most popular cheers to get the crowd enthused.

There's no difference between this speech and the speeches of religious leaders of any and all stripes giving the old pep talk about why their invisible god is best. Every religion is gonna tout their good points and minimize the bad. It's how they all continue to justify their existence and keep the faithful motivated.

For the 'opposing team' to whine and get hyper-outraged about an old play they've heard before, and which was mitigated by considerably gentler language, seems a bit 'sensitive' to me, frankly.

[Nikki Stone 1]

14. I don't think they were being over sensitive considering the political

context. The speech was given at a university. The implication was that Christianity (and by extension the Christian world) is rational while Islam (and by extension the Muslim world) is irrational. In the Western paradygm where logic is the cornerstone of academic scholarship as well as (allegedly) Christian theology, this is tantamount to calling Islamic cultures "backward". I can understand why they were insulted.

[MADem]

17. They do the very same to Christians, and even more to Jews

Everyone likes their own prophet best. They're a bit kinder in the regard that they view Moses and Isa as minor prophets, but they put their bets on their prophet as being the one true guy with the hotline to the invisible god, and believe that Christians and Jews, though people of the Book, are imperfect in their understanding of how the system works (read: backward).

Perhaps a good illustration of the way the late Ayatullah Khomeini approached other faiths would be to put forward a link provided by the Baha'i Library (and they certainly have an axe to grind):

http://bahai-library.com/newspapers/081380.html

This text discussed the situation immediately post-revolution. It's not as shaky now that the old fool is dead, but it serves to illustrate that all religious leaders can be rip roaring jerks. Why? They are invested in THEIR way--it's how they make their living in the world.

[The Straight Story]

15. I took his point to be more along the lines of

The church changes over time and is flexible, god, while static in some areas is dynamic in others. Whereas one may see islam, and baptists, as being more prone to a more rigid thought process in relation to god.

[Nikki Stone 1]

16. He does go into 20th century philosophy and theology

But he is opposed to movements removing the ediface of Greek philosophy (including logos) from Christianity. He made it very clear what he believes and how it interacts with Islam.

[CarlVK]

12. Way to piss off a sixth of the world population, Pope Hitlerjugend

That's what I like to see....world religious leaders uniting the peoples of the planet.