The pope says something enlightened

"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."

Emperor Michael Paleologos II

On Thursday night, when reactions to Pope Benedict’s speech were surfacing, I began a blog entry. In this I discussed why he shouldn’t apologise and why we had the right to say what he said. This is somewhat a moot point now, as it seems the whole of the west thinks a similar thing. Rallying behind freedom of speech. Instead I’d like to look at the context of what he said. In hindsight, and having read the original lecture, it seems now the former Professor of Theology’s speech is highly enlightened.

The Pope was giving a lecture about faith and reason and how Western science and philosophy had divorced themselves from faith. Contained in the talk was the now infamous quotation. This has been taken so far out of context one can think that the lecture was demonising Islam - something which was only mentioned in a quotation and occupies around two-three paragraphs. What we fail to read in the newspapers is how the Pope described this opinion of Manuel II as "astoundingly"* and "surprisingly harsh". The Pope said that this historical reference reminds him as why spreading the faith through violence is unreasonable.

So why are Islamic councils and nations issuing a barrage of requests for apology and retraction. If we look at how the Pope continues the Michael II quote...

"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..."

As quoted by Pope Benedict XVI

This couldn’t be more poignant in the wake of reactionary bombings in Turkey. Lets not forget the headline-reasoning of a Turkish lawmaker compared the Pope to Hitler. An interesting hypothesis coming from “the most secular” of Islamic countries; a country which had Mein Kampf as a bestseller last year. A Turkish novelist, in defence of her novel which refers to the deaths of Armenians in 1915 as genocide, puts it succinctly. “If there is a thief in a novel, it doesn’t make the novelist a thief.”

“The intention here is not one of retrenchment or negative
criticism, but of broadening our concept of reason and its application.”

Pope Benedict XVI’s closing remarks to his lecture

The pope gave a discourse about faith and reason; the Islamic reaction has ironically authenticated his themes. By looking at the context, comments like "It looks like an effort to revive the mentality of the Crusades." by Salih Kapusuz, illustrate how critics are ignorant of the lecture and have been swayed by simple headline commentary.

The best idiotic criticism came from Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Tasnim Aslam who with an unintentional irony announced “Anyone who describes Islam as a religion as intolerant encourages violence”. The only thing the Pope could be guilty of is not understanding mass-media; then again, surely the vituperate condemnations come from this same flaw.

* this has been mistranslated into English as "a startling brusqueness"

Read translated excerpt from the speech on the BBC

tags ( Pope Islam benedict islamophobia Tasnim Aslam Emperor Michael Paleologos faith )