islam versus pope, cross, west, and more

Six days ago, Pope Benedict XVI challenged the Muslim concept of jihad and invited Muslims into a dialogue between faiths and cultures. Here’s how CNN covered the story on Tues 12 Sep 06:

CNN: Pope: Conversion by violence not of God

Benedict’s address was about faith and reason, and how they cannot be separated and are essential for “that genuine dialogue of cultures and religions so urgently needed today.”

Citing historic Christian commentary on holy war and forced conversion, the 79-year-old pontiff quoted from a 14th-century Byzantine emperor, Manuel II Paleologos.

“The emperor comes to speak about the issue of jihad, holy war,” the pope said. “He said, I quote, ‘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.’ “

Clearly aware of the sensitivity of the issue, Benedict added, “I quote,” twice before pronouncing the phrases on Islam and described them as “brusque,” while neither explicitly agreeing with nor repudiating them.

“The emperor goes on to explain in detail the reasons why spreading the faith through violence is something unreasonable,” Benedict said.

“Violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul,” the pope said, issuing an open invitation to dialogue among cultures.

Within two days of that speech, Muslims around the world erupted in protests. Interestingly, those protests focus in part on the characterization of Islam as violent:

CNN: Pope: Conversion by violence not of God

The Organization of the Islamic Conference, in a statement released Thursday, said it “regrets the quotations cited by the pope on the Life of the Honorable Prophet Mohammed, and what he referred to as ’spreading’ Islam ‘by the sword.’”

“The attribution of the spread of Islam around the world to the shedding of blood and violence, which is ‘incompatible with the nature of God’ is a complete distortion of the facts, which shows deep ignorance of Islam and Islamic history.”

“Deep ignorance of history” is a striking phrase considering that in the last year alone the world has seen evidence of Islam enforced by violence. Widespread, global death threats were issued against a non-Muslim cartoonist (and all other Westerners) for depicting Mohammed as a suicide bomber. The nation of Afghanistan clamored for the execution of a fellow citizen who confessed faith in Jesus Christ.

Indeed, as we consider the current protests it would be worthwhile to recall just how ugly the situation in Afghanistan became:

CNN: Top Muslim clerics: Convert must be killed

Senior Muslim clerics are demanding that an Afghan man on trial for converting from Islam to Christianity be executed, warning that if the government caves in to Western pressure and frees him, they will incite people to “pull him into pieces.”

…

“Rejecting Islam is insulting God. We will not allow God to be humiliated. This man must die,” said cleric Abdul Raoulf, who is considered a moderate and was jailed three times for opposing the Taliban before the hard-line regime was ousted in 2001.

…

Raoulf, who is a member of the country’s main Islamic organization, the Afghan Ulama Council, concurred. “The government is playing games. The people will not be fooled.”

“Cut off his head!” he exclaimed, sitting in a courtyard outside Herati Mosque. “We will call on the people to pull him into pieces so there’s nothing left.”

He said the only way for Rahman to survive would be for him to go into exile.

But Said Mirhossain Nasri, the top cleric at Hossainia Mosque, one of the largest Shiite places of worship in Kabul, said Rahman must not be allowed to leave the country.

“If he is allowed to live in the West, then others will claim to be Christian so they can, too,” he said. “We must set an example. … He must be hanged.”

Such calls for bloodshed were issued by mainline and moderate Muslims, not extremists. So has Islam been propagated through violence? Is it enforced by the sword? Most certainly. Although other methods, legitimate methods, have been used to spread and defend the Islamic faith, it cannot be denied that violence has also been used. This point has been documented easily enough in the last year.

No wonder, then, that current rhetoric carries on the threats we’ve all become accustomed to:

CNN: Al Qaeda threat over Pope speech

The group said Muslims would be victorious and addressed the pope as “the worshipper of the cross” saying “you and the West are doomed as you can see from the defeat in Iraq, Afghanistan, Chechnya and elsewhere. … We will break up the cross, spill the liquor and impose head tax, then the only thing acceptable is a conversion (to Islam) or (killed by) the sword.”

Islam forbids drinking alcohol and requires non-Muslims to pay a head tax to safeguard their lives if conquered by Muslims. They are exempt if they convert to Islam.

In Indian-controlled Kashmir, meanwhile, shops, businesses and schools shut down in response to a strike call by the head of a hard-line Muslim separatist leader to denounce Benedict. For the third day running, people burned tires and shouted “Down with the pope.”

Protests also broke out in Iraq, where angry demonstrators burned an effigy of the pope in Basra, and in Indonesia, where more than 100 people rallied in front of the heavily guarded Vatican Embassy in Jakarta, waving banners that said the “Pope is building religion on hatred.”

That last quote is most telling: “Pope is building religion on hatred.” The Pope argued that violence is incompatible with faith in God. Muslims are burning the Pope in effigy. And it is the Pope who is building religion on hatred.

(Incidentally, have you ever heard of a religion holding a “day of anger”? You have now:

BBC: Pope comment ‘linked to crusade’

Influential Qatari Muslim scholar, Yusuf al-Qaradawi, called for a day of anger on Friday.

Just what is a day of anger? What is it supposed to look like? Are those leaders who call for such a day not complicit in the excesses of their followers?)

Somehow Muslims around the world have caught a fever for the language of multiculturalism. They respect Mohammed, and we’d better respect Mohammed too — or face swift consequences. As evident from this latest fiasco, no action short of dying is sufficient to quell Muslim anger.

Infidels are, after all, an intolerance that simply won’t be tolerated.

On second thought, maybe this isn’t multicultural rhetoric gone awry. Maybe it’s just the same old Islamic convert-or-die attitude, couched in words instead of swords as long as Islamic nations still lack the nuclear weapons to show us all the way to Allah.