Posted on 3/26/2004, 4:41:39 PM by Valin
Lord Carey, the former archbishop of Canterbury, has launched a trenchant attack on Islamic culture, saying it was authoritarian, inflexible and under-achieving.
In a speech that will upset sensitive relations between the faiths, he denounced moderate Muslims for failing unequivocally to condemn the "evil" of suicide bombers.
He attacked the "glaring absence" of democracy in Muslim countries, suggested that they had contributed little of major significance to world culture for centuries and criticised the Islamic faith.
Dr Carey's comments, in a lecture in Rome, are the most forthright by a senior Church leader. He was speaking on the eve of a seminar of Christian and Muslim scholars in New York, led by his successor as archbishop, Dr Rowan Williams.
He acknowledged that most Muslims were peaceful people who should not be demonised. But he said that terrorist acts such as the September 11 attacks on America and the Madrid bombings raised difficult questions.
Contrasting western democracy with Islamic societies, he said: "Throughout the Middle East and North Africa we find authoritarian regimes with deeply entrenched leadership, some of which rose to power at the point of a gun and are retained in power by massive investment in security forces.
"Whether they are military dictatorships or traditional sovereignties, each ruler seems committed to retaining power and privilege."
Dr Carey said he was not convinced by arguments that Islam and democracy were incompatible, citing the example of Turkey.
He urged Europeans and Americans to resist claims that Islamic states were morally, spiritually and culturally superior.
"Although we owe much to Islam handing on to the West many of the treasures of Greek thought, the beginnings of calculus, Aristotelian thought during the period known in the West as 'the dark ages', it is sad to relate that no great invention has come for many hundred years from Muslim countries," he said. "This is a puzzle, because Muslim peoples are not bereft of brilliant minds. They have much to contribute to the human family and we look forward to the close co-operation that might make this possible.
"Yes, the West has still much to be proud of and we should say so strongly. We should also encourage Muslims living in the West to be proud of it and say so to their brothers and sisters living elsewhere."
Dr Carey said that, while Christianity and Judaism had a long history of often painful critical scholarship, Islamic theology was only now being challenged to become more open to examination.
"In the case of Islam, Mohammed, acknowledged by all in spite of his religious greatness to be an illiterate man, is said to have received God's word direct, word by word, from angels, and scribes recorded them later.
"Thus believers are told, because they have come direct from Allah, they are not to be questioned or revised.
"In the first few centuries of the Islamic era, Islamic theologians sought to meet the challenge this implied, but during the past 500 years critical scholarship has declined, leading to strong resistance to modernity."
Dr Carey said that moderate Muslims must "resist strongly" the taking over of Islam by radical activists "and to express strongly, on behalf of the many millions of their co-religionists, their abhorrence of violence done in the name of Allah."
He said: "We look to them to condemn suicide bombers and terrorists who use Islam as a weapon to destabilise and destroy innocent lives. Sadly, apart from a few courageous examples, very few Muslim leaders condemn, clearly and unconditionally, the evil of suicide bombers who kill innocent people.
"We need to hear outright condemnation of theologies that state that suicide bombers are martyrs and enter a martyr's reward. We need to hear Muslims expressing their outrage and condemning such evil."
Christians, who shared many admirable moral values with Muslims, such as respect for the family, must speak out against the persecution they often encountered in Muslim countries.
"During my time as archbishop, this was my constant refrain: that the welcome we have given to Muslims in the West, with the accompanying freedom to worship freely and build their mosques, should be reciprocated in Muslim lands," he said.
The former Archbishop, who initiated several top-level meetings between Christian and Islamic leaders during his period at Lambeth Palace, urged the West to tackle the Palestinian problem and other inequalities in the Muslim world.
"I for one do not accept that the future is one of escalating violence, deepening bitterness and a grudging dialogue between 'incompatible faiths' and cultures," he added. "Compassion and understanding are the only tools to handle hatred and violence.
"It will do us little good if the West simply believes the answer is to put an end to Osama bin Laden. Rather we must put an end to conditions, distortions and misinformation that create Osama bin Laden and his many emulators."
Not true. One can learn a great deal from a bad example.
YIKES your Lordship! Don't sugar-coat it!
Good to see someone in authority with the cojones to say these things.
Islam has hated Christianity since Day One.
I'm holding my breath...
He must be very concerned to be this forthright.
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