Posted on 09/16/2006 10:37:03 AM PDT by lastchance
Magdi Allam is a leading Muslim commentator in Italy. He has written what I consider to be a major editorial for an Italian national newspaper, "Corriere della Sera". You will find below my probably flawed, non-professional translation of his editorial. The Italian original itself wasn't gramatically perfect. At the end is a link to the editorial (in the original Italian) on the web. - - -
15 September 2006
THE TRUTH OF HISTORY
Muslims against the Pope, “He has offended us, let him ask pardon” by Magdi Allam
It is desolating and preoccupying to see Muslims who have given life to a unified international front to attack the Pope and demand public apologies. From Bin Laden to the Muslim Brotherhood, from Pakistan to Turkey, from Al Jazeera to Al Arabiya, there has risen anew the widespread and universal alliance that first emerged on the occasion of the events surrounding the cartoons about Mohammed. It testifies, in an unequivocal manner, that the root of the evil is a blind ideology of imperious hatred among Muslims, one that violates the faith and darkens the mind. Why is it that Muslims, especially the so-called moderates, never stand up with similar and as much enthusiasm against the true and perpetual profaners of Islam, the Islamic terrorists who massacre Muslims themselves in the name of the same God, the Islamic extremists who legitimize the destruction of Israel and inculcate faith in the so-called Islamic “martyrdom”, while in the meantime they feel themselves dutybound to promote a sort of Islamic “holy war” against the head of the Catholic Church who legitimately expresses his evaluations concerning Islam, with respect but with just as much clarity about the diversity that naturally exists between the two religions? The considerations referred to by the Pope, citing the Byzantine emperor Manuel Paleologus II, concerning the spread of Islam by the sword, whether on the part of Mohammed within the Arabian Peninsula or on the part of his successors in the rest of the world (with just a few exceptions), are an incontrovertible historical fact. Testimony to the fact comes from the Koran itself and from the reality that the entire Byzantine empire to the East and South of the Mediterranean passed to Islam, plus the successive expansion northward into Europe and eastward into Asia.
To deny the historical reality is simply foolish, and it can generate nothing but foolishness. I recall that one of the most notable contemporary Islamologists, the Egyptian Mohammad Said El Eshmawi, said to me in the mid-nineties that he simply did not sympathize with the military conquest carried out by the Arab tribes in the Christian lands of the Mediterranean, and that he would have preferred to have had Islam spread peacefully as came about in Southeast Asia. And now the Pope is being punished and threatened for having said what every honest and rational Muslim should accept: the historical reality. The lesson to draw is that the West and Christianity ought to stop considering themselves to be the cause of everything that followed, whether good or bad, within Islam and in the rest of the world. The ideology of hatred is an ancestral reality that exists in the heart of Islam from its very beginnings, because of the refusal to recognize and respect the plurality of the physiological religious communities, and given the subjectivity of the relationship between the believer and God, and the absence of a single spiritual reference point that incarnates the absoluteness of the dogmas of faith. And it is a reality that, beginning with the defeat of the Arab armies in the war of 5 June 1967, it [the ideology of hatred] has undergone an unstoppable upsurge parallel to the growth of the power of the Islamic extremists from Iran to Indonesia. It has ended up flowing into the current of globalized Islamic terrorism, that has transformed the West itself into a “kamikaze factory”.
This is the tragic reality of the ideology of hatred that is succeeding in solidifying the consensus among all those Muslims whose minds are clouded by being anti-American, anti-West, and by prejudiced hostility to the right of Israel to exist. The pretexts that can set off their fury change, from the Israeli occupation to the American war, from the Mohammed cartoons to the declarations of the Pope. But the problem is entirely internal to an Islam transformed by the extremists from a faith in God into an ideology bent on imposing a theocratic and totalitarian power upon all those who are not in their image and likeness. And it frightens me to note that even the so-called moderate Muslims have renounced the prudence of reason, and have aligned themselves with the “holy war” of which they will be the principal victims.
I WISH PEOPLE WOULD READ WHAT THE POPE ACTUALLY SAID AND MAKE SOME ATTEMPT TO UNDERSTAND IT!!!
http://zenit.org/english/visualizza.phtml?sid=94748
He WAS NOT DISCUSSING THE USE OF VIOLENCE FOR RELIGIOUS PURPOSES!!! He was not discussing Islam at all!!! He was discussing: "FAITH, REASON AND THE UNIVERSITY" ... and stated as part of his conclusion that "...theology rightly belongs in the university and within the wide-ranging dialogue of sciences..." and that "... the world's profoundly religious cultures see this exclusion of the divine from the universality of reason as an attack on their most profound convictions."
His final statement was, "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." The "cultures" he was referring to had little or nothing to do with Islam - he was talking about the clash of "empirically verifiable" vs. "theology" cultures, as he earlier had said, "A reason which is deaf to the divine and which relegates religion into the realm of subcultures is incapable of entering into the dialogue of cultures."
He is being excoriated for using a quote from over 600 years ago "-- by the erudite Byzantine emperor Manuel II Paleologus and an educated Persian on the subject of Christianity and Islam, and the truth of both.": "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 Pope made clear he was quoting an ancient conversation. He made clear that this is NOT HIS words, but that of the Byzantine emperor, and that emperor then went on to make a "... decisive statement in this argument against violent conversion is this: Not to act in accordance with reason is contrary to God's nature."
The last sentence was the whole point that the Pope was making during his whole presentation: Not to act in accordance with reason is contrary to God's nature. It was one of his many starting points for his theological discussion of "Faith, Reason and the University", part of his conclusion being, "...We will succeed in [broadening our concept of reason and its application] only if reason and faith come together in a new way, if we overcome the self-imposed limitation of reason to the empirically verifiable, and if we once more disclose its vast horizons. In this sense theology rightly belongs in the university and within the wide-ranging dialogue of sciences, not merely as a historical discipline and one of the human sciences, but precisely as theology, as inquiry into the rationality of faith. Only thus do we become capable of that genuine dialogue of cultures and religions so urgently needed today..."
The reaction to the very profound things the Pope said illustrates several things. One of them is that the people are completely incapable of understanding the profound, and that Western universities have fallen short in their education responsibilities, including in their education of the NYSlimes' reporters and their readers who can't bring themselves to acknowledge that they don't know everything. Another is this illustration that people should not be given access to specialized knowledge and discussion, whether that be theological, political, or scientific, without thorough and accurate filtering. Yet another, but by no means the final, is that biased people always misunderstand what even the finest communications expert says.
The Pope's major point is that ALL of the profoundly religious cultures whether they be Christianity, Islam, Jewish, Hindu, etc., should not be marginalized by being snootily looked at as a "subculture" not worthy of inclusion in the university environment, and that the university "culture" must engage in reason with the religious "culture".
PLEASE, If you agree with this analysis of what the Pope said, or any part of it, FEEL FREE TO USE IT any way you desire!
Yes I have read it. Unfortunately the Muslims gathering up their firebrands see only the words Islam and Mohammed and notice they are not followed by the qualifier " a religion of peace, love, kindness to puppies and sunflowers" which is enough to cause the usual pursuit of 700 virgins.
It's not just the Muslims.
It seems that haters of Muslims and even devout Catholics are totally foolish about reading this!
The Pope's address had nothing to do with Islam at all! It was meant to encourage ACEDEMIA to be more inclusive in their definition of what is considered "rational"!
If he was invoking Islam at all, it was merely to say that even that a radical "God doesn't have to be rational or consistent" viewpoint should be given consideration in academic thought.
I agree with you re: the Pope and his quote, but on the other hand he is a world figure and he had to know that this quote would stand out. He knows what needs to be said and is saying it in such a way that the message is subtle, but there.
There should be more of this however. Every time a moderate thought is spoken in the Islamic world, it should be given a soap box to stand on.
Thanks for this.
Much of what he has already written in "Truth and Tolerance." Ironically many of the western defenders of Islamism, thinking of it as a reaction to "imperialism," do not understand that it is THEIR contempt for religion, THEIR false notion of freedom, that Bin Laden et al. find most objectionable. The academics say that we must get at the root cause of the Islamic detestation of modernity, but they don't listen to what the Islamists actually say.
Bear in mind that this was not a news conference. It was an academic address.
It is nonsensical that something being used as a rhetorical device in an academic discussion be said to "stand out."
A speech that sparks discussion and controversy is more successful than one that passes unnoticed. I'll bet this is on its way to becoming the most read papal address in a long time.
Whether anyone thinks the Pope's comments were pure academia or a direct link to Islam... his comments are not without merit and the Muslims are proving it today.
According to a CBS News report:
In West Bank attacks on four churches, Palestinians used guns, firebombs and lighter fluid, leaving church doors charred and walls scorched by flames and pocked with bullet holes. No one was reported injured. Two Catholic churches, an Anglican one and a Greek Orthodox one were hit. A Greek Orthodox church was also attacked in Gaza City.
In a phone call to The Associated Press, a group calling itself "Lions of Monotheism" said the attacks were in protest of the pope's remarks on Islam.
Regret, but No Apology From Pope
Personally, I hope the Pope doesn't apologize to them. They don't deserve an apology because of their bloodthirsty reactions.
Until the Muslim world can react to disappointments and perceived insults with the reason and the rationality that the Pope is expressing in his talk, then dialogue with them is impossible. You can't deal with irrational folks. Especially ones that act like they aren't genetically wired right.
I have no respect for those in the western media who are DELIBERATELY over-hyping this as an excuse to excoriate B16 and the Catholic Church in general. Basically they hate the Pope and the Catholic Church on account of their positions on homosexuality, abortion, and birth control. This is an underhanded way to "get back at him" without having to honestly come out and say why. The irony here is that most Muslims agree with the Pope on these issues, not the secular Western media!
I agree. There is some great commentary on this issue over at www.getreligion.org. Especially on the NYT editorial demands for the Pope to apologize.
That western media is the same that wrote forever about cartoons, but never saw fit to print what the outrage was about.
What Gravitas. /s
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