“I think that Weigel missed one of Benedict’s most important points, namely, that Islam fundamentally rejects reason”
The rejection of reason within Islam is sometimes traced to the 11th century book, “The Incoherence of the Philosophers”, by Al-Ghazali, which refuted previous philosophers like Avicenna (Ibn Sina), by using scriptural sources (like Abraham not being burned by fire), to argue that attempts to analyze the world by cause and effect, and logical reasoning were ultimately futile, because God controls all according to his will. This has been attributed with engendering fatalism, and an abandonment of critical reasoning, in favor of blind acceptance and obedience to scripture.
It seemed to me that Pope Benedict showed that reinterpretation of scripture and philosophy is possible, from the example of the Church itself throughout history.
Actually, a “sola scriptura” religion like Islam, especially if the scriptures don’t make any sense, fundamentally rejects reason. Granted, the scripture is in practice interpreted over the years by one or another person officially empowered to do so, but you still have to go back to the fact that the scriptures themselves are violent and anti-rational and cultic.
Islam swamped a number of militarily unprepared societies in the ME and beyond, since the thing that enabled its spread was the fact that there was no major power after the fall of Rome, and there was a division between the Eastern and Western Church that enabled Islam to rise on the ashes of various Arian-inspired heresies. However, there would be a period of a few decades between the time Islam took over a civilization (the modern nation-state wasn’t really in existence at that time, and these were all loosely confederated and generally warring kingdoms) and the time Islamic anti-reason complete extinguished it.
Don’t forget that Maimonides (Rambam) converted to Islam at one point. He may have been forced to do so by the Muslims in Spain. He later went back to Judaism, but he had also written that it was not a sin for Jews to convert to Islam.
To know how anti-reason Islam is, however, all you have to do is look at any Islamic society.