Struggling for truth

[ewx]

The BBC has a bunch of quotes on Muslim reaction to the Pope's infamous speech. Only one of them seems, to me, to get to the heart of the matter, from Dr Muhammed Abdul Bari, of the MCB:

One would expect a religious leader such as the Pope to act and speak with responsibility and repudiate the Byzantine emperor's views in the interests of truth and harmonious relations. Regrettably, the Pope did not do so and this has understandably caused a lot of dismay and hurt.

The Pope's full speech starts by introducing a 14th century text by Manuel II (apparently a discussion with a Persian gentleman, though I'm not clear if it's a specific person or is addressed to a hypothetical Muslim). The quote shows Manuel criticizing Islam for - as the Emperor sees it - sanctioning forced conversion. (Whether the Emperor really believes this or is just laying down a debating challenge for a willing partner to take up I don't know; I could well believe the latter; but I don't think it's important right now, since we're not really interested in what Manuel thought but in how the Pope interprets and uses it. The author really is dead, after all.)

So, does he say he disagrees? As far as I can see the next paragraph is reporting the opinions of Theodore Khoury, who thinks that violence being incompatible with religion is obvious to Manuel and to anyone brought up in the same tradition, but fairly clearly says that this isn't obvious to Muslim thought. It's less direct and quotable, hence its absence from reported news I imagine, but the import is essentially the same.

So there's two quotes accusing Islam of accepting violence as a means of propagation. Does the Pope agree with them? Does he disagree? Does he think they a fair description of Islam as a whole, or just of the views of some subset of Muslims, or even just an arguable consequence of some of those views? He doesn't say. I can find no indication in the rest of the speech, which I must admit I have skimmed rather than read it detail, as to what he thinks of this point.

Obviously people should be able to quote other people's views if they want, without necessarily being thought of subscribe to those views, but the context doesn't contain anything I can find that could be interpreted as disapproving of those views, and he certainly uses Manuel as a starting point for developing his central point about reason and religion.

Are we supposed to think it's just coincidence that his starting point happens to level a serious accusation at another religion? That the guy is so monumentally out of touch that he thinks that any Muslims who happened across it would just think of it as an interesting anecdote from the 8th century (AH), rather than kick up a worldwide fuss?

I don't need to feel particularly outraged; he's not my Pope and there are other people who are arguably doing much more to screw up relations between the West and the Muslims. But I am completely baffled as to what he thought he was up to. The best I can imagine is that it's a reaction to the experiences of Steve Centanni and Olaf Wiig, albeit an impenetrable and badly thought-out one, though I can't see this as anything other than a major stretch.

Comments

[ghoti.livejournal.com]

It could well be reaction to the criticisms from within Italy that he is too pro-Islam. He's called for more state funded Muslim school, he's called for Catholics to listen to the Islamic message of peace and love. This way, he's not contradicting himself, but he's keeping them happy.

[perdita-fysh.livejournal.com]

This is more probably a reflection of my lack of knowledge about these things than anything else, but why has no one mentioned that what the 14th century guy said isn't true? For all I know about Islam, it might be. Certainly from all that is reported about it, it sounds like it probably is. Which would throw a different light on what the pope said.

I'm just surprised these reports don't say "quoting from the rubbish and not at all widely held views of the 14th Century guy"?

[ewx.livejournal.com]

You can (I'm told) find references to violence against unbelievers in the Koran, but there's plenty of violence to be found in the Christian bible, leaving the Emperor (and for that matter the Pope) without a leg to stand on if the aim was an appeal to the raw text with context stripped away.