Arab West Report Egyptian press summaries and media research for dialogue

[The author would like to thank Dr. Hasan Wajīh (Expert on negotiations and cross-

cultural

communication, Ph.D in Linguistics and Political Sciences, Georgetown University and Al-Azhar

University) for

providing background information on Islamic teaching as far as this was relevant for

discussing the lecture of Pope

Benedict XVI. The author also would like to thank Dar Comboni (Catholic

Institute in Cairo for teaching Arabic and

culture in the Arab World; the institute is strongly dialogue

oriented) for the opportunity to present and discuss

a draft text in their Zamalek meeting on September 22,

2006. Responses of Father Dr. Christiaan van Nispen, Father

Henri Boulad, Father Dr. Giuseppe Scattolin,

Father Dr. Emilio Platti (by e-mail) and other participants have been

incorporated. Special thanks goes to

Mr. Usāmah al-Ghazūlī, a seasoned senior Egyptian

journalist who translated into Arabic a short

version of this text for Rose al-Yūssuf, Dr. Nadia Mustaf?, head

of the Program for Dialogue of

Civilizations at Cairo University, who provided some valuable insights and Ms.

Wisām Muhammad al-

Diwīnī, intern from the Program Dialogue of Civilizations, Cairo University,

in our office.]

Pope Benedict’s September 12 lecture became highly controversial in the Islamic world

after his very

unfortunate reflection on the edition by Prof. Theodore Adel Khoury (German-Lebanese professor) of

the

dialogue between Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Paleologus and an unnamed educated Persian Muslim around 1391

AD.

The prime problem in the discussion about the lecture of the pope is a lack of context that was

provided

in this lecture which has made it possible for listeners or readers to provide interpretations that

may or may not

have been intended⁽¹⁾. The pope reflected on the 14^th century dialogue

without providing

sufficient context. Thus various media highlighted the pope’s quote of the highly

offensive statement from the

Byzantine emperor without seeing the positive things the pope said in the

lecture and elsewhere about the need for

intercultural dialogue.

This text will not only summarize

the lecture but also provide the background that

had been lacking in various reports and

comments.

Pope Benedict’s lecture had in mind a Western

academic public that is strongly influenced

by a Western positivist philosophy that has relegated faith to the

domain of personal beliefs, removing it

far from science, which he describes as the interplay of mathematical and

empirical elements. The pope

strongly criticizes Western positivist philosophy that excludes the question of God,

thus reducing the

radius of science and reason. Most Muslim scholars will agree. They too are facing the strong

impact of

Western positivist philosophy in the various areas of study they are working in.

Pope Benedict

touched on Islam only in the introductory remarks of his speech; he did not intend to develop these fully,

but only

to introduce his main theme.

It is obvious that Pope Benedict referred to the

14^th century

Byzantine emperor for his statement "Not to act reasonably, not to act with

logos, is contrary to the nature

of God," not the emperor’s certainly offensive and unjust quote

about Islam. The lecture of the pope clearly

shows he advocates dialogue with Islam. Pope Benedict even

refers to "the subject of Christianity and Islam, and

the truth of both." The formulation "and the truth of

both" is highly significant and, unfortunately, not often

heard in Christian circles. Here the pope states

there is truth in both Christianity and Islam which is in line

with the Second Vatican Council, a worldwide

gathering of Catholic bishops (1962-1965), which the then young

theologian Ratzinger attended. The council

officially declared that Muslims "professing to hold the faith of

Abraham, along with us adore the one and

merciful God” (Dogmatic Constitution on the Church Lumen Gentium,

nr. 16). Indeed, the Declaration on

the relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions (commonly known as Nostra

Aetate, nr. 2) stated: “The

Catholic Church rejects nothing that is true and holy in these religions. She regards

with sincere reverence

those ways of conduct and of life, those precepts and teachings which, though differing in

many aspects from

the ones she holds and sets forth, nonetheless often reflect a ray of that Truth which enlightens

all men.”

There are not many other Christian leaders who would so explicitly state that there is both truth

in

Christianity and Islam. Father Dr. Christian van Nispen, a Jesuit priest living in Egypt since 1962 and author

of a magnificent book on dialogue between Muslims and Christians, “Chrétiens et musulmans: frères devant

Dieu?”

["Christians and Muslims: brothers before God?"] [This books has been translated into Dutch, Bahasa

Indonesia,

Italian and Arabic], calls this formulation of Pope Benedict "a hopeful sign for mutual

understanding."

From

the lecture it is obvious how the pope views dialogue: namely, that there is a

need for the world’s religious

cultures, including Islam, to address the negative consequences of the

"exclusion of the divine from the

universality of reason." Most Muslim scholars would agree.

The pope

thus used both a quote that is very

offensive for any Muslim in a volatile climate and also made unusually

positive remarks about Islam. Regrettably,

the media primarily focused on the negative, thereby playing

their part in presenting a quote without providing

sufficient context.

Muslim anger was justified and

many scholars and organizations provided good rational

arguments to explain their anger. Other responses,

unfortunately, were not so good. The violence that followed and

the conspiracy theories that developed only

burn bridges and bring closer a clash of civilizations that no

reasonably thinking human being wants. This

lecture is yet another powerful signal that both the Muslim world and

the West need, more than ever, to be

engaged in dialogue.

One of the main problems is that Western media,

students and even many scholars

and prominent leaders have insufficient access to good and credible information. It

is amazing how many

Western books and articles about the Arab world and Islam refer to non-Arab sources that indeed

often lack

accuracy. This is the consequence of a lack of study of the basis of Arabic source material and a lack

of

being able to read the Arabic texts.

The pope has been educated, lived and taught in the West and is well

aware of changes in thinking in the region, as is obvious from his lecture. Being a product of the West also

means

that the pope must have been, throughout his life, exposed to lots of one-sided or perhaps even

mistaken notions

about Islam. He has never lived in a Muslim country and is not an expert on Islam or on

historical Muslim-Christian

encounters that would have made him formulate his lecture with greater

caution.

Of course the Vatican has

access to a great number of excellent scholars who would have been

able to provide the pope with advice that would

have helped him to make more careful formulations. This

appears not to have happened. Thus we now have obtained a

glimpse into the personal understanding of a

Western-educated pope who in the same text makes an incredibly

positive statement about both Christianity

and Islam and also presents an image of Islam that is definitely

distorted; the consequence of large amounts

of misinformation about Islam floating around in the West.

This

needs to be addressed! Information

that is one-sided, that strengthens prevalent stereotypes, that is presented

without sufficient context and

even misinformation should be responded to with accurate information and a context

that indeed helps to

correct mistaken notions of people who have grown up in a very different culture. Here Muslims

and Arabs

definitely could do so much more.

We therefore need Muslims and Arabs who do understand the

Western

mindset and who are able, also through studies and articles, to help a Western public better understand.

The

number of Muslims and Arabs who are able to do this convincingly for a Western public is, however, shockingly

small. This is one major reason why genuine dialogue is much needed. People of different cultures must make

more

effort to understand one another. One of the best ways to do this is to work together to address

misunderstandings,

to examine differences in thought and to respect fully the different religious

convictions that exist.

This

is why we have initiated a project to translate thousands of opinion

articles from Arab media into English, so as

to make the concerns expressed in the Arab media available to

the larger Western public. We are now building an

electronic library to facilitate an easy search for

Western users, helping them to understand that the Arab and

Islamic world is not a monolithic block and that

commonly used generalizations in the West are wrong. We have also

started writing thousands of biographies

of Arab authors and personalities based on information provided in Arab

media. Moreover, we are working on a

strong Arab-European academic network that includes prominent organizations in

Egypt.

We need an

institute that makes Western observers aware of arguments and feelings from the Muslim

world; not

superficially, as is the case in most Western media, but with greater depth.

The real reason for

the

uproar is that so many Muslims feel under attack by the West. Thus mistakes in presenting Islam to the West

have brought us from one crisis to the next. Western interferences, military and otherwise, and other

incidents

have contributed to this mistrust. The frustrations of large segments of the Muslim population

over poverty and

stagnation in development, often blamed on the West, makes people burst out in anger when

they feel they have again

been unjustly treated. Educated Muslims respond in writing, the less educated in

some countries have responded with

violence, possibly instigated by people with anti-Western and anti-

Christian sentiments. However mistakes such as

the lecture of the pope have made this possible. The lecture

resulted in the burning of several churches and the

killing of a number of Christians, of course not helping

the Western stereotype that Islam is related to violence.

This stereotype is not only destructive but also

wrong since one should take into consideration widespread

prevalent frustrations. This explains, however

does not justify the violence.

Muslims also looked to the

pope with great bewilderment as he quoted

in a public lecture from the Qur’ān and gave an

interpretation of the text that is contrary to Islamic

teaching while, for example, the Grand Shaykh of the Azhar,

Shaykh Tantāwī, would not do so with a

text from the Bible.

There are good reasons for Muslims

to be cautious about the West. But they

should also be careful not to suspect negative intentions too quickly,

because distrusting someone’s

intentions destroys the possibility of building bridges.

Building bridges

is possible. Through the

work of Arab-West Report we have seen hundreds of Westerners change their opinion about

the Arab world and

Islam after they visited Egypt and were provided with information from sources they trusted or

from people

or organizations they felt affinity to.

There are millions and millions of well-intended people

in

the West who are misinformed and who base their research on misinformation. It is these people we need to reach

out to with accurate information. We need to develop mechanisms that can prevent the unintended offence of

Islam

and other religions from happening again, thus preventing a clash of civilizations from indeed

developing. Great

efforts have already been made by H.R.H. Prince Hasan of Jordan through his past lectures

and through the

foundation and activities of the Royal Jordanian Institute for Interfaith Studies, the most

recent Congress for

Middle Eastern Studies (WOCMES-2) in Amman and other activities. I do admire his work

and that of many others who

are engaged in intercultural dialogue. However more could be done.

The

pope’s

lecture:

Azhar scholar Dr. Hasan Wajīh stated explicitly that the pope was not wrong

in quoting

Byzantine Emperor Manuel II, even though it was a very clear anti-Muslim quote. It should be

possible to use anti-

Muslim quotes as long as the person doing so makes explicitly clear what the context of

the quote was and states

clearly that we cannot accept such views and statements today.

The

14^th century dialogue that the

pope referred to took place in a context when the Byzantine Empire

was under threat by the advancing Ottoman Turks

who indeed only conquered the Byzantine capital

Constantinople half a century later in 1453 AD. These circumstances

do not help a balanced dialogue and help

to explain the terse language that the Byzantine emperor used.

The

circumstances of feeling under

threat by an advancing Muslim empire were hardly conductive for a balanced dialogue

about both Christianity

and Islam. But there is also another reason for caution. Pope Benedict writes that

presumably the emperor

requested this dialogue "during the siege of Constantinople between 1394 and 1402; and this

would explain

why his arguments are given in greater detail than those of his Persian interlocutor." The pope dated

the

dialogue earlier in his lecture to around 1391, showing another inaccuracy. He does not mention who documented

this dialogue. It appears to have been written by a Christian close to the emperor and thus should be seen

as a

Christian presentation of Christians feeling under threat by Muslim conquerors.

No doubt the

dialogue is

interesting because it helps us understand how some Christians felt about Islam in those days

but one should not

expect this to be objective. The dialogue may also be responding to Muslim arguments at

the time but it is not a

good source for understanding 14^th century Islam. He could have better

used contemporary Muslim sources

that describe how they saw their advance on Constantinople. The fact that

we do not know the name of the educated

Persian Muslim also does not instill confidence in this

source.

There are several other such religious

dialogues from medieval times and many of these

seemingly intend to show the wider public the arguments of one

party being superior over the other. This

means the proper context of these sources must be articulated when

referring to them.

Pope Benedict

explained that this 14^th century dialogue referred to a wide

range of issues but he only wanted

to discuss one point in particular, this being rather marginal to the dialogue

as a whole, because he found

it interesting for his reflection on "faith and reason."

The pope argues that

faith cannot be spread

by the sword but only by reason. Most contemporary Muslims and Christians do not differ on

this

point.

The pope then spoke about a most controversial issue: understanding the concept of jihād,

often described in Western texts as ‘Holy War.’ Muslims, understandably, often feel offended and

misinterpreted by

Western authors writing about jihād. Thus any writing or speech about this concept

should be done with great

care.⁽²⁾

The pope states that the emperor was aware of the

Muslim concept of jihād. Here

contemporary Muslim sources could have better explained how this concept

was used by the Ottoman Turks of those

days because this would have helped us to understand the emperor’s

thoughts about this issue. But the emperor,

no doubt, was not only influenced by and responding to

contemporary Ottoman beliefs about jihād but also by

earlier Christian writings that were hardly neutral

following the crusades and the expulsion of crusaders from the

Levant.

The pope thus touched on a

very sensitive subject from a period full of tensions on the basis of one

source only. He or his assistants

should have used a wider selection of sources.

Pope Benedict stated that

"the emperor must have known

that Sūrah 2, 256 reads: ‘There is no compulsion in religion’” and said

“according to the experts, this

is one of the Sūrahs of the early period, when Muhammad was still powerless

and under threat. But

naturally the emperor also knew the instructions, developed later and recorded in the

Qur’ān, concerning

holy war."

Muslim scholars say this is wrong. Contrary to what the pope said,

they say this verse was

revealed in Madīnah when Muhammad was in a position of strength, not weakness. We do

not know what

experts Pope Benedict consulted but they have certainly not helped the pope with their

advice.

The

pope may have consulted a Western author who disputes this but the pope should then at least

have referred

to such a difference between one or more Western scholars and the great majority of Muslim scholars.

It is

important for the discussion whether the revelation was in Makkah or Madīnah because if the revelation

was in Makkah it could be explained as ’opportunistic.’ If the revelation was in Madīnah it would

show generosity towards those not believing in the message of the Prophet Muhammad. Just stating one view as

fact

while it is strongly contested by Muslim scholars is, of course, not conductive to dialogue and mutual

understanding.

Pope Benedict then moves to what he calls "the central question about the relationship

between religion and violence in general," another very sensitive issue, and quotes Byzantine Emperor Manuel

II

Paleologus telling his Persian interlocutor "Show me just what Muhammad 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

online encyclopedia Wikipedia pointed out some severe mistakes that occurred when the

German lecture was translated

into English

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Benedict_XVI_Islam_controversy#Translation_differences as last

accessed

on Sept 23, 2006].

Whereas Pope Benedict literally said "The emperor touches on the theme of

jihād, holy war," the English translation reduces this to "The emperor touches on the theme of the holy

war," reducing the semantic field of jihād to mean only religiously justified military

action.

The

controversial quote of the pope should have been translated "... things only bad and

inhumane..." rather than “…

things only evil and inhuman.” The word used in the German speech was

"Schlechtes" (bad/wicked), whereas the

English word "evil" is much stronger and would have

corresponded to the word "B?ses," which the pope did not

use. Similarly, the German word

"inhuman" (inhumane) was used, and not "unmenschlich"

(inhuman).

The original German

text was certainly not conciliatory but the mistranslations into English made

it worse and fuelled outrage

about the quote, especially when the quote was translated into Arabic. This occurred

mainly on the basis of

the English text rather than the German original.

Muslim scholars, organizations and

media have

strongly criticized the pope for this quote. However Pope Benedict says nowhere that he agrees with the

quote. Rather he calls it a statement made with "In erstaunlich schroffer, uns überraschend schroffer

form,"

in the official English translation "startling brusqueness." Here one should criticize the

translation from the

text that was delivered in German. The German text is much stronger than the English

translation of "startling

brusqueness." A better translation would have been "astoundingly gruff" and "for

us [a] surprisingly harsh form."

This comment does not indicate support for the emperor’s statement about

Islam. The pope later publicly stated

that this quote did not reflect his own personal views and was

strongly sorry because the quotations had offended

Muslims throughout the world. The International Islamic

Forum for Dialogue considered this statement a retraction.

The Forum saw the pope’s excuses as a degree of

apology.

Several Muslim commentators and authors

immediately referred to this quote as an indication

that the pope is anti-Muslim. But this conclusion is at least

premature since the pope on earlier occasions

has clearly spoken in favor of dialogue with Islam.

I agree

with the International Islamic Forum for

Dialogue that the lecture reflected the pope’s lack of knowledge about

Islam. This conclusion seems

justified since the pope has, in this lecture and on earlier occasions, spoken in

favor of dialogue with

Islam: not as far reaching as others would like but nevertheless in favor of

dialogue.

The pope, when

he still was Cardinal Ratzinger, spoke against Turkey joining the European Union

but this was motivated by

his concerns about the Christian-Hellenistic identity of Europe. This identity has

greatly changed in the

past 50 years through the rapid secularization of Europe, Christians leaving churches and a

rapidly growing

Muslim population, primarily through Muslim immigration and them having larger families than non-

Muslims. If

Turkey joins the European Union this will change the demographics of Europe even more. Just as many

Muslim

countries are making efforts to preserve their Muslim heritage, so the pope wants to preserve the Christian

heritage in Europe. One can agree or disagree with efforts to preserve one’s own heritage but preserving

one’s own heritage in one’s own country (or in the pope’s case Europe) should not be seen as the

same as opposing dialogue.

The pope was also preparing for an official visit to Turkey, not quite an

indication of a pope opposed to dialogue. No one would prepare for such a visit and then make statements

that would

endanger it. This is thus an indication of a pope who did not expect his lecture to be received

with such commotion

in the Islamic world.

The pope’s comments on the quote of the Byzantine emperor

do not show an approval

of these words but unfortunately, in the context of growing Muslim-Christian

tensions, the care given to the

formulation of his speech was obviously insufficient.

The least the

pope could have done was not only, with

more clarity, show his disagreement with the words of Manuel II but

also to articulate that there were very obvious

calls for tolerance, peace, justice and mercy from Muslim

thinkers prior to the 14^th century and that

Manuel had neglected these.

Pope Benedict’s

objective was clear: violence is incompatible with the

nature of God and faith cannot be spread by the

sword. This is both a Muslim and Christian teaching but both Muslim

and Christian leaders in the past have

pushed aside this teaching and used religion to advance their policies.

Misuse of religion for political

purposes has happened, unfortunately, in all religions. One should not blame these

religions but rather the

rulers who did this.

Pope Benedict argues that "spreading the faith through

violence is something

unreasonable." I certainly agree. But his presentation of Manuel II showed a lack of

sensitivity to how his

speech could be perceived by Muslims. It also showed that he has been insufficiently aware

of how both

Muslims and Christians have violated this principle throughout history.

Pope Benedict

sympathizes

with the following quote of the emperor "Violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature

of

the soul.” “God,” the emperor says, "is not pleased by blood - and not acting reasonably is contrary to

God’s nature. Faith is born of the soul, not the body. Whoever would lead someone to faith needs the ability

to speak well and to reason properly, without violence and threats... To convince a reasonable soul, one

does not

need a strong arm, or weapons of any kind or any other means of threatening a person with

death...."

Pope

Benedict follows his quote with his own comment "The decisive statement in this

argument against violent conversion

is this: not to act in accordance with reason is contrary to God’s

nature."

There is no problem with

the argument of the pope that not acting "in accordance with reason

is contrary to God’s nature." There is,

however, a problem with the source used to support his argument and

not using that source in the proper context of

the time, i.e. to also consult contemporary Muslim

sources.

We should also question why the emperor was

making these arguments at this moment in time.

He was not only feeling under threat but may also have been trying

to appeal to Muslims of his days that

they should not use faith arguments to fight the Byzantine Empire. That would

have been an understandable

move because if he was able to convince Muslims of his arguments it would have taken

away much of their

religious fervor in their efforts to conquer Constantinople.

The pope continued to follow

the

arguments of Khoury, "For the emperor, as a Byzantine shaped by Greek philosophy, this statement is self-

evident.” But for Muslim teaching, God is absolutely transcendent. His will is not bound up with any of our

categories, even that of rationality. Here Khoury quotes a work of the noted French Islamist R. Arnaldez,

who

points out that Ibn Hazm went so far as to state that God is not bound even by his own word, and that

nothing would

oblige him to reveal the truth to us. Were it God’s will, we would even have to practise

idolatry."

The

pope’s way of quoting was risky. For his argument the pope refers to Khoury who quotes

Roger Arnaldez, a

French scholar of Islam [the German original text says “Islamologe”, and not Islamist!

⁽⁴⁾. Arnaldez in

turn refers to Ibn Hazm, a Muslim scholar from Muslim Andalusia. This is an

unsafe exercise for someone not

specialized in Islamic history. How would he know if Ibn Hazm was

representative of Muslim thinking in general and

for his time in particular? The European Islamic scholar

Tāriq Ramadān clarifies that “the

Zāhirī erudite Ibn Hazm” was “a respected figure but whose

school of thought is marginal.”

[http://www.tariqramadan.com/article.php3?

id_article=781&lang=en].

The choice of the reference to Ibn Hazm

(not Hazn) is not only unfortunate

but also a misunderstanding of the complexity of Islamic theology. The text not

only suggests that in Muslim

thinking humans cannot understand God’s rationality but that, in fact, Islam and

reason are hard to unite.

Something modern Muslim scholars would strongly disagree with. Father Dr. Giuseppe

Scattolin comments that

the references in the lecture of the pope incorrectly implied that Islam is not rational.

"Muslims generally

see Islam as more rational than Christianity."

However, in the pope’s lecture the

reference is

presented as if Ibn Hazm’s quote presents mainline Islamic thinking. Dr. Hassān

Wagīh objects to

this. "Scholars in Islam present their own views, one cannot presume that one view is more

important than

the other. The Islamic Research Academy in Cairo, for example, consisting of many prominent Egyptian

Muslim

scholars, does not agree with Ibn Hazm’s view. It is seen as one of the many views of Muslim scholars

about

the transcendence of God."

Instead of highlighting one Andalusian scholar who does not represent

mainstream Muslim thought, the pope would have done better to speak about the contribution of Muslim

civilization

in Andalusia to the development of Europe.⁽³⁾

Pope Benedict follows the quote

of Ibn Hazm with a

question: "Is the conviction that acting unreasonably contradicts God’s nature merely a

Greek idea, or is it

always and intrinsically true? I believe that here we can see the profound harmony

between what is Greek [thinking]

in the best sense of the word and the biblical understanding of faith in

God."

"Acting unreasonably" refers

of course to linking faith to war whereby the pope gave only the

example of Islam and not that of Christianity in

this regard. Thereby, probably unintentionally but

nevertheless wrongly, reinforcing a widespread Western

understanding of the concept of jihād, an

understanding Muslim scholars strongly believe to be

incorrect.

At a meeting in the Catholic Dar

Comboni, participants said Muslims respond with questions to

Christians about the role of God in the Old

Testament, for example when Joshua conquered Canaan and was told to

annihilate entire people groups or the

episode of Elijah and the Baal priests on Mount Carmel. Those whose

sacrifice was not accepted by God would

be annihilated. Is the God of the Old Testament then not the same as the

God of the New Testament? These

questions provoke Christian leaders, as did the pope linking Islam to

violence.

Dr. Hasan Wajīh

responded to the pope’s lecture saying that Muslim scholars also agree

that "acting unreasonably contradicts

God’s nature," and referred to several verses in the Sūrat al-

Rūm. It would have been much better if

the pope referred to this, which would have strengthened an affirmative

response to his questions about

whether this is intrinsically true.

The explanation of the word logos

in the Gospel of John is

a central argument in Pope Benedict’s speech. He uses various references from the

Bible to explain "the

intrinsic necessity of a rapprochement between Biblical faith and Greek inquiry." These

arguments would not

have affected Muslim-Christian relations if they had been presented without the reflections on

the dialogue

between the Byzantine emperor and his Persian interlocutor. He could have even argued for the

necessity of a

rapprochement between faith and Greek inquiry in general.

The arguments Pope Benedict

presented for

the rapprochement between faith and reason are certainly important in a strongly secularizing Europe.

popes

choose their papal names and the choice of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger of the name Benedict was no accident.

Benedict (c480-547), the founder of Western monasticism, is also the patron saint of Europe. Pope Benedict

XVI is

known to be strongly concerned about Europeans turning away from the church and adopting various

other, mostly

materialistic, philosophies of life. It is worth noting these have also affected Muslims in

Europe: Muslims who

remain Muslim in name but who, like many European Christians, have lost much of their

faith in the traditional

teachings of their religion.

The arguments of those turning away from

Christian faith center to a large

extent on the belief that faith and reason cannot be united. It is not

only Pope Benedict who argues that

rapprochement between faith and reason is possible but many other

conservative Christians from different

denominations have done so before him. And thus, the pope argued,

"biblical faith, in the Hellenistic period,

encountered the best of Greek thought at a deep level, resulting

in a mutual enrichment evident especially in the

later wisdom literature."

The pope refers to late

Christian medieval thinkers, the days of Emperor Manuel

II, who expressed beliefs not very different to that

of Ibn Hazm and thus these Christians expressed non-Orthodox,

non-Catholic, beliefs that "might even lead to

the image of a capricious God, who is not even bound to truth and

goodness," something the pope strongly

opposes. It is thus understandable that the pope compared the thinking of

Ibn Hazm to that of contemporary

Christian thinkers but just as he showed that he disagreed with these Christian

thinkers, the pope could

have explained that Ibn Hazm’s thoughts do not represent mainstream Muslim thought

about the transcendence

of God.

The pope sees the rapprochement between Biblical faith and Greek

philosophical inquiry as

historically decisive for the character of Europe, a character he definitely wants to

preserve and thus he

opposes calls for "a de-hellenization of Christianity," a development that first emerged "with

the

postulates of the Reformation in the sixteenth century." The principle of sola scriptura, the principle

of the Reformation par excellence, opposed philosophical developments in Christian thought in the

Middle

Ages that made "faith no longer appear as a living historical Word but as one element of an

overarching

philosophical system."

The pope states: "Metaphysics appeared as a premise derived from

another source, from

which faith had to be liberated in order to become once more fully itself. When Kant

stated that he needed to set

thinking aside in order to make room for faith, he carried this programme

forward with a radicalism that the

Reformers could never have foreseen. He thus anchored faith exclusively

in practical reason, denying it access to

reality as a whole.

The liberal theology of the nineteenth

and twentieth centuries ushered in a second stage

in the process of dehellenization, with Adolf von Harnack

as its outstanding representative. When I was a student

and in the early years of my teaching this program

was highly influential in Catholic theology too. It took as its

point of departure Pascal’s distinction

between the God of the philosophers and the God of Abraham, Isaac and

Jacob. In my inaugural lecture at Bonn

in 1959, I tried to address the issue."

In other words the question

of faith and reason is an issue

that the pope has been struggling with his entire life! This personal reference

also makes it very clear

that the pope’s objective was not Islam but to address the separation of faith from

reason that he sees as a

consequence of dehellenizing Christianity. This he linked to the weakening of Christian

identity and thought

in Europe. Thus, according to Benedict XVI, maintaining the balance between faith and reason

as formulated

in terms of Hellenistic philosophy is necessary to keep Christian faith as a characteristic element

which

shaped European history.

Would most Muslim scholars not agree that separation of faith from reason is

not possible? Could Pope Benedict’s arguments, in this sense, be interesting for Muslims living in secular

Europe?

Pope Benedict argues that the kind of certainty resulting from the interplay of mathematical

and

empirical elements can be considered scientific. Anything that would claim to be science must be

measured against

this criterion. Not many scholars would disagree. The pope then argues that "by its very

nature this method

excludes the question of God, making it appear an unscientific or pre-scientific

question. Consequently, we are

faced with a reduction of the radius of science and reason, one which needs

to be questioned."

"From this

standpoint any attempt to maintain theology’s claim to be "scientific"

will end up reducing Christianity to a

mere fragment of its former self. But we must say more: if science as

a whole is this and this alone, then it is

man himself who ends up being reduced, for the specifically human

questions about our origin and destiny, the

questions raised by religion and ethics, have no place within

the purview of collective reason as defined by

"science", so understood and must thus be relegated to the

realm of the subjective."

The consequence of this

is that "the subjective ‘conscience’ becomes the

sole arbiter of what is ethical" and "ethics and religion lose

their power to create a community and become

a completely personal matter." The pope believes this is "a dangerous

state of affairs for humanity, as we

see from the disturbing pathologies of religion and reason which necessarily

erupt when reason is so reduced

that questions of religion and ethics no longer concern it. Attempts to construct

an ethic from the rules of

evolution or from psychology and sociology, end up being simply inadequate."

The

pope concludes that

he tried to criticize modern reason with broad strokes and this critique "has nothing to do

with putting the

clock back to the time before the Enlightenment and rejecting the insights of the modern age. The

positive

aspects of modernity are to be acknowledged unreservedly: we are all grateful for the marvelous

possibilities that have opened up for mankind and for the progress in humanity that has been granted to

us."

The will to be obedient to the truth "embodies an attitude which belongs to the essential

decisions of

the Christian spirit" and thus there is the need to "broaden our concept of reason and its

application."

The

pope sees dangers in the new possibilities opened by reason to humanity, obviously

referring to dangers related to

separating ethical values from religion and thus overcoming the self-imposed

limitation of reason to the

empirically verifiable, and if we once more disclose its vast horizons and see

theology as inquiry into the

rationality of faith.

Pope Benedict then makes important conclusions

that, unfortunately, have been largely

omitted in the discussion following his very unfortunate

quote:

"Only thus do we become capable of that

genuine dialogue of cultures and religions so urgently

needed today." A dialogue between cultures needs, in his

view, the recognition that reason and faith are not

mutually exclusive. Positivistic reason is not universally

valid. Would not most Muslim scholars agree?

Pope Benedict says "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. 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."

"Listening to the great experiences and insights of

the religious traditions of

humanity, and those of the Christian faith in particular, is a source of knowledge, and

to ignore it would

be an unacceptable restriction of our listening and responding."

The pope speaks about

the great

experiences and insights of religious traditions in plural, which explicitly includes Islam. Of course he

speaks about the Christian faith in particular but would a Muslim scholar not speak about Islamic faith in

particular?

The pope has been accused of misrepresenting Islam, both its history and teachings. I

believe

this is unfortunately true. The pope has also been accused of having an agenda to distort Islam.

This I do not

believe to be true. Here a quote of Professor Hans Küng, who frequently quarreled with

Cardinal Ratzinger over

various theological issues before he became pope, is interesting. Küng said: “The

pope just was not aware of the

implications of what he was saying.”

Father Dr. Christiaan van Nispen

and other Catholic clergy have met in

the past days with Grand Shaykh Dr. Muhammad Tantāwī, who has

always had a very positive approach

towards dialogue and now is deeply hurt by the pope’s comments. The

Grand Shaykh asked them why the pope had

to introduce Islam in such a negative way in his lecture and why it

was needed for his arguments at all. Indeed he

did not need to refer to Islam for his arguments about reason

and faith. Shaykh Tantāwī wants the

pope to remove his quote from the lecture. Father van Nispen

believes this to be reasonable.

A further way

to repair the damage done would be if the pope made a

statement on dialogue with Islam and made it abundantly clear

where he and the Catholic Church stand. He

should, of course, take time to prepare such a statement and consult

with the necessary experts.

The

objective of the pope’s lecture, not separating faith from reason, is

shared by many Muslims but the

mistakes, Father Dr. Emilio Platti o.p., Professor at the Catholic University in

Leuven, Belgium and

Director of the Institute Catholique, Paris, France, commented, "also showed that the pope

alone cannot know

everything." Several prominent clergy in the church have been asking for a group of advisors, not

only

clergy, but from a broad range of people to advise the pope on the subject he wants to talk about.

Such

a council is also needed because of the misinformation concerning Islam that is prevalent in the West that

even

influences major leaders such as the pope.

Certainly there is an urgent need to address this but

this is not

achieved by accusing people of harboring wrong intentions until clear explicit evidence for this

is presented. What

this unfortunate incident first of all shows is that the need for dialogue and mutual

understanding is more than

ever needed.⁽⁵⁾ We certainly need an institute for Arab-West

Understanding in which people of all faiths

participate with full equality and respect for each other. We do

not need a wedge between the Arab world and the

West. We should not give in to those who would like to see

such a wedge deepen but we should mutually cooperate to

address misunderstandings in a positive way.

(6)

⁽¹⁾ Pope Benedict (previously Cardinal

Ratzinger) made earlier statements that

were critical of Islam, making a number of prominent Muslims and Egyptian

Christians, including those

engaged in inter-religious dialogue, suspect that the statements in this lecture may

not have been an

accident.

From the beginning of his papal term, Benedict XVI has encouraged inter-religious

dialogue

on various occasions, especially with Muslims and Jews. Many Muslims believe that his involvement in

dialogue with the Jews and his negative remarks about Islam indicates a bias towards Judaism. Pope Benedict

also

seems to be wary of what he sees as ‘radical’ Islam and believes that Islam and democracy are hard to

unite.

The Egyptian Jesuit father teaching in Lebanon, Samīr Khalīl Samīr, pointed out

that in a conversation with Peter Seewald found in the book ‘The Salt of the Earth,’ the then Cardinal

Ratzinger

made the following remark on Islamic law: “The Qur’ān is a whole religious law that regulates

political and

social life and insists that the whole order of life is Islamic. Sharī‘ah

shapes society from

beginning to end. In this sense, it can exploit such freedoms as our constitutions give,

but it cannot be its final

goal to say: Yes, now we too are a body with rights, now we are present [in

society] just like the Catholics and

the Protestants. In such a situation, [Islam] would not achieve a

status consistent with its inner nature; it would

be in alienation from itself.”

[http://www.chiesa.espressonline.it/dettaglio.jsp?id=53826&eng=y]

In his

meeting with the

representatives of Muslim communities in Cologne, Germany, on August 20, 2005, Benedict XVI

touched upon

issues of violence, terrorism, the dignity of the human person and the defense of human rights,

stressing

that Christian and Muslim believers should listen to the voice of their conscience in order for the world

not to be “exposed to the darkness of a new barbarism.” He said that “respect for minorities is a clear sign

of

true civilization.” [http://www.cisro.org/index.php?

page=25&table=larivista&directory=larivista&name=documenti_doc&language=en&news=115&group=III&subgroup=docum

enti_do

c]

In a closed-door seminar with Catholic experts on Islam and democracy (Castelgandolfo,

Italy, September

1-2, 2005), the pope expressed that he saw that it was very difficult to reconcile Islam

and democracy because the

Qur’ān “descended” upon Muhammad and therefore Muslims do not think they are

authorized to interpret it.

Thus, he saw that Islam had difficulties in dealing with change and with

accepting democracy.

[http://www.chiesa.espressonline.it/dettaglio.jsp?id=45084&eng=y]

⁽²⁾ It would

be interesting if someone researched the many angry

reactions in Arab media about the Western use or perceived

Western use of the term jihād. The archive of

Arab-West Report has a good collection of such material

spanning the years 1997 to today. This would help

Western readers to understand how sensitive misusing this term

is.



⁽³⁾

Tāriq Ramadān says that Muslims have to “challenge a

reading of the history of European thought from

which the role of Muslim rationalism is erased, in which the Arab-

Muslim contribution would be reduced to

mere translation of the great works of Greece and Rome. The selective

memory that so easily “forgets” the

decisive contributions of “rationalist” Muslim thinkers like al-Farabī

(10th c.), Avicenna (11th c.),

Averroes (12th c.), al-Ghazālī (12th c.), al-Shatībī

(13th c.) and Ibn Khaldūn (14th c.)

is reconstructing a Europe that is not only a deception, but practices

self-deception about its own past.”

[http://www.tariqramadan.com/article.php3?id_article=781&lang=en]

⁽⁴⁾

When there are so many serious translation mistakes with the text from

German to English, for example when

even the German word Islamologe is translated ‘Islamist,’ which would indicate

that the French professor had

a political Islamist bias, then one should question either the quality or the

integrity of the translator.

Islamologe is a scholar of Islam. Roger Arnaldez is certainly not an Islamist and has

written several books

on Muslim-Christian-Jewish dialogue.



⁽⁵⁾ Remarkable is

that a good

number of Catholics not specialized in Islam believe the pope must have had good reasons for using the

offensive quotes about Islam, "perhaps he wanted to shake Muslims," “perhaps this is needed for other

purposes.”

They believe there must have been some wisdom behind that which we may not understand, But the

pope certainly

knows. Most if not all Catholic specialists in Islam, however, do not share this view. Many

believe these were

merely mistakes that were not necessary and could well set back Muslim-Christian dialogue

for many years. Coptic

Orthodox readers of AWR were surprised at the critique of many Catholic clergy and

scholars of their own pope. They

said Coptic Orthodox clergy and laity would have responded very differently

if Pope Shenouda had made a similar

mistake (which is entirely hypothetical since Pope Shenouda has a much

better knowledge of Islam than Pope

Benedict). The response of most Orthodox would have been to rally behind

their pope and to find whatever reasons

were needed to explain why he did or said so. The pope’s lecture

resulted in several interesting responses

from prominent people, seeing this as a strong indication of the

need for

dialogue.

⁽⁶⁾ The translation of a shortened version of this

text from English

to Arabic shows the difficulties in translating Western theological or philosophical

concepts into an Arabic that

most Muslims would understand. Wisām Muhammad al-Diwīnī says, “It

is important, especially in

inter-cultural and inter-religious dialogue, to point to the need to clarify

concepts and the different meanings

that they hold for each culture. For instance, Muslims generally believe

reason leads to faith because the human

mind is the faculty through which man can be charged with duty and

responsibility. It is man’s intellect that

makes him acknowledge his Creator, the mysteries of creation, and

his supremacy. The Qur’ān addresses

man’s intellect and urges him to look at the universe and meditate

upon its existence in addition to studying

it for the benefit of mankind, and to strive to make the earth

prosper and thrive. However in a Western positivist

paradigm, reason drives one away from belief and from

faith. This Islamic perception of reason has a lot in common

with what the pope was trying to say when

tackling the issues of reason and faith. Such resemblances can act as a

common ground for successful

understanding and for dialogue.”