Muslims seek apology over Pope’s remarks

Have we become so insanely PC that one cannot suggest that 'conversion by the sword' is perhaps not the best way to proseltyze? Let's fire up the Templars!


It is ironic that a papal visit remarkable for its lack of controversy in Christian terms should have stirred up a hornets' nest in the Islamic world.

During his tour this week of his native Bavaria, Benedict XVI referred only obliquely to issues such as women's ordination, priestly celibacy and joint Communion for Catholics and Protestants. But his quote from a late 14th-century dialogue on Christianity and Islam between a Byzantine emperor and a learned Persian has led to Pakistan's National Assembly unanimously demanding a retraction, and the chief cleric of India's biggest mosque calling on Muslims to "respond in a manner which forces the Pope to apologise". Just as it was last year over cartoons of the Prophet in a Danish newspaper, the Islamic world, from Indonesia to Morocco, is in uproar.

Given the sensitiveness of the issue, and the potential for violence, it is essential to examine the text of the lecture which Benedict gave at Regensburg university last Tuesday. In it, he describes Emperor Manuel II Paleologus as turning "somewhat brusquely" on his interlocutor and saying: "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." Manuel goes on to detail why propagating the faith through violence is unreasonable, and to state that failure to act in accordance with reason is against God's nature.

FT.com / World / Europe - Muslims seek apology over Pope’s remarks

That so many in the Muslim world joined the protests against the pope merely show just how influential Islamist extremist groups have become. The political goal of the Islamists is clear: any dispute between Christianity and Islam must obey the rules handed down by political Islamism.

Bending to this demand would be a mistake -- indeed it would be tantamount to turning one's back on freedom of expression and opinion. What will come next? Perhaps a complaint that Allah feels insulted by the numerous European women who don bikinis during a summer trip to the beach. It could be anything really -- militant Islamists will always find something. But the response needs to be firm. Freedom of speech, after all, is a vital value and needs to be defended. Any attempt to make political speech hostage to some imagined will of God must be resisted.