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Using the words, "Jihad"
and "Holy War," the pontiff quoted criticism of Prophet
Muhammad (pbuh) by Christian emperor Manuel II. (Reuters)
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EGENSBURG, Germany — In
what some immediately saw as a serious
diversion from the rapprochement approach of
his predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI on Tuesday,
September 12, said the Islamic concepts of
"Jihad" was unreasonable and against
God's nature.
Using the words,
"Jihad" and "Holy War" in
lecture at the University of Regensburg, the
pontiff quoted criticism of Prophet Muhammad
(peace and blessing be upon him) by a 14th
Century Byzantine Christian emperor, reported
Agence France-Presse (AFP).
"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," Benedict quoted
Manuel II.
Quoting the Byzantine
Christian emperor, Benedict said spreading the
faith through violence is unreasonable and
that acting without reason was against God's
nature.
"Violence is
incompatible with the nature of God and the
nature of the soul," added the pontiff in
his own words.
British Karen Armstrong, a
famed prolific writer on all three
monotheistic religions, has criticized
stereotyping the Arabic word "jihad"
as merely meaning holy war.
She stressed that
"jihad is a cherished spiritual value
that, for most Muslims, has no connection with
violence."
At a giant open-air mass
earlier Tuesday, Pope Benedict urged more than
250,000 pilgrims to stand up for their beliefs
in the face of the "hatred and
fanaticism" tarnishing religion.
"Such an atmosphere
made it important to state clearly the God in
whom we believe," the pope said.
Strongest criticism
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"This is maybe the strongest
criticism because he doesn’t speak of fundamentalist Islam but
of Islam generally," said Guolo.
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Pope's criticism of Islam
made his address the most political of his
six-day visit to Germany, which had previously
dealt exclusively with spiritual matters,
commented AFP.
"This is maybe the
strongest criticism because he doesn’t speak
of fundamentalist Islam but of Islam
generally," Renzo Guolo, a professor of
the sociology of religion at the University of
Padua, told The New York Times on Wednesday,
September 13.
"Not all Islam, thank
God, is fundamentalist."
Marco Politi, the Vatican
expert for the Italian daily La Repubblica,
said the pontiff's speech revealed "deep
mistrust regarding the aggressive side of
Islam."
"Certainly he closes
the door to an idea which was very dear to
John Paul II — the idea that Christians,
Jews and Muslims have the same God and have to
pray together to the same God," he
asserted.
Daniel A. Madigan, rector
of the Institute for the Study of Religions
and Cultures at the Pontifical Gregorian
University in Rome, agreed.
"If we are really
going into a serious dialogue with Muslims we
need to take faith seriously."
But papal spokesman Father
Federico Lombardi sought to ease the severity
of the Pope's rebukes of Islam.
He argued that the pontiff
used Manuel's views of Islam only to help
explain the issue and not to condemn all of
the Muslim religion as violent.
"This is just an
example. We know that inside Islam there are
many different positions, violent and
non-violent," he said.
"The Pope does not
want to give an interpretation of Islam that
is violent."
Unlike late pope John Paul,
Cardinal Ratzinger, who took the name of
Benedict after his election, does not approve
of joint prayers with Muslims.
He is also skeptical of the
value of inter-religious dialogue.
In the summer of 2005, Pope
Benedict devoted an annual weekend of study
with former graduate students to Islam.
During the meeting, and
since, he has reportedly expressed skepticism
about Islam’s openness to change given the
conviction that the Noble Quran is the
unchangeable word of God.
In 2004, Pope Benedict also
caused a stir by opposing Turkey's accession
into the European Union.
He said Turkey should seek
its future in an association of Islamic
nations, not with the EU, which has Christian
roots.
