WHILE releasing the text of the speech by Pope Benedict XVI at the university of Regensburg, the Editor of Catholic World News (CWN) prefaced it by saying that because ‘the speech has aroused an unusual amount of debate.... CWN strongly recommends reading the entire text’. The advice sounded so good that I read the text not once but thrice, and very carefully too.

At the end of my exertions I cannot report that an intensive reading of the full text would, by itself, allay the hurt feeling of a Muslim. In fact, an intensive reading of the full text raises many more questions than have been raised so far. But, first, let us follow the thoughts of the Holy Father through the speech that, but for an unhappy digression, is a philosophical dissertation of the highest order.

The speech begins with the Pope’s nostalgic recollections of the days when he began teaching at the university of Bonn in 1959. There used to be, he recalls, lively exchange with historians, philosophers, philologists, and between the two theological faculties of the university. The Pope concludes this part of his speech with an engaging sense of humour. Referring to the fact that there were two theological faculties he recalls that a colleague of his made fun of the fact that there was something odd about the university as it had two faculties devoted to something that did not exist: God.

The preliminaries over, the Pope goes on to state the theme of his speech: ‘even in the face of such radical skepticism it is still necessary and reasonable to raise the question of God through the use of reason, and to do so in the context of the traditions of the Christian faith’. The theme is, surely, a matter of great interest for believers in religion, any religion.

But at this point the Holy Father chooses to be reminded of a 14th century dialogue between ‘an educated Persian’ and ‘the erudite Byzantine emperor Manuel II Paleologus on the subject of Christianity and Islam.’ Manuel is supposed to have set down this dialogue during the siege of Constantinople between 1394 and 1402. Incidentally, at that time too a Benedict (Benedict XIII) was the Pope (1394 to 1417), though I must hasten to add that Benedict XIII was in Rome, not in Constantinople where he was not recognised as the spiritual head.

The Pope devotes next five paragraphs to the views of Manuel on reason, religion, violence, jihad and the ‘evil and inhuman things’ brought by the Prophet of Islam. One need not repeat those quotations as they are by now well known and extensively commented upon. However, one would like to refer to one curious observation by the Pope himself before he introduces the quotes from Manuel’s dialogue.

The Pope makes a passing observation that when Emperor Manuel touched on the theme of jihad (holy war) he must have ‘known that surah 2.56 reads: There is no compulsion in religion’. This sounds like a good beginning from a Muslim point of view, but the Pope goes on to say that this is ‘one of the suras of the early period when Mohammad was still powerless and under threat’. One wonders why the Pope should quote and then nullify the effect of a verse that happens to be the most effective response to Manuel’s allegation that the Prophet of Islam commanded ‘to spread by the sword the faith he preached’.

Since the Pope himself has quoted the verse 2.256, one assumes he must be aware of the verse 2.244 as well. It reads: ‘Fight in the cause of Allah and know that Allah hearth and knoweth all things’. Since this verse appears in the same chapter and there are only 11 other verses between these two verses out of 6,235 verses in the Quran, one can assume the two verses belong to the same period of not more than a few months or even few weeks.

The two verses taken together prove two things: one, when the Prophet said that there is no compulsion in religion he was not powerless and under threat because at about the same time he exhorted his followers to fight in the cause of Allah; two, when the Prophet said that there is no compulsion in religion and also, at about the same time, exhorted his followers to fight in the cause of Allah, he was obviously not commanding his followers to forcibly convert the non-believers, otherwise the two very closely revealed verses would nullify each other. It is evident, therefore, that whatever the purpose of Jihad may be, it cannot be conversion of the non-believers by force.

The Pope next approaches the question of ‘violent conversion’ in a more philosophical way by referring to Manuel’s argument that not to act in accordance with reason is contrary to God’s nature. He then goes on to quote Theodore Khoury, the compiler of Manuel’s dialogue: ‘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’. In short, the God of Islam is a capricious God.

In support of this view the Pope quotes Khoury again, who relies on a French Islamist R. Arnaldez and who, in turn, relies on Ibn Hazm (Ibn Hazn in the text), an 11th century theologian. In the first place, this view of God’s transcendence beyond good and evil, beyond reason and unreason, is not a common view of all the Islamic schools of thought. Secondly, faith in God’s omnipotence can lead, as a logical corollary, to belief in God’s transcendence beyond good and evil in any religion, as it has in Christianity also.

The Pope himself, later in his discourse, refers to voluntarism of Duns Scotus, a more influential theologian in the Christian world of the Middle Ages than Ibn Hazm was in the Muslim world, that ‘gives rise to positions which clearly approach those of Ibn Hazn and might even lead to the image of a capricious God, who is not bound to truth and goodness’.

Now, leaving Ibn Hazm and Duns Scotus in a transcendental embrace, let us look at the Pope’s view of the roots of Christianity which, in fact occupies a much larger space and was, perhaps, the intended theme of the speech. The Pope refers to an ‘inner rapprochement between Biblical faith and Greek philosophical inquiry that Christianity, despite its origins and some significant developments in the East, finally took on its historically decisive character in Europe’.(Emphasis added). The Pope goes on to say that ‘this convergence, with subsequent addition of the Roman heritage, created Europe and remains the foundation of what can rightly be called Europe’.

Having established this symbiotic relationship between Europe and Christianity, the Pope takes care to express his strong disagreement with what he calls ‘dehellenization of Christianity’. He explains his opposition in these words: ‘In the light of our experience with cultural pluralism, it is often said nowdays that synthesis with Hellenism achieved in the early Church was a preliminary inculturation which ought not to be binding on other cultures ..... This thesis is not only false, it is coarse and lacking in precision’.

Three distinct propositions emerge out of this discourse: 1) Islam preaches forcible conversion and is to that extent contrary to reason and, hence, contrary to God’s nature; 2) Christianity, despite its origins and some significant developments in the East, took on its decisive character in Europe, through mainly the Greek rationalism; 3) European character of Christianity must be maintained by opposing dehellenization (read de-europeanisation).

Now the riddles. Why did the Pope choose this time of troubles to raise the question of forcible conversion to Islam when no such conversions are taking place, and when what, in fact, is taking place is forcible occupation of Muslim lands? Why has the Pope almost completely delinked Christianity from its roots in the East? Why should the Pope advocate Eurocentric nature of Christianity that actually was a gift of monotheistic (Judaic) East to the pagan West? Are all of these ideas somehow interconnected?

The only person who knows the answer to these questions is Pope Benedict XVI, but a Pope doesn’t have to answer a question merely because it has been asked.

Email: tvo@isb.comsats.net.pk