September 15, 2006
Turkey's top Muslim leader slams Pope over Islam criticism
Turkey's top Muslim religious leader on Thursday slammed Pope Benedict XVI as "full of enmity and grudge" against Islam and opposed the pontiff's planned visit to Turkey in November. Ali Bardakoglu, head of the state-run religious affairs directorate, also asked that the pope immediately retract and issue an apology for his remarks criticising Islam and its concept of Holy War. The pontiff's remarks "reflect the hatred in his heart. It is a statement full of enmity and grudge," Bardakoglu told the NTV news channel. "It is a prejudiced and biased approach," he added.
During a six-day visit to his native Germany this week, the pope hit out at Islam and its concept of "jihad" or holy war, citing a 14th-century Christian emperor who said the Prophet Mohammed had brought the world "evil and inhuman" things.
update: BBC: Muslim anger grows at Pope speech
Lecture of Pope Benedict XVI at the Meeting with the Representatives of Science (Tuesday, 12 September 2006, Regensburg, University)
Faith, Reason and the University; Memories and Reflections
...........In the seventh conversation (διάλεξις - controversy) edited by Professor Khoury, the emperor touches on the theme of the jihad (holy war). The emperor must have known that surah 2, 256 reads: There is no compulsion in religion. It is one of the suras of the early period, when Mohammed was still powerless and under threaten. But naturally the emperor also knew the instructions, developed later and recorded in the Qur’an, concerning holy war. Without decending to details, such as the difference in treatment accorded to those who have the “Book” and the “infidels”, he turns to his interlocutor somewhat brusquely with the central question on the relationship between religion and violence in general, in these words: "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." The emperor goes on to explain in detail the reasons why spreading the faith through violence is something unreasonable. Violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul. God is not pleased by blood, and not acting reasonably (σὺν λόγω) 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....
The decisive statement in this argument against violent conversion is this: not to act in accordance with reason is contrary to God's nature. The editor, Theodore Khoury, observes: 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 Hazn 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..............
Posted by erkan at September 15, 2006 02:30 PM | TrackBackPosted to Documents | News | Pope/Pope's Speech | Profiles/Agents