Spencer: The Muslim Letter to the Pope

http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/018531.php

October 22, 2007

Spencer: The Muslim Letter to the Pope
This week's Jihad Watch column at Human Events:

The Vatican responded Friday to the open letter sent at the end of Ramadan by 138 Muslim scholars to Pope Benedict XVI and a wide array of other Christian leaders. The response was somewhat deflating, given the mainstream media’s enthusiasm over the Muslim letter -- an enthusiasm which the senders must have anticipated. Noting the Muslim scholars’ declaration that “the future of the world depends on peace between Muslims and Christians,” the Telegraph‘s headline was typical of the coverage: “Muslim scholars’ olive branch to Christians.” Reuters burbled about an “Unprecedented Muslim call for peace with Christians.” But was it really?
This week’s response from Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, the President of the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, hardly seemed sporting. Tauran observed that the possibility of serious dialogue between Muslims and Christians was limited by the traditional Islamic understanding of the Muslim holy book: “Muslims,” he said, “do not accept that one can discuss the Koran in depth, because they say it was written by dictation from God. With such an absolute interpretation, it is difficult to discuss the contents of faith.”


Tauran went on to call for reciprocity between the treatment of Christians in Islamic lands and the treatment of Muslims in the West, decrying the fact that Muslims are permitted to build mosques freely in Europe, but Christians face difficulties or outright bans when trying to build churches in Muslim lands. “In a dialogue among believers, it is fundamental to say what is good for one is good for the other.”
But that presumes an equality of religions, and that one can admit the legitimacy of the other. And that is the element missing from the proposed debate.

On the basis of the letter alone, it’s surprising that there has ever been conflict between Muslims and Christians, or Muslims and anyone. The scholars say: “in obedience to the Holy Qur’an, we as Muslims invite Christians to come together with us on the basis of what is common to us, which is also what is most essential to our faith and practice: the Two Commandments of love.” Yet the “Two Commandments of love” were nowhere in evidence last August when an Egyptian convert from Islam to Christianity was sentenced to death by Islamic clerics. “The Two Commandments of love” have not saved Christians in Baghdad, where Islamic gangs knocked on doors in Christian neighborhoods, demanding payment of the jizya tax specified for non-Muslims by the Qur’an (9:29). Nor is Iraq the only problem area: in Egypt, Coptic Christians have suffered discrimination and harassment for centuries, and their plight is increasing. In Pakistan a prominent Catholic priest said in August 2007 that Christians are frequently denied equality of rights with Muslims and subjected to various forms of discrimination.

The persecution of Christians is the primary indication of the letter’s inadequacy as the basis for any real dialogue between Muslims and Christians. Genuine dialogue must focus, or at least be cognizant of, the reality of what separates the two parties. Nothing can be resolved, no genuine peace or harmony attained, except on the basis of confronting those differences.

While saying they want to build on common ground, the Muslim scholars (amid copious Qur’an quotes) never mention Qur’an 5:17, which says that those who believe in the divinity of Christ are unbelievers, or 4:171, which says that Jesus was not crucified, or 9:30, which says that those who believe that Jesus is the Son of God are accursed, or 9:29, which mandates warfare against and the subjugation of Jews and Christians. It seems reasonable to suggest that verses like these would need to be addressed in some way, even if only to give them some benign interpretation, if there is to be any true and honest dialogue.

The media enthusiasm for this letter is, at best, premature. We may hope that Muslim scholars will someday address Muslim persecution of Christians and offer a non-literal interpretation of the Christianophobic passages in the Qur’an. Then there will be a basis for genuine dialogue. But they haven’t done it yet.
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"May God have mercy upon my enemies, because I won't." -General George S. Patton

Psalm 82-8: Arise, O God, judge the earth, for You inherit all the nations.

Barnabas Fund reacts to the Islamic scholars’ “Common Wo

Barnabas Fund reacts to the Islamic scholars’ “Common Word” letter

http://hotair.com/archives/2007/11/30/barnabas-fund-reacts-to-the-islamic-scholars-common-word-letter/

Earlier in the week, I castigated dozens of Christian leaders for their response to 138 Islamic scholars who wrote an open letter to Christian leaders worldwide. You can read the post to catch all the ins and outs, but for me the basic problem with the Christian leaders’ response is in the area of discernment. It looks to me like the Christian leaders, many of whom are very influential in mainline and evangelical churches and denominations, just didn’t do their homework on the Islamic scholars’ letter and therefore assumed nothing but good intentions were built into it. The fact is, as I showed in that post, the Islamic scholars quoted Koranic verse that condemned Christians as deserving Allah’s wrath, so the Common Word letter amounted to a call to embrace Islam. Furthermore, by apologizing to Muslims for events long in the past such as the Crusades and by asking for mercy from God using Islamic phrasing, the Christian leaders were, perhaps unwittingly, doing much more harm than good.
Well, just as the Christian church isn’t a monolithic entity (a fact entirely lost on the likes of Iran’s president, who thinks the Catholic pope is his ace in the hole against Methodist President Bush), there are Christian leaders and groups who get it when it comes to Islamic practice, the use of language and in particular that Common Word letter from the 138 Islamic scholars. One of those is the Barnabas Fund. On November 28th, they published their own reaction to the Common Word letter, and it bears no resemblance at all to the letter signed by the group that I criticized.
The Barnabas Fund’s letter is here READ THIS LETTER The Fund does what Rick Warren and the other Christian leaders should have done, first examining the backgrounds of the 138 Islamic scholars (many of whom have radical links and opinions) and then goes almost line by line in examining the Common Word letter’s contents. Here’s a sample.
On the surface the letter looks like a well intentioned and urgent plea for a better understanding between Muslims and Christians, so as to avert an apocalyptic war between the two largest religious blocs in the world.
If Muslims and Christians are not at peace, the world cannot be at peace . . . the very survival of the world itself is at stake . . . So let our differences not cause hatred and strife between us.
However, the letter goes on to lay the blame for all wars in which Muslims and Christians are involved on the actions of Christians.
As Muslims, we say to Christians that we are not against them and that Islam is not against them - so long as they do not wage war against Muslims on account of their religion, oppress them and drive them out of their homes. [emphasis added]
This implies that the war against Islamist terrorism is a global war of Christianity against Islam, and that Christianity is the aggressor against Islam (which is the radical Islamist view). There is no sense of sorrow or remorse for the wrongs inflicted by Muslims on Christians historically, or indeed currently in many Muslim lands. There is no recognition that in many places things may be the opposite, with Muslims oppressing Christians and driving them from their homes (e.g. in Iraq, Sudan, Nigeria, Indonesia and Pakistan). There is no mention of the Christian communities in Muslim lands suffering other kinds of persecution and discrimination. There is no admission that Muslim actions could have played any part in the alienation between Muslims and Christians.
The liberal Muslim leaders who signed the letter seem to have agreed with the Islamist argument which accuses all Christians of a tendency to animosity, hatred and aggressiveness towards Muslims. So an apparently moderate appeal for reconciliation actually contains a subtext of warning and threat: “Do as we say, and you can have peace on our terms.” This in fact is the normal meaning of peace in Islam - peace for those who submit to Islamic rule (and war for those who do not).
Classical Islam teaches that the world is divided into two parts: Dar al-Islam (the House of Islam) where political power is in the hands of Muslims, and Dar al-Harb (the House of War) which is the rest of the world. With this in mind, the “Open Letter and Call” is seen to be reminiscent of the traditional Islamic approach to non-Muslims outside the House of Islam. This approach consisted of a “call to Islam” (i.e. a call to convert to Islam) including the threat that if the non-Muslims do not convert they will be subject to a destructive military attack (jihad) aimed at subjugating Jews and Christians, and annihilating other non-Muslims. Hence the name “House of War” for non-Islamic territory. Only if the non-Muslims embrace Islam or submit to Islamic political power can they avert the attack. In the light of this tradition, the 2007 Muslim warning to non-Muslims about how to avoid war can be read in a very different way. Do some of the Muslim signatories see it as the traditional call and warning before an imminent attack on non-Muslims, an attack intended to win Islamic supremacy? The very word “call” in the title of the document drops a large hint in this direction, at least to Muslim readers.
For the Christian leaders who signed the apology letter, the above is how discernment is practiced.
When you have a few minutes and if the topic interests you, read the Barnabas Fund’s critique of the Common Word letter. It’s well done and very revealing.
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"The conversion of the entire population to Islam and the extinction of every form of dissent is the ideal of the Muslim State - This is Islamic Peace"

A moderate Moslem is one who sends others blow themselves up.