Posted by
Mark McConnell on Friday, September 15, 2006 4:33:53 PM
The pope quotes someone who 600 years ago thought that Muhammad might have something to do with Islam's 500 year conquest of the Byzantine Empire.
Muslims demand Pope's apology.
"The Pope has dishonoured our Prophet. He said our Prophet was a terrorist and he had used sword. Those who say such things whether they are in India or abroad should be punished," said Syeda Tasnim Hasan, a protestor in Jammu.
The fact of the matter is that, for a Muslim, being offended is part of what is meant by "jihad" (resistance, struggle). Muslims can't go to war unless they are attacked; but, given that some have a very broad idea of what it means to be "attacked", some are always at war. This is not ancient history.
Turkey sits on top of what used to be the Christian empire of the East, from which Paleologus wrote the letter quoted by this new Pope. The name of the capital of that empire, Constantinople, is now "Istanbul" which is
turkified-Greek for eis tan Poli, literally, "Into The City" - or more
cryptically,
The invaded City (Constantinople's koine name has always been "The City"). By the time of the letter, The City had been entered by the Muslims multiple times since Empress Irene submitted to the Persian Caliph in order to avoid the destruction of Constantinople. As it was being threatened again, the Emperor appealed to reason to prevent war. Later, The City fell to Sultan Mehmet, and it became the capital of the Ottoman Empire.
As recently as 1955, the Turkish Muslims' keen sense of victimhood led them to rid Istanbul of its Greek Christian and Jewish inhabitants.
The notion that Muhammad has something to do with all this invading and purging in the name of faith, is an idea that many of his followers have believed, for a very long time.
The real story here, however, is that Pope Benedict XVI is quoting a Byzantine Emperor , Manuel II Paleologus, to make his point. This is the successor to the Byzantine Paleologos who reconquered Byzantium after it had been sacked by the fourth Roman Catholic Crusade. What a brilliant, scholarly, and Christian use of history to make his case! It really seems as though this pope sees our time as a pivotal moment for Islam, and if the point isn't too subtle he should be seen as having seized high moral ground in order to address the problem that Islam faces: by demonstrating how abhorrence of evil leads to repentance, by showing how faith vindicates reason.
Read the speech,
Three Stages in the Program of De-Hellenization".