Something that's bugging me
Sep. 16th, 2006 10:08 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cmk418I've been seeing headlines on line the past few days about Pope Benedict's comments that pissed off the Muslim world. I read the speech, will admit to some of it going over my head/boring me to tears, but these are the two inciting paragraphs as presented.
I was reminded of all this recently, when I read the edition by Professor Theodore Khoury (Münster) of part of the dialogue carried on - perhaps in 1391 in the winter barracks near Ankara - by the erudite Byzantine emperor Manuel II Paleologus and an educated Persian on the subject of Christianity and Islam, and the truth of both. It was presumably the emperor himself who set down this dialogue, during the siege of Constantinople between 1394 and 1402; and this would explain why his arguments are given in greater detail than those of his Persian interlocutor. The dialogue ranges widely over the structures of faith contained in the Bible and in the Qur'an, and deals especially with the image of God and of man, while necessarily returning repeatedly to the relationship between - as they were called - three "Laws" or "rules of life": the Old Testament, the New Testament and the Qur'an. It is not my intention to discuss this question in the present lecture; here I would like to discuss only one point - itself rather marginal to the dialogue as a whole - which, in the context of the issue of "faith and reason", I found interesting and which can serve as the starting-point for my reflections on this issue.
In the seventh conversation edited by Professor Khoury, the emperor touches on the theme of the holy war. The emperor must have known that surah 2, 256 reads: "There is no compulsion in religion". According to the experts, this is one of the suras of the early period, when Mohammed was still powerless and under threat. But naturally the emperor also knew the instructions, developed later and recorded in the Qur'an, concerning holy war. Without descending to details, such as the difference in treatment accorded to those who have the "Book" and the "infidels", he addresses his interlocutor with a startling brusqueness on the central question about the relationship between religion and violence in general, saying: "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, after having expressed himself so forcefully, 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", he says, "is not pleased by blood - and not acting reasonably 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...".
First of all, I don't know why he chose a passage from this work that meant to insult and incite. He mentions himself that there were other conversations, perhaps more involved and showing the shared points between the religions or the benefits of either religion, but we don't hear this from him. Instead, we hear, this is my point, your religion is full of violence and destruction and everything that separates your religion, the teachings of your prophet is wrong, wrong, wrong.
I'm all for condemning war, all for it, and it's nice to know that the Pope & I have that in common (not a whole heck of a lot else, and I like it that way). But so many of the world's wars have been religion based, so why is one of the most powerful figures in Western religion stirring up shit?
Holy war is bad, brought to you by the religion that sponsored the Crusades.
Why is there such a need to focus and exploit the differences between the religion, rather than to see the common threads that bind us all together? Why can't we just see the faithfulness of the people and appreciate that? I don't get it.
I was reminded of all this recently, when I read the edition by Professor Theodore Khoury (Münster) of part of the dialogue carried on - perhaps in 1391 in the winter barracks near Ankara - by the erudite Byzantine emperor Manuel II Paleologus and an educated Persian on the subject of Christianity and Islam, and the truth of both. It was presumably the emperor himself who set down this dialogue, during the siege of Constantinople between 1394 and 1402; and this would explain why his arguments are given in greater detail than those of his Persian interlocutor. The dialogue ranges widely over the structures of faith contained in the Bible and in the Qur'an, and deals especially with the image of God and of man, while necessarily returning repeatedly to the relationship between - as they were called - three "Laws" or "rules of life": the Old Testament, the New Testament and the Qur'an. It is not my intention to discuss this question in the present lecture; here I would like to discuss only one point - itself rather marginal to the dialogue as a whole - which, in the context of the issue of "faith and reason", I found interesting and which can serve as the starting-point for my reflections on this issue.
In the seventh conversation edited by Professor Khoury, the emperor touches on the theme of the holy war. The emperor must have known that surah 2, 256 reads: "There is no compulsion in religion". According to the experts, this is one of the suras of the early period, when Mohammed was still powerless and under threat. But naturally the emperor also knew the instructions, developed later and recorded in the Qur'an, concerning holy war. Without descending to details, such as the difference in treatment accorded to those who have the "Book" and the "infidels", he addresses his interlocutor with a startling brusqueness on the central question about the relationship between religion and violence in general, saying: "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, after having expressed himself so forcefully, 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", he says, "is not pleased by blood - and not acting reasonably 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...".
First of all, I don't know why he chose a passage from this work that meant to insult and incite. He mentions himself that there were other conversations, perhaps more involved and showing the shared points between the religions or the benefits of either religion, but we don't hear this from him. Instead, we hear, this is my point, your religion is full of violence and destruction and everything that separates your religion, the teachings of your prophet is wrong, wrong, wrong.
I'm all for condemning war, all for it, and it's nice to know that the Pope & I have that in common (not a whole heck of a lot else, and I like it that way). But so many of the world's wars have been religion based, so why is one of the most powerful figures in Western religion stirring up shit?
Holy war is bad, brought to you by the religion that sponsored the Crusades.
Why is there such a need to focus and exploit the differences between the religion, rather than to see the common threads that bind us all together? Why can't we just see the faithfulness of the people and appreciate that? I don't get it.
