Regensburg and Dialogue

EDMUND CHIA REGENSBURG AND DIALOGUE The Regensburg Lecture The Regensburg Lecture of Pope Benedict XVI is by now well known as the most recent interreligious fiasco involving the Vatican and the world of Islam. This lecture was delivered by the pope at his former school, the University of Regens- burg, Germany (Benedict XVI 2006a). We have probably all followed the inci- dent closely enough, especially the vociferous reaction that certain statements of the lecture provoked all over the Muslim world. Numerous Muslim communities and organizations protested the pope’s speech (some violently but the majority in a civil fashion). The matter was even brought up for discussion in the Parliament of my own Mus- lim-majority country, Malaysia, and the prime minister, who chairs the Organ- ization of Islamic Countries, had demanded that the pope apologize for the hurt caused to the Muslim community. Of course the Western media was more inter- ested in portraying the less civil responses from other forums, especially those which turned bloody and involved the burning of the pope’s effigy, the destruction of churches, and other violent acts. In Defense of the Pope Aside from the protests and criticisms from the Islamic community, reactions to the pope’s lecture and especially its aftermath also came from within the Catholic community. Many spoke in defense of the pope, among whom were bishops and cardinals, especially those working in the Vatican. The newly appointed Vatican Secretary of State, Tarcisio Cardinal Bertone, for example, emphasized that the pope’s lecture was directed to an academic audience and his use of the offensive text by the Byzantine emperor Manuel II Paleologus was incidental, merely a way of introducing the discussion. Benedict was in no way targeting Islam or the Mus- lim community. The president of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dia- logue, Paul Cardinal Poupard, advised that if people read the pope’s text thor- oughly and meditatively, they would find that, far from being an attack on Islam, Benedict was instead reaching out to them. In fact, many other cardinals and Vati- can spokespersons were quick to point out that the pope was defending religion in general, including Islam. The pope’s target was the Western culture of secu- larism, which seems to exclude God from its rational pursuit (ZENIT 23-09-2006). 70 REGENSBURG AND DIALOGUE The pope himself had to make public statements about his own lecture. But instead of offering an apology for his remarks against Islam, he clarified that the citation from Paleologus “unfortunately, lent itself to misinterpretation.” The pope then went on to suggest that for the attentive reader of my text, however, it is clear that in no way did I want to make my own the negative words spoken by the Medieval Emperor in this dialogue, and that their polemical content does not express my personal conviction. He then stated his primary intent: The topic of my lecture— responding to the mission of the University—was therefore the relationship between faith and reason: I wished to invite [people] to the dialogue of the Christian faith with the modern world and to the dialogue of all the cultures and religions. (Benedict XVI 2006b) A few days later Benedict even went to the extent of assembling Muslim dip- lomats residing in Italy so as to be able to address them face-to-face: I should like to reiterate today all the esteem and the profound respect that I have for Muslim believers .... Christians and Muslims must learn to work together, as indeed they already do in many common undertakings, in order to guard against all forms of in- tolerance and to oppose all manifestations of violence; as for us, religious authorities and political leaders, we must guide and encourage them in this direction. (Benedict XVI 2006c) Thoughtful Muslim Responses As indicated earlier, the pope’s lecture was picked up by the media and evoked a great deal of response from the angry and hurt Muslim community. While much of this could be classified as reactionary and perhaps even manipulated by religio- political entities,1 we cannot say that the response in its entirely was unwarranted. To be sure, Benedict’s lecture, in view of its aftermath, was closely studied by a good number of learned Muslims. At the end of the day they, too, concluded that the lecture did indeed make hurtful and even inaccurate remarks. These conclu- sions came from many thinking Muslims from all over, but it will suffice here to look at only two such sources. The first is an “Open Letter” jointly composed by a group of 38 scholars, leaders, and royal personages of the Islamic community from across the world, representing all eight schools of thought and jurisprudence in contemporary Islam.2 It was delivered in a spirit of goodwill and dialogue to the 1 Some Muslim commentators suggest that it was not surprising if some of these protests were orchestrated by local religious and political leaders, especially authoritarian regimes where the people’s basic human rights and freedom of expression are effectively curbed. Such demonstrations are, therefore, exercises in catharsis. See Ramadan 2006. 2 All the citations in the following paragraph are from this document. 71 STUDIES IN INTERRELIGIOUS DIALOGUE 17 (2007) 1 pope through the Vatican nunciature in Amman. I will highlight five points made by the “Open Letter.” First, it was respectfully made known to the pope that his thesis that Sura 2:256 of the Qur’an, “There is no compulsion in religion,” was formulated when the Prophet of Islam (pbuh) was “powerless and under threat” was factually incorrect. The instruction was from the Medina era and, according to the Open Letter, was not a command to Muslims to remain steadfast in the face of the desire of their op- pressors to force them to renounce their faith, but was a reminder to Muslims themselves, once they had attained power, that they could not force another’s heart to believe. Second, Benedict had asserted that Islam is different in that in “Muslim teaching, God is absolutely transcendent” perhaps to the point of not being “bound up with any of our categories, even that of rationality.” The Open Letter pointed out that “God has many Names in Islam, including the Merciful, the Just, the Seeing, the Hearing, the Knowing, the Loving, and the Gentle.” God is even closer to the human being “than his jugular vein.” The Open Letter added that in their most mature and mainstream forms the intellectual explorations of Muslims through the ages have maintained a consonance between the truths of the Qur’anic re- velation and the demands of human intelligence, without sacrificing one for the other. Third, the Open Letter pointed out “that ‘holy war’ is a term that does not exist in Islamic languages.” If Pope Benedict was referring to jihad, then, said the Mus- lims, “it must be emphasized [that it] means struggle, and specifically struggle in the way of God.” They continued: “If some have disregarded a long and well- established tradition in favor of utopian dreams where the end justifies the means, they have done so of their own accord and without the sanction of God, His Prophet, or the learned tradition.” Fourth, to the myth that Islam was largely spread “by the sword,” the Open Letter responded: “Indeed, as a political entity Islam spread partly as a result of conquest, but the greater part of its expansion came as a result of preaching and missionary activity.” To be sure, “the command ‘There is no compulsion in religion’ means now what it meant then.” Moreover, Pope Benedict was in error in his claim that the Prophet (pbuh) had issued the “spread by the sword” command: “no such command has ever existed in Islam.” Fifth, the Open Letter questioned the authority of the so-called experts or refer- ences which the pope cited. They said: “Muslims have not to our knowledge en- dorsed the ‘experts’ you referred to, or recognized them as representing Muslims or their views.” They further advised: “[I]t seems to us that a great part of the object of inter-religious dialogue is to strive to listen to and consider the actual voices of those we are dialoguing with, and not merely those of our own persua- sion.” 72 REGENSBURG AND DIALOGUE Another thoughtful response, with extended commentary, came from a devout Libyan Muslim named Aref Ali Neyed who is a scholar with extensive knowledge of both Islamic and Western philosophy and theology (Neyed 2006).3 Neyed is well-known among Catholic circles through his work at Rome’s Pontifical In- stitute for Arabic and Islamic Studies. Again, I will highlight just five major points put forward by Neyed. First, Neyed posits that if the primary aim of Bene- dict’s lecture was actually the critique of a “reason which is deaf to the divine,” then “Islam can actually be Christianity’s best ally against the arrogant preten- sions of scientistic positivism, and for a deeper and more spiritual Reason.” Sec- ond, if the pope wished to speak about Islam he should at least “hear Muslim theologians themselves on what they thought and taught” rather than “through the filters of some Islamo-phobic Catholic Orientalists.” Third, if Benedict needed to “find a ‘starting-point’ for his reflections on ‘faith and reason’,” he could have found many more creative ones “without using a disfigured straw-man Islam.” Furthermore, “the connection between the medieval dialogue and the main point of the lecture is so strained and distant; invoking the dialogue unnecessarily dam- ages Christian-Muslim relations.” Fourth, in citing the “there is no compulsion in religion” statement, “instead of cherishing this ruling, and challenging Muslims today to live up to it, the Pontiff dismisses an important Islamic resource for rea- sonableness and peace by seeing it as a fake Islamic stance that was only ever held because of temporary weakness!” Finally, said Neyed, Benedict XVI, by self-righteously invoking the hurtful accusations of a long-dead Emperor, is, astonishingly, oblivious to the use of torture, cruelty, and violence in the his- tory of the Catholic Church, not only against Muslims, but against Jews, and even fellow Christians.

Load more