Pope Benedict XVI’s lecture at the University of Regensburg, coming soon after United States President George W Bush rushed to rechristen the war against ”Islamic fascism”, raises serious concerns about what some of the world’s most powerful actors think about Islam.
The pope’s lecture is worthy of reflection, both for its content and its wider implications for global dialogue. He made some debatable statements about Islam, and I am referring not only to the conclusion of the ”erudite” Emperor Manuel II Paleologus that Prophet Muhammad’s distinctive message was ”evil and inhuman”. People all over the world have rightly rejected the sentiment expressed in this two-line condemnation of Islam.
The central argument of the lecture was devoted to the urgency of reinserting the positive role of religion in modern culture. But the pope proposed to do this by turning attention to a medieval synthesis of reason and religion that has been lost in modern society through what he called the de-Hellenisation of Christianity. The Hellenic roots were lost through the Reformation, liberal theologies and, last but not least, de-Europeanisation. Boiled down, Benedict’s argument is that most of the modern legacy of Christianity has to be jettisoned.
Islam should have little to do with this very European and very Christian angst. One would expect the statements about Islam to be unnecessary and redundant. A close look at the speech, however, reveals that Islam takes shape as the extreme antithesis of the pope’s vision. Islam is not discussed for its own demerits, but for the counter-foil that it creates for a Catholic statement about modernity, the history of the church, and Europe.
The central issue relates to the connection between violence and belief. As in many other religions, there are two tendencies in Islamic scriptures. The pope deferred to the experts who claimed that verse 256 of the second chapter of the Qur’an which declares that ”there shall be no compulsion in religion” belonged to a period ”when Mohammed was still powerless and under threat”. The verses of jihad against unbelievers ”developed later and (were) recorded in the Qur’an”. In the pope’s presentation of these contradictory tendencies, the explicit declaration of non-compulsion was explained by its context, while the ”Holy War” verses became the essential foundations of Islam.
But the real purpose of the pope’s argument became clearer when he presented the emperor’s proposition that flowed from this discussion: ”Violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul.” Violence rejected reasoned argument and dialogue, and stood in the way of belief and reason. By developing the concept of holy war, Islam thus represented the opposite of this thesis.
The opposition between Islam and Reason continued in the pope’s second reference to Islam. Here, he referred to a widespread notion in Muslim jurisprudence that God’s will was supreme and beyond human reason. If he wanted a more nuanced view, he could have turned to theological and philosophical debates. But his purpose was better served by presenting ”Muslim teaching” in which God’s ”will is not bound up with any of our categories, even that of rationality”. Quoting a leading European Muslim scholar of medieval Spain, the pope suggested that in Islam, God might even command idolatry.
This is not the place to correct the pope’s understanding of Islam and its theologians, but it is clear that the irrational voluntarism of Islam is contrasted with the light of Catholic reason. The pope does admit a similar tendency in medieval Christianity, but it is one that deteriorated with the Reformation. Islam, in contrast, was singularly one-dimensional, and allowed for very little variation and inner contestation.
The fact is that Islam in the Pope’s address takes the place of a ”dialogue” partner that helps to clarify the meaning of European Christianity. As in medieval polemics, it serves its purpose as an artifice for Christian polemics. It needs hardly be said that such an approach to dialogue will be rejected.
But there is a context for such propositions in present-day Europe, which seems to be overly preoccupied with reinforcing its fortress. In this view, Islam stands outside the history of Europe, just as Christianity stands at its centre. Alas, both are questionable contentions.
The pope is on record as being opposed to the inclusion of Turkey in the European Union, but he also seems overly concerned about keeping non-Western Christianity outside of Europe. In this regard, the role of theology to confirm the status quo has not progressed much in our times.
The most unfortunate aspect of the speech is its failure to open a genuine dialogue over values in all our societies across the artificial barriers that our cultures and nations have imposed. We need this desperately — all of us.
Abdulkader Tayob is professor of religious studies, University of Cape Town