Don't Quote Me On This...

I wonder if that's what Pope Benedict XVI was thinking as he read the now infamous quote by the Byzantine Emperor Manuel Paleologos II. To say that this shows the relatively thin skin of the Muslim world would be a drastic understatement. Being one of the religious leaders of the Western world, it is appropriate for Pope Benedict to speak on matters of religion and relations between the religions in this day and age. That we are not allowed to quote or review history without "offense" to some party or another is a dangerous notion.

The remark that has much of the Islamic world in a tizzy is Emperor Manuel's challenge to a Persian scholar and I'll print it in its entierity here.

"The emperor comes to speak about the issue of jihad, holy war."

"He said, I quote, 'Show me just what Muhammad 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.' "

Now, the Pope didn't necessarily say he agreed with it, although one could be forgiven for seeing that Islam was spread by the sword seeing as the Byzantine Empire, its satellite states, all of North Africa, Spain and southern France were all invaded and decimated by Islamic invaders whose purpose was conversion or subjugation and extermination of those who wouldn't convert.

There's also the simple fact that many of those nations, after existing in some form or another going back to the Persian Empire, simply ceased to exist as they were absorbed into the Caliphate. You can't get more clear than Constantinople now existing as the Turkish city of Istanbul (that wasn't a voluntary conversion, just for the record) and one of the greatest churches of all Christendom, the Hagia Sophia, now existing as an Islamic mosque.

That he dared to remind us of what the great minds of the 1300's were thinking has incensed many in the Islamic world. The Pakistani parliament voted to condemn the Pope for statements it called "derogatory" and sought an apology. Even when the Pope offered one, the Vatican was told that such a simple thing as an apology was insufficient.

Turkey, of course, possibly most sensitive to the subject, has been a little more vocal. The deputy leader of Turkey's Islamic party, Salih Kapusuz, called the Pope's remarks "the result of pitiful ignorance". Well, at least he's got an open mind about all this. So...the Ottoman Turks, after converting to Islam, didn't make their all-consuming goal the conquest of the Byzantine Empire and beyond? Anyone? No takers?

He further comments:

"He has a dark mentality that comes from the darkness of the Middle Ages. He is a poor thing that has not benefitted from the spirit of reform in the Christian world...It looks like an effort to revive the mentality of the Crusades".

The Crusades, a Western response to Islamic imperialism and aggression, full of their own flaws of human weakness though they were, were not some spontaneous assault on the peaceful and enlightened kingdoms of Islam. The Byzantine Emperor of that time in the 11th Century was watching Islamic armies waltz all over his former lands and disregarded a long standing enmity to beg the Pope of the time for aid. That led to the Crusades, which arguably were a failure because they did not stop the Islamic invasion. They and the Mongols merely delayed it a couple hundred years.

If anyone was the aggressor in that period of history, it was the kingdoms of Islam, like the Mamluks or the Ottomans, not the Franks or English.

The weekend hasn't seen much respite for the Pontiff. The attacks have grown. Newsweek decided it was worth a major story and no less than Al-Qaeda is threatening His Holiness.

One might remind the religious fanatics in between their chants of "Death to America" "Death to the Pope" that they're falling prey to that old adage "Best to keep quiet and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt."