Did the Pope draw a cartoon?

I'm not sure when Christianity learned to accept criticism, but it did. Anti-Christian polemics come fast and easy these days, and other than getting stirred up by the occassional broadside (such as the Da Vinci code), it has learned to cope quite well with criticism.

Islam does not yet seem able to to share this thicker skin, however. The other day, the Pope quoted some 14th century emperor regarding Jihad. His remarks were these:

In the seventh conversation ("diálesis" -- controversy) edited by professor Khoury, the emperor touches on the theme of the jihad (holy war). The emperor must have known that sura 2:256 reads: "There is no compulsion in religion." It 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 Koran, concerning holy war.

Without descending to details, such as the difference in treatment accorded to those who have the "Book" and the "infidels," he turns to his interlocutor somewhat brusquely with the central question on the relationship between religion and violence in general, in these words: "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."

Now various clerics and legislators in the Islamic world are jumping up and down like the Pope was a Danish cartoonist. But it isn't as though what Emperor Paleologus said was entirely without a point. In the middle ages, it cannot be denied that the Saracens, Moors, and Arabs interpreted Jihad as permitting a rather ardent form of proselytization - the invasion of other countries, such as the transformation of Spain into Andalusia. And one cannot further deny that the terrorist movements that threaten us today are inspired by that medieval quest for a pan-global caliphate. Note that the Pope is not criticizing all Muslims who ever lived, here. He elaborates:

The emperor 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 is not pleased by blood, and not acting reasonably ("syn logo") 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...."

The decisive statement in this argument against violent conversion is this: Not to act in accordance with reason is contrary to God's nature. The editor, Theodore Khoury, observes: For the emperor, as a Byzantine shaped by Greek philosophy, this statement is self-evident. But for Muslim teaching, God is absolutely transcendent. His will is not bound up with any of our categories, even that of rationality. Here Khoury quotes a work of the noted French Islamist R. Arnaldez, who points out that Ibn Hazn went so far as to state that God is not bound even by his own word, and that nothing would oblige him to reveal the truth to us. Were it God's will, we would even have to practice idolatry.

As far as understanding of God and thus the concrete practice of religion is concerned, we find ourselves faced with a dilemma which nowadays challenges us directly. Is the conviction that acting unreasonably contradicts God's nature merely a Greek idea, or is it always and intrinsically true?

So the Pope is not fulminating against even jihad, the way his many critics in the Muslim world suggest. He is criticizing a strong vein of thought in a great deal of Islamic exegesis, one that suggests that God is so inscrutable that his law does not have to make sense. The Pope is daring to argue that divine instruction does need to make sense! The horror! Heaven forbid that Islam change any of its theological currents to accept such a view...

Given that the image problem Islam has right now comes from a small band of violent renegades who believe they can just make up their own interpretation of Islam's doctrines (such as that of Jihad), on the contrary, I would think the world of Islam would be welcoming a dialogue with the Pope. He's not seeking to exchange platitudes, but have a real dialogue about how to meet God and understand him. We wouldn't want that now, would we?