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  (AFP Photo) Pope Benedict XVI greets pilgrims and faithful in the courtyard of his summer residence |
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Fury continues over radical remarks made by Pope Benedict XVI last Tuesday in a speech during a pilgrimage to his native Germany in which he linked the noble faith of Islam to violence and terrorism, quoting a 14th-century Christian emperor who said that Prophet Mohammed's command to spread Islam by the sword had produced "evil and inhumane" results.
Earlier this week and following mass protests that broke out across the Muslim and the Arab world, the pope said he was "deeply sorry" about the Muslims' angry reaction to his speech, and that his remarks "were in fact a quotation from a Medieval text which do not in any way express my personal thought."
During his summer palace outside Rome, Benedict told pilgrims that the Vatican secretary of state had issued a statement trying to explain his words he had delivered.
But the Pope’s “apology” over those Islamophobic remarks failed to calm the outrage his comments sparked earlier. What makes his comments about Islam so incredible is that he conveniently ignored Christianity's own barbarous past, stated an editorial on UK’s The Guardian.
The editorial argues that when the Pope delivered his highly offending lecture criticising Islam, the holy Prophet and effectively every Muslim, he must have expected the kind of outrage his speech has sparked across the Muslim world.
And this could explain the cold reaction with which Muslims received his “apology”.
Speaking about his pilgrimage last week, Benedict said; "at this time I wish also to add that I am deeply sorry for the reactions in some countries to a few passages of my address at the University of Regensburg, which were considered offensive to the sensibility of Muslims."
A true apology would have been to simply retract his remarks; The Guardian's article said, But the Pope preferred to just express his regret at how Muslims reacted to his “unintentionally offending” speech.
He stopped shortly of apologizing directly to the Muslim world for his unwise remarks. He regretted the way Muslims reacted but not the fact that he delivered a highly offending speech against Muslims.
His argument was that he was just quoting a medieval Byzantine emperor. It’s ridiculous to expect people to believe that this quotation came as a by the by, and wasn’t actually used as main element of his argument he was trying to make in his very well-prepared speech.
“To pick a quote that asserts one thing is essentially to exclude many, often hundreds or even thousands, others that assert the exact opposite,” the editorial added. For a highly esteemed figure like the Pope to cite a quote, then of course it must be “true” and his argument must be equally true and valid and taken at face value. This is what makes Benedict’s “apology”, as most of the media outlets referred to it, meaningless.
One must wonder why the Vatican has not played any significant role in the recent campaign aimed at building bridges between cultures and mend what politics destroyed in recent years.
Numerous Islamic leaders and organisations have been speaking out against violence and killing in the name of the noble religion, such efforts should have been supported by people of faith, especially figures like the Pope.
Not only did the Pope chose to quote old highly offensive remarks against the Muslims, he also ignored the fact that during the time the Catholic church was cementing the barbarism of Europe's dark ages for centuries, where atrocities and heinous crimes were committed with its blessings, the Muslim world, from southern Europe to China, was setting milestones for literature, philosophy, art, architecture, medicine, chemistry, physics, biology, algebra and music.
“Manuscripts on law, botany, etiquette and fashion were being produced and students from Europe, Africa and China converged in their tens of thousands upon the vast and illustrious universities and libraries of Baghdad, Damascus, Cordoba, Seville and Cairo,” the editorial added.
Charging Islam of intolerance is factually wrong and ignoring the 100 years of glorious co-existence among Muslims, Christians and Jews, which saw an outstanding leap on technology, medicine and science is unfair.
Although rulers of the time were Muslims, they employed Christian and Jewish ministers, advisors and ambassadors; they never resisted their existence as part of the governing force as long as they were the best suited for the job.
Islam didn’t spread by the force of sword. The fact of the matter is that it spread many times more rapidly at times of peace than it ever did at times of war, both during the time of Prophet Mohammed and ever since, and that’s why it’s the fastest growing religion in the world until today.
