No offense. He was simply generalizing his viewpoint, and there are other views from equally well-founded scholars. I think he overlooks the political, on-the-ground situation.
As for the Islamic doctrine, as the Pope pointed out, the no-compulsion doctrine was early (when Mo was weak) and was then superseded by the doctrine of conversion by force.
I agree that they are unlikely to be able to produce anyone who can seriously dialogue with the Pope, simply because - as he pointed out - Islam rejects reason and has virtually no foundation for its part of the dialogue, which requires two equal parties.
One of the interesting things that I have seen mentioned only once is that by the conclusion of the conversation of Paleologus with the Muslim scholar, the Muslim had begun to feel a burning within him, that is, a desire for truth, and the dialogue ends very ambiguously, with the impression that the sincere Muslim has been convinced of the truth and will go and seek it. This is an interesting point, because I do think that the Pope is also calling us to (a) know our own faith and (b) evangelize the Muslims.
It's going to be hard under the burka though! I think they hate women because Mohammed obviously had some problems in that area. Any man who would "marry" a 6 year old and congratulate himself on waiting until she was 9 to have full sexual intercourse with her clearly had problems. This was not even an accepted practice in his time, certainly not among Christians and Jews.
And the fact that Islam has rendered Muslim men class-bound, powerless in front of their imams or even older men, given them a distaste for labor (which is considered demeaning in Islamic cultures), and focuses mainly on their sexual pleasure, which is permitted with everything from small boys to barnyard animals to 20 minute "pleasure marriages" with prostitutes, indicates some of its shortcomings that the Pope was probably too polite to address!
The only thing that puzzles me is why feminist groups are so silent, or even come out cheering for Islam. Don't they know what their life would be like under Islam? But the whole problem with liberals is that they think they're so special that nothing will ever affect them.
Ooops! I just realized that I meant to say "overemphasizes" the political, on the ground situation. This is because I think he doesn't grant that there actually was a tremendous amount of idealism and faith involved in the Crusades, and if you read the writings of people - who bankrupted themselves, if they did not even die - going off to rescue other Christians, you will realize that they saw that there was a difference between Christianity and Islam and they knew that they were undertaking a great work.
I walked the Camino de Santiago a couple of years ago, and, with the reading I did about the Camino and at places I passed through, I came away with a real respect for the depth of commitment that Christians had to the ideals and beliefs of Christianity at that time. Yes, there was a lot of politics and even superstition and bizarre stuff, but on the whole, they had a concept of human life that we would recognize.
I met a young German doctor who was going to do the three great pilgrimages (Santiago, Rome and Jerusalem). He was afraid he would be killed on the way to Jerusalem, but he felt that it was important to do this. And probably our medieval ancestors felt the same way; after all, why shouldn't they have been able to go to Jerusalem, where Our Lord had walked?