Misleading Multiculturalism (new book for Catholic children about Catholic/Muslim beliefs)

A new book for Catholic children raises some interesting questions about Catholic/Muslim beliefs, and also about Catholic education. Pauline Books has just published My Muslim Friend — a book which it hopes will give Catholic children, their parents, and their teachers "a new understanding and appreciation of Islam...."

An exercise in multicultural evenhandedness, the 48-page book does a good job of explaining the basics of the Catholic faith, and also of presenting basic Muslim beliefs and practices in the context of a friendship between two girls.

But there are problems. Although My Muslim Friend does deal with differences between Islam and Christianity — for example, Muslims don't believe in the Trinity, or in Jesus as the Son of God — most of the differences described are of a more superficial nature. Muslims attend mosques rather than churches, worship on Fridays rather than Sundays, and celebrate different holidays. "We have a lot in common," says the Catholic girl of her Muslim friend, "but we're also very different...we live on different streets. We ride different buses to school. She has brown eyes, and mine are blue...." But almost all children will understand that these are minor differences, and so the stage is set for dismissing Muslim/Catholic differences as of secondary importance.

The real emphasis of My Muslim Friend is on the commonality of the two faiths, and in this respect it is in the mainstream of recent Muslim-Catholic dialogue. In fact the Foreword is written by the Associate Director of the Secretariat for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops. He starts the ball rolling by noting that both Catholics and Muslims have their own networks of schools, and that "both systems emphasis faith as a sound basis for a truly human life."

The reader soon finds that commonalities trump differences by a wide margin in My Muslim Friend. Mary goes to church, Aisha goes to Mosque; Mary has her rosary beads, Aisha has her prayer beads. Mary believes in one God, so does Aisha; Mary's church reveres the Virgin Mary, Aisha's faith has great reverence for Mary, as well. And so on. Catholics believe in Jesus as the Son of God, Muslims honor Jesus as one of God's greatest prophets. Similarities are even drawn between the pilgrimage to Mecca and a visit to Lourdes. In both cases, we are told, pilgrims often take holy water back home with them.

A child reading this book will come away with the impression that the things we have in common are more important than the things that separate us. No doubt this is what the author intends. She has constructed her story in such a way that the only fitting conclusion for the reader to draw is, "Why can't we all just get along?" — or some variant thereof.

Given the high-tension times we live in, it's tempting to gloss over the differences between Catholics and Muslims; but if, in fact, there are substantial differences, too much emphasis on the similarities can be both misleading and confusing.

Take the notion that Jesus is greatly esteemed in Islam. Well, yes and no. Yes, Jesus is a great prophet in Islam, but no, he's not quite the same Jesus that Catholics have in mind. In fact, the Jesus of the Koran bears almost no resemblance to the Jesus of the Gospels. Muhammad appears to have had only a scant knowledge of Christianity, and a worse knowledge of chronology. Thus, Mary the mother of Jesus is described as the sister of Moses and Aaron, a circumstance that would place the birth of Jesus somewhere around the year 1000 BC.

In addition, what Muhammad did know about Christianity seems to have come mainly from apocryphal sources — in fact, some of the sources Dan Brown draws on for The Da Vinci Code. Thus, the Koran holds that someone else was crucified in the place of Jesus — an idea that seems to have been borrowed from some of the Gnostic writings, and pops up also in several recent neo-Gnostic conspiracy books about the life of Christ.

Moreover, though Muslims stress that Jesus was not divine, in the Koran he seems scarcely human. He appears mainly in the role of one of Allah's official spokesmen. But "appears" is really too strong a word. This Jesus doesn't attend weddings, or go fishing with His disciples, or gather little children about Him. The Koran mentions that He heals lepers and cripples, but He is not shown doing so and, indeed, He has practically no human interactions. He is more like a disembodied voice than a person, and what little He has to say is formulaic and highly repetitive.

In short, the Jesus of the Koran appears to be an entirely different person from the Jesus of the Gospels. There is practically no sense that He lived in any particular historical time or place, or that He ate and drank and slept, or that He could be moved to compassion or anger or tears. To imply that the Jesus of the Gospels figures very importantly in Islam is highly misleading. It's like saying that the Republic of North Korea and the Republic of Ireland have a lot in common because they both share the word "republic."

Equally misleading, from an orthodox Catholic point of view, is the implication that Muhammad received a valid revelation on a par with that given to the Apostles. My Muslim Friend starts off on the right foot by stating that Muhammad "believed" that the voice he heard came from the Angel Gabriel, and that his followers "came to believe" that Allah was calling Muhammad to be a prophet. But this qualified assertion soon slides into the unqualified mode. Thus, "God's messages to Muhammad became the Qur'an," and "Aisha prays five times, as Allah instructed Muhammad to do." Of course, the author of My Muslim Friend doesn't come out and say that Muhammad's revelation was a valid one, but neither does she do anything to counter the possibility that many children might arrive at that conclusion. This is one of the problems inherent in the multicultural approach. Multicultural education (which is as prevalent in Catholic schools as it is the public variety) primes children to believe that there are many truths and traditions. The ethic of non-judgmentalism prohibits even a Catholic text from questioning the validity of another religion's revelation. This approach is fine for creating an atmosphere of good feelings, but it doesn't do much to sharpen a youngster's ability to make distinctions.

Even the most basic ecumenical supposition — that Muslims, Christians and Jews "all worship the one true God" — is problematic. My Muslim Friend works on this assumption, and so do the many "Abrahamic Faith" dialogues held throughout the world. But if Allah is, in large part, a creation of Muhammad, in what sense is he "the one true God?" In many respects the Allah of the Koran resembles a Nietzschean superman: his will is his chief attribute; and like Nietzsche's superman he is free to exercise it anyway he wishes — even in an arbitrary fashion. Allah is not bound by the category of reason, since this would, Muslims believe, put limits on the freedom of his will. This point was really at the heart of Pope Benedict's speech at Regensburg. The pope was trying to establish the point that God is a reasonable God who does nothing contrary to reason. He went on to suggest that God, being reasonable, could not endorse the spread of religion by violence, because a forced conversion is a contradiction in terms. If Muslims could agree to the idea of a rational God, there might be hope of some constructive dialogue. In this sense, the pope has departed from the "Abrahamic Faith" framework of dialogue which assumes more commonality than may be warranted by the facts.

The notion that Muslims and Christians share much in common is a stretch. It's misleading on many counts, but the main one is that it makes Catholics think they understand Islam when they really don't. It's similar to the Russians-are-people-just-like-us-so-their-ideology-can't-be-that-bad mentality which passed for deep thinking during the Cold War days. Yes, the Russian people were like us in many ways, but as even the Russians now admit, communist ideology was deadly.

Too much emphasis on commonality is misleading in another sense, as well. It makes it difficult to believe that the Church is really serious about its own beliefs. After all, if Mary is nice, and Aisha is nice, and the people at Aisha's mosque are equally as nice as the people at Mary's church, and if their religions have so much in common, then what's the difference? Such an approach suggests to students that doctrine doesn't really matter. Naturally, the author doesn't say this, but children can draw their own inferences. If there are many roads to heaven, then maybe it's not that important which one you take. The Note for Catholic teachers which concludes the book only adds to the confusion. It suggests a number of activities, including a day of fasting at Ramadan, so that "Christian students will have an opportunity to share in the Islamic experience."

When taken to heart, multiculturalism renders a culture and — by extension — a religion, incapable of defending or even understanding its own interests. If students gain the impression that there's no substantial difference between Christianity and Islam, they might well conclude that it's better to align themselves with the faith that's confident and on the rise. Here and there, one hears reports of North American Christians converting to Islam. Expect that to increase. In Latin America, Islam is one of the fastest-growing faiths; and in Europe, Islam is winning converts at a rapidly increasing rate. As the geo-political winds keep blowing in the direction of Islam, Christians will come under increasing pressure to make the switch. Books such as My Muslim Friend will make it that much easier for them to make the necessary adjustments and accommodations.

MEDITERRANEAN SEA:

From Centumcellae to the Garigliano

In IX century the Arabs, who had already taken possession of the whole North-Africa and of Spain but who had had a standstill in France at Poitiers, attacked Italy.

The attack initially turned toward the coastal zones and the islands and then went up again toward the internal places.

Sicily resisted for many decades to the armies of the invaders, but finally had to surrender and was completely overcome by the arrival of hundreds of thousand of Muslim immigrants who destroyed a civilization that from the VIII century before Christ had contributed to the creation of the identity of the West.

Then the Arabs attacked the Center (Ponza, Gaeta, Ancona, Ascoli, Civitavecchia, etc.) and the South (Salerno, Naples, Bari, Brindisi, Taranto, etc.) and they resolutely headed for Rome to strike to the heart the Christianity.

The infidels profaned St. Peter but the Aurelian walls resisted to the assault and Rome was safe.

Pope John X, to an army's guide constituted by Italians of various origin (Romans, Greeks, Longobards, Franks, etc.), but of an only faith and culture, defeated and sent away from Lazio and Campania the Arabs, who had even tried to constitute a Muslim state near the Garigliano.

Place: Italy

Epoch: from 813 to 916 AD

The Arabs to the assault of the coasts and the Italian islands (813)

In 813 the Arabs attacked by surprise Centumcellae (Civitavecchia).

Ischia and Lampedusa were devastated. They had besides some attacks to Sardinia and Corsica.

The Arabs conquer Sicily with a long war (827-965)

In 805 the Byzantine governor of Sicily stipulated an essay with the aghlabidi rulers of Tunisia.

In 813 the Byzantine governor of Sicily signed a decennial truce with the Arabs.

In 827 the Byzantine admiral Euphemius rebelled, killed the governor of Sicily, conquered Syracuse and proclaimed himself emperor. The troops faithful to Byzantium, led by the Armenian general Palata, resumed the control. Euphemius ran away to Africa.

Then Euphemius proposed to the aghlabide emir of Kairuan, Ziyadat Allah I, to conquer Sicily and to make it tributary province. In exchange he asked to be recognized governor with the title of emperor.

On June 17 th 827 the general Asad ibn al-Furat with an army of 10.000 soldiers and 7.000 cavalrymen disembarked at Mazara del Vallo. The general Theodorus stopped the Arabic army before it reached Syracuse. A new army was sent in help of the Arabs who decided to head for Palermo rather than Syracuse.

On September 11 th 831 Palermo fell.

In 835 the Arabs took Pantelleria and in 843 Messina.

Enna and Cefalù fought for years before being conquered, razed to the ground and burnt. Cefalù fell in 858. Enna fell in 859 for treason. Then it was the turn of Malta.

Syracuse was conquered only in 878. The Arabs massacred the whole population. The Greek language was replaced by the Arab. Christianity was replaced by the Islamism. The sword of the Islam dominated from Palermo new capital. Sicily was lost.

Syracuse didn't get back anymore the role, that had had for 1500 years, of first city of Sicily.

The glorious history of ancient Sicily finished in the blood.

Some hotbeds of resistance kept on surviving. Taormina resisted up to 902, then was burnt and all its inhabitants killed. Rometta, on the mountains west of Messina, was the last to fall in 965.

An African army in 938-940 devastated wide zones of the southwest of Sicily, but at that point there was nothing more to be plundered.

In the cities that had opposed resistance all the were killed and the women and the boys reduced in slavery. The women and the most beautiful boys were sent to Africa for the pleasure of the conquerors and their co-religionists.

The inhabitants of the Sicilian cities that had surrendered without fighting could keep on practising the Christian religion but:

- they had to bring identification marks on their suits and on their houses;

- they had to pay more taxes;

- they could not occupy positions that entailed authority over the Muslims;

- they could not marry a Muslim (but a Muslim could marry a Christian);

- they could not build new churches;

- they could not ring the bells;

- they could not make processions;

- they could not read the Bible within the radius of the hearing of a Muslim;

- they could not drink wine in public;

- they had to get up whena Muslim entered the room;

- they had to let the Muslims pass first in the public road;

- they could not bring weapons;

- they could not ride;

- they could not saddle their mules;

- they could not build great houses as those of the Muslims.

The Christian women could not have access to the baths when Muslim women were there. In Byzantine Sicily there were the prostitutes who could not enter the baths contemporarily with honest women.

Hundreds of thousand of Muslims immigrated to Sicily. The juridical advantages granted to them, the availability of lands seized to the Christians, the possibility to have labour at low cost (Christians driven to hunger because of plunderings), the abundance of slaves (girls and boys) constituted an irresistible attraction for people who lived in the desolation of the desert. The Africans found in Sicily a terrestrial heaven, the Christians the hell.

The Arabs at Centumcellae (829)

In 829 the Arabs destroyed Centumcellae.

The Arabs at Naples (836)

In 836 the Longobards of the dukedom of Benevento laid siege to Naples, Byzantine city. The Neapolitans asked help to Ziyadat Allah I, aghlabide emir of Tunisia. Ziyadat sent a fleet that forced the Longobards to interrupt the siege.

The Arabs at Subiaco (840)

In 840 the Arabs devastated the monastery of Subiaco.

The Arabs conquer Bari (840-871)

In 840 the Longobard Radelchi, duke of Benevento, asked help to the Arabs to fight against the rival Siconolfo. The Arabs intervened and they took advantage for conquering Bari.

In 871 the Carolingian emperor Ludovico II succeeded in freeing the city.

The Arabs at Ponza and Capo Miseno (845)

In 845 the Arabs took possession of Capo Miseno, in the gulf of Naples, and of Ponza, to make of them bases in view of an attack against Rome.

The Arabs at Brindisi and Taranto (846-880)

In 846 the Arabs ransacked Brindisi and conquered Taranto.

In 880 the Byzantine emperor Basil I the Macedonian succeeded in freeing Taranto.

The Arabs attack Rome (846)

On August 10 th 846 the marquis Adalbertus of Tuscany, who watches over Corsica, writes to the pope to warn him of a near attack of the Arabs. But it is too late.

On August 28 th 846 the Arabs arrived at the mouth of the river Tiber and they sailed towards Rome.

From Civitavecchia an army started the descent by land in direction of Rome.

Another army began the march from Portus and Ostia.

They didn't succeed in entering the enclosing walls, validly defended by the Romans, but the churches of St. Peter and St. Paul, outside the boundaries, were violated by the Arabs.

Uselessly Saxons, Longobards, Frisians and Franks defended St. Peter up to the last man. The Arabs brought away all the treasures of St. Peter, they tore the silver leaves of the doors, the gold foils of the floor of the confession, devastated the bronzy crypt of the apostle, took the gold cross that stood on the grave of Peter. They laid waste all the churches of the district Suburb.The marquis Guy of Spoleto, arrived to help Rome, succeeded in defeating the Arabs who withdrew partly towards Civitavecchia and partly towards Fondi, following the Appian Way.

The Arabs' passage, in flight, provoked ruin and devastation in all the Roman country.

At Gaeta the Longobard army clashed again with the Arabs. Guy of Spoleto found himself in serious difficulties, but the Byzantine troops of Cesarius, son of Sergius, magister militum in Naples, arrived in time.

In November of 846 a storm provoked numerous damages to the ships of the Arabs, some of which were shipwrecked on the coast.

The pope Leo IV, in consequence of the attack against St. Peter, in 848 undertook the construction of the Civitas Leonina to protect the Vatican hill. The enclosing walls were completed in June 27 th 852.

The Arabs at Ancona (848)

In 848 the Arabs ransacked Ancona.

The Arabs defeated in the naval battle of Ostia (849)

In 849 it was rumoured of the organization of a great Arabic fleet that would have attacked Rome from Sardinia.

A league was constituted among the maritime cities of the South: Amalfi, Gaeta and Naples gathered their fleets to the mouth of the river Tiber near Ostia.

When the Arabic ships appeared on the horizon the Italian fleet, led by Cesarius, attacked. The Arabs were defeated. The survivors were made prisoners and they contributed with their work to the reconstruction of what they had destroyed three years before.

In consequence of the attacks of the Arabs the population abandoned Ostia, where there were created some fortifications. Portus still survived thanks to a Corsican colony.

The Arabs at Canosa (856)

In 856 the Arabs attacked and destroyed Canosa in Puglia.

The Arabs against Ascoli (861)

In 861 the Arabs occupied Ascoli in Marche.

The Arabs besiege Salerno (872)

In 872 the emperor Ludovicus II freed Salerno from the siege of the Arabs.

The Arabs in Latium and in Umbria (876)

In 876 the Arabs entered again the territory of Rome. The villages were ransacked, the farmers slaughtered, the constructions knocked down. The Roman country turned into an unhealthy desert.

John VIII fitted out a fleet and led it to the victory against the Arabs at Circeo. 18 vessels were captured and were freed 600 Christian slaves. But the Arabs will continue to devastate Latium both on the coast and in the inside.

Subiaco will be destroyed for the second time.

Near Tivoli it will be erected the castle of Saracinesco and in Sabina that of Ciciliano.

Narni, Nepi, Orte, the countries of the Tiburtino, the valley of the Sacco, the lands of Tuscia, the Argentario mountain fell in the hands of the infidels. As the reporter Benedict of Saint Andrea of the Soratte wrote: "regnaverunt Agareni in romano regno".

The Arabs in Campania (881)

In 881 the Bishop of Naples Athanasius welcomed the Arabs, his allies against Rome and against Byzantium. The Arabs established at the feet of Vesuvius and at Agropoli, near Paestum.

Docibile, the duke of Gaeta, enemy of the pope, granted to the Arabs to settle themselves near Itri, then on the right bank of Garigliano near Minturno. The Arabs built a castle, from which their raids departed. The monasteries of Montecassino and St.Vincenzo were set on fire.

The Arabs at Farfa (890)

In 890 the Arabic troops set the siege to the Abbey of Farfa, in Sabina. The abbot Peter resisted for six months then he had to surrender. The Arabs made of Farfa their base in Sabina.

The Arabs expelled from Latium and from Garigliano (916)

In the X century the Kingdom of Italy was reconstituted. In December of 915 Berengarius was crowned by the pope John X.

In the spring of 916 the struggle against the Arabs had a new impulse. Berengarius put at disposal the Tuscan troops of the marquis Adalbertus and those Umbrian of the marquis Albericus of Spoleto. The Byzantine emperor Constantine sent his own fleet to the orders of the strategist Nicolaus Picingli. Landulf, prince of Capua and Benevento, Gaimar, prince of Salerno, and the dukes of Gaeta and Naples entered the alliance. Pope John X personally put himself to the head of the land troops.

The Longobards of Rieti, led by Agiprandus, advanced in Sabina. The troops of Sutri and Nepi defeated the Arabs near Baccano on the Cassian Way. Pope John X carried off another victory between Tivoli and Vicovaro. The Arabs withdrew on the Garigliano, their fortress.

In June 916 the attack was launched. For three months the Arabs resisted waiting for helps from Sicily. Then they tried to run away on the mountains, but they were reached and defeated by the Italian troops. Italy had rejected the assault of the Arabs. Sicily was still prisoner of the infidels.

Bibliographical references:

Arborio Mella F. A.	Gli arabi e l'Islam	Mursia
Finley M. I.	Storia della Sicilia antica	Laterza
Gatto L.	Storia di Roma nel Medioevo	Newton
Gregorovius	Storia di Roma nel Medioevo	Newton
Mack Smith D.	Storia della Sicilia medievale e moderna	Laterza
Ostrogorsky G.	Storia dell'Impero Bizantino	Einaudi

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