Based on a false premise

The Muslims’ letter to the Pope is not all it seems

Piers Paul Read

20 October 2007

The Muslims’ letter to the Pope is not all it seems

A closer look, however, suggests that the appeal is misdirected, based on false assumptions and likely to feed precisely the paranoia among Muslims that leads to violence. ‘As Muslims, we say to Christians’, the letter states, ‘that we are not against them and that Islam is not against them as long as they do not wage war against Muslims on account of their religion, oppress them and drive them out of their homes.’ Where are Christians waging war against Muslims on account of their religion, oppressing them or driving them from their homes? It is difficult to think of any Christians in any era who have waged war against Muslims purely ‘on account of their religion’. The crusades were broadly a defensive reaction against Islamic aggression: even the Iberian Reconquista was, as its name suggests, a recovery of once Christian lands conquered by Islamic armies. The Western nations that colonised Muslim countries in Africa in the 19th century did not do so for religious motives: the French Third Republic that colonised Algeria was anticlerical and the British governments of the time were concerned with power-politics and trade. Indeed, Britain did what it could to prop up the Muslim Ottoman Empire to prevent the expansion of Christian Russia, and only after it collapsed did Britain and France occupy Syria, Palestine and Iraq — and then to secure the Suez Canal and supplies of oil, not convert the populations to faith in Christ.

The same is true of the recent invasion of Iraq. Despite the Christian beliefs of Bush and Blair, it was undertaken in the face of emphatic opposition by Pope John Paul II and other Christian leaders; and it cannot possibly be construed as a Christian attack on Islam. Quite to the contrary, the ancient Christian churches of Mesopotamia were protected by the Baath socialist regime of Saddam Hussein, and both the aim and the outcome of bringing it down was to hand power to the majority Shia Muslims. As a result there has been an exodus of Christians from Iraq, as there has been from Palestine, where the Christians are caught between Muslim and Israeli intolerance. Certainly, if the imams were appealing to Israeli Jews rather than Western Christians, then there would be some sense behind what they said in their letter published last week.

But the letter is addressed to Christian leaders and as such throws dust in the eyes of the world community because, while it is hard to find instances of the oppression of Muslims by Christians, it is all too easy to cite instances of the oppression of Christians by Muslims: they are well documented in almost every country where Muslims make up the majority of the population — Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Algeria, Pakistan, even Turkey, where a government that hopes to join the European Union will not give legal status to Christian churches. Mosques are built in the cities of the United States and Western Europe, but no Christian church is allowed to be built in Saudi Arabia, nor Christian services held for the Christians who work in that country. Bibles and crucifixes are banned and Muslims who convert to Christianity are declared apostates and stoned to death.

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Dr. Irene Lancaster FRSA

October 21st, 2007 5:16pm Report this comment

All this is pretty obvious and the writer has not even suggested that it is offensive to Jews to leave us out of the equation and to cite Mark without stating that his quote comes from the so-called Old Testament, the Hebrew Bible

marc silver

October 23rd, 2007 4:24am Report this comment

Is the West trying to destroy Islam? No, and Yes, depending on the depth of your viewpoint. It seems nonsensical for Muslims to claim we are attacking them, because on a doctinal level democracies and democrats have no complaint. Westerners don't care what day you worship on, what name you give God, whether you eat port, drink or worship images. On this plane the Muslim charge is absolutely wrong. HOWEVER, Muslims know that doctrine is not at issue in this crisis--- COSMOLOGY IS. By what moral principles shall we run this planet? Is tolerace a virtue or a vice? What is the value of the individual person? What rights do we own at birth? Shall men live according to the demands of external authorities holding scimatars? or by the inner dictates of a congenital conscience founded on the love of life---ALL life? Will we allow families to circumcise their young girls? No. Will we allow brothers to strangle sisters who are rumored to have affairs? No. Will we allow males to rule their women like haram slaves? No. On the level of moral principles we are definitely at war with Islam. The mullah, ayatollas and imams all know the seminal depth of the conflict. The sooner westerners grasp it and adjust our efforts accordingly, the surer will be human survival and fulfillment on this planet

Stephen

October 25th, 2007 1:56pm Report this comment

True but trying telling that to Muslims. It is a sad fact of life that religious groups only remember harm perceived as done to them and remember nothing that their own side does against the others.

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