Muslims and the Pope: Is a meaningful dialogue possible?

The Associated Press

Pope Benedict XVI inflamed Muslims. Now can he reason with them?

Featured Topic | Posted 37 weeks 4 days ago

Muslims and the Pope: Is a meaningful dialogue possible?

In 2006, Pope Benedict XVI gave a long speech at Regensburg University about faith and reason. In the midst of his talk, the Pope quoted a 14th century Byzantine emperor who spoke negatively of Islam. The line sparked violent protests across the Islamic world. But it also sparked discussion about what divides -- and possibly unites -- Muslims and Christians. Muslim clerics and Vatican officials begin talks this week that they hope will lead to an unprecedented Catholic-Islamic meeting.

What do Muslims and Christians have to discuss? Is productive dialogue a realistic goal?

Ben likes: What the Islamic scholars forgot to tell the Pope

Patrick Poole/Pajamas Media

There is one thing, however, amidst all the flowery overtures, theological discussion, and representations of religious pluralism that the Royal Aal al-Bayt Institute and the 138 Islamic scholars forgot to mention: The Institute, which operates a website, AlTafsir.com, which it calls “the largest and greatest online collection of Quranic commentary, translation, recitation, and essential resources in the world,” includes in an “Ask the Mufti” section a number of fatwas on apostasy issued by the Institute’s chief scholar, Sheikh Hijjawi, that call for the death of Christian reverts (Christians converting to Islam and then returning to the Christian faith) and Muslim apostates. Further they state that if the Christian reverts and Muslim apostates are not killed, they should be deprived of all rights and accorded the status of non-persons.

Joel likes: The pope and Islam

Jane Kramer/The New Yorker

Benedict’s second goal is reciprocity with Islam. He wants to use his papacy to restore to Christian minorities in Muslim countries the same freedom of religion that most Muslims enjoy in the West. The question of reciprocity is hardly new, but it was never a priority at the Vatican before Benedict’s reign. John Paul II avoided it, on his travels, by saying, in effect, “I go for the country, not the religion.” Benedict has pretty much made it a precondition for relations between the Vatican and the Muslim world. He clearly thinks that the JudeoChristian West has been self-destructively shortsighted in its concessions to the Islamic diaspora, when few, if any, concessions are made to Christians and Jews in most of the Middle East.