THE POPE & ISLAM
by Ali Al-Ahmed
HIS REMARKS WEREN'T WRONG ENOUGH
September 19, 2006

September 19, 2006 -- POPE Benedict XVI was definitely mistaken in his remarks regarding Islam, but he was also not far from the truth.

The big problem is that the pope's remarks, at least as reported, didn't distinguish between Muslims and Islam.

That Islam was spread in part by the sword is a historical fact, but but so too were Christianity and other religions. Like other faiths, Islam has also spread through trade, science and similar peaceful means. Such was the case in Indonesia, with the world's largest Muslim population.

But this does not excuse some Muslims' overreaction to the pope's comments. After all, history books in many Muslims countries boast of "Muslim conquests" in Africa, Asia and Europe. And the angriest Muslims now are the same who want to reclaim Spain back to Muslim rule, and believe they have the right to control the world. For that matter, the flag of Saudi Arabia - the land where Islam was born - today bears the Islamic testimony of faith above a sharp sword.

Muslim clerics have also attacked other religions and people. In 2001, Saad Al-Buraik - a Saudi cleric and royal adviser - called on the Palestinians to take Jewish women as sex slaves.

A similar call came from leading Saudi cleric Sheikh Abdullah Bin Jabreen in the wake of the "Danish cartoon" crisis. Jabreen called on his followers to take Danish women as slaves.

Muslim leaders should have taken the pope to task in a scholarly manner; instead, they appeared angry and fostered violent attacks, including the burning of churches in the West Bank and possibly the murder of an Italian nun in Somalia. Such unrestrained violence seems to support the pope's assertions.

Stranger still has been the mute Muslim reaction to Muslim attacks on the Prophet Mohamed. Earlier this year, the Saudi government razed the house of the prophet, his home for 28 years. There was not a single reaction. I have raised that issue with many Muslims in the United States and asked several mosques to allow me to speak about it. They have declined.

The "Pope Affair" shows that the West must be careful not to give extremists fuel they can use to detract the Muslim world's attention away from the sources of the region's problems. These rulers will use such comments to deflect popular anger onto the West, away from the dictators who rob Muslims from their human dignity.

If Muslims wanted to prove the pope wrong, they should have responded in a prophetic manner of civility and peaceful tone. And if they want the world to respect them and their faith, they must stop using their sermons and their schoolbooks to attack other religions and their adherents.

Ali Al-Ahmed is director of The Institute of Gulf Affairs, a U.S.-based think tank focused on the Gulf nations, and a member of Benador Associates.

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