The Blessed Balance Between Reason and Religion – part 5: Two learned men

The whole Pope-affair still receives a lot of attention and I can hardly keep up with all the debates in the blogosphere and newspapers. Therefore I’m not trying to but refer you to some of the blogs that give a an overview from a Christian/Catholic perspective. What we miss in all the overviews is the views of the two learned men: prof. Khoury who’s book was used by the Pope and the Persian man from the citations.

First the professor. What does he have to say about the whole thing. Well I read this very interesting interview in the Frankfurter Algemeine and translated the most important parts into English (so my translation; if you see any errors just let me know):

Can you say some more to us to the context of the quotation?

The emperor and the Persian scholar met outside from Konstantinopel, in a Muslim military camp. There they discussed in a heated atmosphere and very polemic the religion of the other, both sides were critical about the other […]. The Pope did not use the quotation at all, in order to say something about Islam. That was not his topic at all. He needed it as an introduction to the next step of his thinking. The crucial sentence comes somewhat later: not acting reasonably is contrary to God’s nature. This relates to the question of the divine voluntarism. That is by the way also in Islamic theology a main discussion.

You are also a scholar on Islam. Do you find the Islam correctly characterized in the quotation ?

Once again: That was not the Pope’s issue in this lecture. Otherwise one would have had to notice for example that the quotation does not show the thought of the Quran accurately: It concerns not conversion through the sword, but subjecting areas through the sword with at the same time religious tolerance at least when it concerns the religions of the book. If Islam was the Pope’s concern, he would have had to refer to completely different currents, which also stress the reasonableness of God’s acts. In the Quran you also find passages in which arguments and doing right are considered important with regard to conversion.

How do you explain the upheaval in the Muslim world?

I think it comes from both sides. Everyone is so sensitive, it leads to misunderstandings. Many miss from the Pope some words of differentiation, of qualification: I, Benedikt XVI., see the Islam however not in such a way.

Would you have advised the Pope to such a comment?

I thinkso. He could have specified the fact that he meant only a radical minority, prepared to use violence, among the Muslims. That is how the Turkish „Hürriyet “ understood it, and I believe, rightfully: The quotation of the emperor Manuel applies only today to a minority of the Muslims.

Interesting I think that he points to the way the Pope used his book and also gives some insight to the context of the old story. The book in wich you can find the dialogue between the emperor and the Persian man is: Manuel II Paléologue: Entretiens avec un musulman, 7e Controverse. Introduction, texte critique, traduction et notes par Théodore Khoury (Collection “Sources Chrétiennes. No 115), Editions du Cerf, Paris 1966.

Then the second learned man comes into sight: the Persian scholar. What kind of man was this? What did he respond to the emperor’s remarks? What was the core argument in their debate about voluntarism, an issue in Islam and Christianity? It is important to gain some more insight into this because it would made clear what to Pope could have meant. So I hope someone can enlighten me about this…

Meanwhile some people ‘solve’ the issue with a smile…

UPDATE

Gail at Sribal Terror has an interesting piece of information about our Persian friend. It puts the Pope’s remarks in a strange light however. As said in Part 1, the pope referred to the Quranic verse about no compulsion in religion and how this is more or less annulled by newer verses (which is not entirely true) when Muslims were in power. The verse about no compulsion was supposed to be (according to the Pope) from the time when Muslims were the underdog so they had to be friendly. Gail makes clear however that in that dialogue from the emperor with the Persian man, the emperor was the underdog… What is still unclear however, is what the Persian man actually said. I have already asked the professor Khoury about this, but unfortunately he did have time to elaborate on this. Too bad, it certainly deserves an elaborated answer, but let’s not forget that the professor must be a very busy man and that he is retired.

UPDATE:

See also Crossroads Arabia for interesting views and an overview of the Saudi newspapers.