The Muslims' letter to the Pope is not all it seems
The statement by 138 Islamic scholars and imams seems to be an olive branch. But, says Piers Paul Read, it is based on the false premise that Christians are waging war on Muslims At first sight the letter from 138 prominent Muslim scholars and imams to Pope Benedict XVI and other Christian leaders published last week, 'A Common Word Between Us and You', is a welcome statement of a number of obvious truths — that Christianity and Islam worship one God; that both religions enjoin truth, justice and love of neighbour; and that if these two great monotheistic religions fight one another, then there is little chance of peace in the world. The letter, issued by the Royal Aaal al-Bayt Institute for Islamic Thought in Jordan, had among its signatories grand muftis with tens of millions of followers, and pointed out that Muslims and Christians make up more than half the world's population.
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.
Pope Benedict in particular has called for Islamic countries to show the same tolerance towards Christians as Christians have shown towards Islam. Certainly, there has been an historic enmity between the two religions, but it is now more than 40 years since the decree Nostra Aetate of the Second Vatican Council stated that 'The Church has. . . a high regard for Muslims. They worship God, who is one, living and subsistent, merciful and almighty, the Creator of Heaven and Earth. . .' and acknowledge the veneration of Jesus and Mary by Islam. Again in 2001, after visiting the Umayyad Great Mosque in Damascus, Pope John Paul II called for respectful dialogue between the two religions; and in 1998 the same pontiff actually apologised for the Crusades, hoping in vain for a reciprocal apology from Muslims.
Popes do not rule over all Christians but the very size of the worldwide Catholic community makes him a de facto spokesman for Christianity. The problem, as Pope Benedict made clear in his controversial Regensburg address, is that Muslims have no sovereign authority other than the Koran and no Muslim leader dare suggest that some of its shuras should be altered or disowned. 'From the beginning,' wrote the Islamic expert Jacques Jomier, 'Islam had an active warlike character. It acted in accordance with the laws of Bedouin warfare.... In the Koran one hears the echoes of that martial activity.' It would surely have better served the cause of peace if the 138 Muslim scholars meeting in Amman had addressed their remarks to Osama bin Laden, the Iranian ayatollahs, the Saudi King and the young Muslim fanatics here in Britain.
There are many things that Christian leaders may admire and even envy in Islam: the strong faith in God and an afterlife; the strict observances such as fasting during Ramadan; strong families; the nurturing of virtues such as modesty and chastity almost extinct in the West. It is also right that Muslims and Christians could 'come together on the common essentials of the two religions' as they have done, for example, on the question of abortion. But there are important differences between the God of the New Testament and the God of the Koran. Allah is one, an indivisible unity; the God of the Christians is a Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit: Jesus, God made man, is not a bolted-on addition to the Yahweh of the Old Testament, and his teaching cannot be reduced to an ethical system, however beneficial that might seem in the short term for the human race.
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