Questions for Muslims
Jul 24, 2006
Amid this summer of angst over terrorist plots, arrests and debate over the role of Islam in these matters, it is gratifying to hear the loud and now growing voices of Muslims who decry the resort to violence by their co-religionists. We hear, time and again, that Islam is a religion of peace, not violence.
(www.catholicregister.org, 7/13/2006) These are, of course, welcome words. They are especially so for members of other faith communities who – precisely because of their religion – highly value peace. The statements prove, it is said, that the problem of terrorism is not rooted in religion, but is religion exploited for evil intentions.
Then along comes Cardinal George Pell to muddy the waters, or maybe clear the air, depending on your point of view. In any event, the archbishop of Sydney, Australia, will not win any brownie points within interfaith dialogue circles for his foray into the debate over Islam and violence.
The cardinal, in "Islam and Us" published in the June-July issue of First Things, dares to raise the fundamental question: "Can Islam and the Western democracies live together peacefully?" He then turns to his own perusal of the Quran, Islam's holy scriptures, to seek answers to this question. What he finds gives little encouragement to those who wish to believe that Islam is fundamentally benign.
Cardinal Pell begins by trying to count the references to violence in the Quran, but gives up after 50 or 60 pages, "as there are so many of them." Granted, this is not proof that Islam is more violent than the other two great Abrahamic religions: the Old Testament of the Bible and Jewish scriptures are also rife with violent imagery. The difference lies in what is meant by them.
Here Cardinal Pell turns to history to show that Islam had its own bloody evolution. Mohammed eventually had a real army behind him to help spread Islam through conquest. Jesus Christ never resorted to violence.
Scholars sometimes turn to periods of enlightened toleration of other religions by Muslim regimes in Spain and Portugal, the Middle East and the Turkish empire to argue Islam's openness. Such tolerance, however, was strictly limited and the complementary notion of "dhimmitude" or second-class status for non-Muslims, raises other disturbing questions.
All of this, of course, can be described as pointing out the stick in our brother's eye without removing the plank from our own. Christianity has its own sordid historic periods to atone for. The difference is that Christians have been doing just that for some time. Indeed, Pope John Paul II spent a good deal of his own authority apologizing for the sins of Catholics perpetrated on behalf of the church.
No one has to buy Cardinal Pell's arguments completely to realize he has posed some legitimate and deeply worrisome questions. Serious engagement with these points cannot be avoided by Muslim leaders if Islam is going to truly be a religion of peace in a pluralistic world.
Questions for Muslims