Pope Stresses Muslim-Christian Dialogue

The Associated Press: Pope Stresses Muslim-Christian Dialogue: "Pope Stresses Muslim-Christian Dialogue 16 hours ago VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Benedict XVI has replied to a letter from Muslim scholars, stressing the need for dialogue between Islam and Christianity and saying he would be willing to meet Muslim representatives, the Vatican said Thursday. The pope expressed 'deep appreciation for this gesture, for the positive spirit which inspired the text (of the letter) and for the call for a common commitment to promoting peace in the world.' The October letter by 138 Muslim scholars urges Christian and Muslims to develop their common ground of belief in one God. Among those signing were Muslim leaders from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Iraq, Iran, Europe and the United States. 'Without ignoring or downplaying our differences as Christians and Muslims, we can and therefore should look to what unites us, namely, belief in the one God,' the pope said in his reply, which was sent via the Vatican's secretary of state, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone. 'Such common ground allows us to base dialogue on effective respect for the dignity of every human person, on objective knowledge of the religion of the other, on the sharing of religious experience and, finally, on common commitment to promoting mutual respect and acceptance among the younger generation,' Benedict said. The message said the pope was confident that cooperation would then become possible in such areas as culture and the promotion of justice and peace."

Know your enemy

Know your enemy
Arnaud de Borchgrave

Radical Islam — or Islamofascism, as conservatives are prone to call it — conveys the impression of a political movement. It is no such animal. Al Qaeda's suicide bombers and assorted gunslingers are not individual al Qaeda terrorists, inspired by Osama bin Laden, that have hijacked a religion. Like it or not, the West is fighting a religion "that arose in enraged reaction to the West," writes Fergus Kerr in "20th Century Catholic Theologians."
The only leader who has called it by its real name, according to Mr. Kerr, "is a man wholly averse to war, a pope who took his name from the Benedict who interceded for peace in World War I." Benedict XVI, alone among the leaders of the Christian world, "challenges Islam as a religion, as he did in his September 2006 Regensburg University address," which touched off noisy protests throughout the Muslim world. The pope repeated a question posed by Manuel II Paleologos, an obscure 14th-century Byzantine emperor to a Persian guest at his winter quarters near Ankara. "Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached."

Debunking the Myth of Islamist Intransigence

By Mohammed Herzallah, Amr Hamzawy
The Daily Star, November 2, 2007

Nonetheless, the controversy obscures the fact that the Brotherhood's positions are not born out of animosity toward non-Muslims, women, or democracy, but stem from cultural and religious norms that are continuously debated and modified by the Brotherhood's leading members. To be sure, internal disputes over comprehensive equality, like many other disagreements over Shariah law, have yet to be settled, and the Brotherhood's leading members do not pretend otherwise in public. An example that bears special emphasis is the new platform's endorsement of the right of the people, irrespective of their race, gender, religious or ideological affiliations, to form political parties and associations. Given that the founders of the movement were firmly opposed to factionalism and the political party system, the move illustrates the growing capacity of progressives within the Islamists' ranks to shape the movement's intellectual trajectory.