“Show me just what Mohammed 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.”
In certain respects, this is the sentence that Pope Benedict XVI will be most remembered for. And while those who cite it do so to disparage and dishonor his memory—to portray him as an “Islamophobe”—that notorious assertion is of profound significance, and in more ways than one.
Pope Benedict read the above assertion on Sept. 12, 2006, during his Regensburg address on faith and reason. He was quoting Eastern Roman (or “Byzantine”) Emperor Manuel II Palaiologos (b. 1350-1425). An erudite and pious man, Manuel knew much about Islam, both abstractly and experientially.
In 1390, Manuel’s father, John V, submitted to becoming a vassal to, and sent his son, Manuel, as a hostage of, the Ottoman sultan, Bayezid I (1360-1403), whom the contemporary chronicler Doukas described as
a feared man, precipitate in deeds of war, a persecutor of Christians as no other around him, and in the religion of the Arabs [Islam] a most ardent disciple of Muhammad, whose unlawful commandments were observed to the utmost, never sleeping, spending his nights contriving intrigues and machinations against the rational flock of Christ. . . . His purpose was to increase the nation of the Prophet and to decrease that of the Romans. Many cities and provinces did he add to the dominion of the Muslims.
Unsurprisingly, the sultan never seemed to miss an opportunity to humiliate the heir apparent of Constantinople. Bayezid even sadistically forced Manuel to accompany the Turks and witness the final destruction of Philadelphia, the last Christian bastion in Asia Minor. The “sight of destroyed Christian cities” produced much “intense suffering” and even “sickened” the prince, writes one historian.
One year later, in 1391, Emperor John V died, and his son, Manuel, became emperor—after escaping from the sultan’s court to Constantinople. It was not long before Bayezid declared a fresh jihad, put Constantinople to siege (1394-1402), and once again began slaughtering Christians.
Earlier, during his time with the Turks, Manuel had regularly debated religion with Muslims. It was then that he said to a learned Muslim, “Show me just what Mohammed 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.”
As inflammatory as this sentence may be to modern sensibilities—and despite all the criticism Benedict received for quoting it—it is hard to gainsay it. The jihad promulgated by the Muslim prophet has led to the slaughter of millions and brutal conquest of much of the earth’s surface, including some three-fourths of what was once the Christian world. The Middle East and North Africa—like Constantinople, now Istanbul—were more Christian than Europe until the sword of jihad Islamized them.
Indeed, almost as if to validate the claim that Muhammad had only taught “evil and inhuman” things, when Benedict quoted this assertion, anti-Christian riots erupted around the Muslim world, churches were set aflame, and an Italian nun who had devoted her life to serving the sick and needy of Somalia was murdered there.
Be that as it may. This is not the place to document the veracity of Manuel’s statement—I have already written two books that fulfill that purpose—but rather to get to the emperor’s point, which was theological: God is rationale—as the Logos, the very embodiment of rationalism—whereas the teachings of Muhammad were not. This comes out clearly in Manuel’s own words on the three options Islam offers non-Muslims:
[1] they must place themselves under this law [sharia, meaning become Muslims], or [2] pay tribute and, more, be reduced to slavery [an accurate depiction of jizya and dhimmi status], or, in the absence of wither, [3] be struck without hesitation with iron.
Manuel argued that these three options are “extremely absurd,” irrational, and therefore unbecoming of the Supreme Deity. For example, if being a non-Muslim is so bad, why would God allow money, jizya, to “buy the opportunity to lead an impious life?” asked the emperor. Clearly these are very self-serving and manmade rules, designed to empower one group (in this case, Muslims) against another. Manuel continued:
God is not pleased by blood—and not acting reasonably [σὺν λόγω, “with logic”] is contrary to God’s nature. Faith is born of the soul, not the body. Whoever would lead someone to faith needs the ability to speak well and to reason properly, without violence and threats… To convince a reasonable soul, one does not need a strong arm, or weapons of any kind, or any other means of threatening a person with death…
Benedict had quoted all of this less to defame Islam, and more to argue for the importance of reason, and its compatibility with faith—both of which are under assault today more than ever (as when a society cannot tell the difference between men and women).
As for Islam—which is inherently irrational—Benedict had closed his address with,
“Not to act reasonably, not to act with logos, is contrary to the nature of God,” said Manuel II, according to his Christian understanding of God, in response to his Persian interlocutor. It is to this great logos, to this breadth of reason, that we invite our partners in the dialogue of cultures.
Here, one cannot help but remark how utterly different Pope Benedict and his successor, Pope Francis, are in their approaches to Islam. Whereas Benedict knew that without agreement on a first premise—namely, the (rational) nature of God—“dialogue” with Muslims would achieve nothing, Francis has become the champion of dialogue, and all apparently for show—rationalism and reality be damned.
For more on Manuel II, his struggles with Islam, and subsequent fall of Constantinople, see chapter 7 of Sword and Scimitar.
This article first appeared on The Stream.
Chick Publications who produces those little pocket sized Comic Books called Tracts puts out some about Islam
“God is not pleased by blood—and not acting reasonably [σὺν λόγω, “with logic”] is contrary to God’s nature. Faith is born of the soul, not the body. Whoever would lead someone to faith needs the ability to speak well and to reason properly, without violence and threats… To convince a reasonable soul, one does not need a strong arm, or weapons of any kind, or any other means of threatening a person with death…”
The first premise of reason and rationality is that the natural human senses do give us valid and actual sense-perceptual knowledge of reality. Before reason and logic can arrive at the premise that God exists and that God is rational there has to be perceptual evidence that God exists in the first place. The human senses have yet to provide that perceptual evidence, furthermore from the evidence that the senses do provide there is no logical reason to claim that existence requires a God to make existence exist.
But Judeo-Christianity is much, much more than mere Deism. Mr. Ibrahim, using reason and logic please rationally convince me through logical persuasion that Adam and Eve, A Talking Snake, The Garden Of Eden, A Fruit Of Knowledge, Original Sin, Noah’s Ark, The Parting Of The Red Sea, Manna Falling From Heaven, A Burning-Talking Bush, A Virgin Birth, The Resurrection, The Ascension Into Heaven, The Second Coming, The Rapture, The Apocalypse, are REAL, based on reason and logic, and are therefore rational.
What is reason and where does reason begin? Reason begins with the perceptual evidence of reality provided by our natural human senses.
“Reason is the faculty that identifies and integrates the material provided by man’s senses…. Reason integrates man’s perceptions by means of forming abstractions or conceptions, thus raising man’s knowledge from the perceptual level, which he shares with animals, to the conceptual level, which he alone can reach. The method which reason employs in this process is logic—and logic is the art of non-contradictory identification.” – Ayn Rand
What is faith?
“Faith” designates blind acceptance of a certain ideational content, acceptance induced by feeling in the absence of evidence or proof.” – Leonard Peikoff
Let me add to your list: the placement of the sun, moon, earth and stars; the process of human fertilization; the existence of gravity, the perfect temperature on earth, the formation of rainbows, the miracle of any human organ-the brain, the eye, the lungs, the skin, the kidneys, the liver, etc.; the ability to learn to speak, read and walk; the existence of love. To deny these are from God is to render yourself and this world a wonderfully complex freak of accidental creation. Don’t continue to be willfully stupid.
The argument from design doesn’t hold water and it is self-refuting. If the complexity of the universe requires a designer then that designer must be more complex than his design. By the premise of the argument from design the designer’s greater complexity would require another antecedent designer more complex than your God — ad infinitum.
Who designed the designer? You will say no one designed the designer, he is eternal, his complexity is simply the given, the starting point. That demolishes your argument that complexity requires a designer.
The universe, as complex as it is, requires no designer, it simply is, and simply is eternal. What you claim about your eternal God that needs no creator to create him is actually the nature of the universe.
Proof? Lourdes, Fatima, Medjugorje.
Why is faith as a means of proclaiming real knowledge about reality and demanding the obedience of others to that alleged knowledge so dangerous? Because…
“… faith and force are corollaries, …mysticism will always lead to the rule of brutality. The cause of it is contained in the very nature of mysticism. Reason is the only objective means of communication and of understanding among men; when men deal with one another by means of reason, reality is their objective standard and frame of reference. But when men claim to possess supernatural means of knowledge, no persuasion, communication or understanding are possible. Why do we kill wild animals in the jungle? Because no other way of dealing with them is open to us. And that is the state to which mysticism reduces mankind—a state where, in case of disagreement, men have no recourse except to physical violence. And more: no man or mystical elite can hold a whole society subjugated to their arbitrary assertions, edicts and whims, without the use of force. Anyone who resorts to the formula: “It’s so, because I say so,” will have to reach for a gun, sooner or later. Communists, like all materialists, are neo-mystics: it does not matter whether one rejects the mind in favor of revelations or in favor of conditioned reflexes. The basic premise and the results are the same.” – Ayn Rand
In my experience, many people dislike reason. I once had a girlfriend who styled herself as a poet and liberal. She once complained that I was too rational, and later she stopped talking to me entirely, for that reason. And of course there is the famous dualism of Islam which means that nothing can be proved. Many people I know have insisted there was no difference in value between Islam and Christianity or Judaism. But they are people who have not studied the issue and read and considered articles like this. They rely on the liberal sense that one should respect other cultures, and one can find mirror images of every virtue of Christianity and Judaisms. They defend the enemy and his culture and not their own heritage, as though it were proof that they were unbiased and objective. But they belittle the very culture that can protect them from jihad.
Christianity and Judaism are no more based on reason than Islam or Marxism.
Judaism prepared the way for Christianity and both Judaism and Christianity prepared the way for Islam and Marxism. What Marx essentially did was secularize Judeo-Christianity and dress it up in pseudo-scientific nonsense. Marxism is a crypto-religion, religion in disguise.
Christianity in general has such an uncanny and blatant similarity to Marxism, and such an uncanny similarity in the history of its theocratic brutality to Islam, that only a Christian could ignore or evade it.
The “obedience” you decry in Christianity is actually defined in the name of Islam, which means “submission”. And what is your reward for this submission? The promise of a lovely afterlife (72 virgins), but not a single advantage in this life. Here and now for Muslims means to live in fear of a vengeful god whose heart can’t be known and whose love can’t be experienced. The Muslim can never know how he’s doing with Allah, because Allah never reveals his heart. When one “submits” in Christianity, he immediately receives knowledge of a loving Savior whose perfect life teaches us how to live; whose death teaches us how to love sacrificially; and whose resurrection provides us hope for a wonderful future, which begins right here and right now.
Your fear of death and of loneliness is your problem not the Universe’s problem. If you need the emotional security blanket of your imaginary friend in the sky to keep you from breaking down and crying over mortality and loneliness go right ahead, it’s better than drugs and alcohol.