"I'm not violent, and I'll burn and kill to prove it"

In the past few days, and possibly what will continue in the near future, a lot of condemnation was given about the speech Pope Benedict XVI delivered in German on Tuesday, 9/12, during a visit to Regensburg University. Here are some of my thoughts regarding the speech and its reaction.

First of all, I seriously doubt that most people (including Muslims) have even read the speech that he gave. If you want to read it, you can Google it very easily. I did read it. Aside from it being a speech on the History of, and balance between Faith and Reason, I got no sense that it was a negative statement against Muslims. The actual controversial statement comes in the very beginning as he is laying out his argument for the speech. It is never mentioned again after the first paragraph, so my intuition is to say that he was taking an argument/debate from history to establish the context of his point. The argument/debate happened to be between a Muslim and a Christian, written at time when the siege of Constantinople was being carried out. In fact, as it is eluded to in the speech, the dialogue was between one who was being sieged with the one conducting the siege. As such, to expect no animosity between the two sides is naive.

As a springboard to posit his argument on Faith and Reason, the Pope was not wrong in using the text. However, as a Pope, knowing the sensitivities of the current era, he should have used another text in history. Rather than attributing it to malicious intent, however, I think it is more appropriate to attribute it to something that a "new" and unseasoned Pope said. And after all, realizing his mistake, he apologized for it. I do not mean to belittle the fact that he said, since the Pope, as being the "chosen" person from God in Catholicism, speaks "from the throne". In other words, his speech is something that is God-send. Now, that being said, we should also give equal weight to the fact that in another speech, he apologized for his remarks, which again he was speaking "from the throne". To take this argument one step further, he said the statements in a University setting (possibly not "from the throne"), but he apologized outside his offices at the Vatican, addressing a crowd there. So if anything, the apology has more weight than the initial statement itself.

But the reaction of the Muslims from around the world was, in my opinion, even worse and uncalled for. In fact, I think it is being used by political entities in the Muslim world, to stir up more violence and hatred toward "the West". Rather than using this as an opportunity to bring out the weaknesses in Christianity, where the Pope spoke and then apologized (so to say God spoke, than apologized) Muslims have used it to perpetuate the stereotype of them being violent, and thus, Islam teaching violence. Can we, as an ummah, grow up? If someone tells you that you are a violent person, and you respond by punching him or burning his house, are you really proving anything otherwise? A more logical, rational, and more humane thing to do would been to have said something that would have given the Pope the benefit of the doubt, but at the same time, asking for an apology or to have the statement retracted. But in the current state that we are in, logic, rationality, and humanity is something we have lost. As has been said over and over again, we need to go back to the teachings of our beloved messenger and truly ask, what would he have done in this situation. I am certain that he would not have told us to react violently, burn churches, and kill nuns. In fact, on this point of burning churches, it reminds me of a hadith in which the Prophet asked his companions if they would ever curse Allah. The companions responded that how could they ever do that? And our beloved Messenger, peace be upon him, said by cursing other people’s gods, you invite them to curse Allah. Using this as a context to our reactions, church burning becomes forbidden.

I am not going to be apologetic on behalf of Muslims. They are wrong to react this way, and we in America, as American Muslims, should condemn the reactions that are taking place worldwide. We should actually condemn them in a louder voice than we condemn the statements of the Pope. We should ask for an apology from not only the Pope, but also from the Muslims who are the source of the violence and finally we should raise money in the US to help rebuild any burned churches that are the result of these wrongful acts.