Word: emperors
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...never going to use his first visit to a predominantly Muslim country as a rhetorical Act II to the Regensburg speech. There, in the confines of a German university, he questioned Islam's compatibility with reason, he cited the Koran's references to jihad, and he quoted a Byzantine emperor's rude remarks about Muhammed. In Turkey, if nothing else, Benedict followed the old rule that visiting world leaders don't wag their finger at their host country...
...show that Islam sees God as so transcendent that reason is extraneous, Benedict cited an 11th century Muslim sage named Ibn Hazm. To establish the connection between this position and violence, he quoted a 15th century Christian Byzantine Emperor (and head of the Byzantine, or Eastern, Church) named Manuel II Paleologus. Paleologus criticized Muslims for "spreading [their faith] by the sword," both because "God is not pleased by blood" and because true conversion depended on reason. "Show me just what the Muhammad brought that was new," Paleologus said, in a passage quoted by Benedict, "and there you will find things...
Since delivering the speech in which he quoted a 14th century Emperor who said the Prophet of Islam had given nothing positive to humanity and had commanded followers to use violence to spread their faith, Pope Benedict XVI has been subjected to bitter Muslim reaction around the world. Benedict has responded by saying he regretted the consequences of his misunderstood words, but he did not retract his statement--perhaps rightly so. After all, he had simply cited an ancient Emperor. It is Benedict's right to exercise his critical opinion without being expected to apologize for it--whether...
Benedict XVI's journey to Istanbul, formerly Constantinople, is laden with the wounds of history both ancient and painfully contemporary. The Pope's controversial Sept. 12 lecture in Regensburg, Germany, quoted a 14th century exchange between a Byzantine Christian Emperor and a Muslim intellectual in which the Emperor made some distinctly uncomplimentary observations about Islam. The Pope admitted that the Emperor's statement was brusque. But his point in reaching so far back into history was to demonstrate that problems between the Christian West and Islam long precede today's "war on terrorism...
...That's because in his speech in Germany, the Pope had effectively challenged Muslims to an inter-faith dialogue less preoccupied with diplomacy. Of course, that speech turned into a worldwide diplomatic incident, largely because Benedict had cited a 14th century Byzantine emperor's statement branding the contribution to religion of Islam's Prophet Muhammad as "things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." The Pope has since clarified that he does not agree with those words, and has repeatedly expressed his esteem for Muslims. Says a senior Vatican official...