Word: islam
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Rather than focus on differences, the true dialogue between the Pope and Islam, and between secularized societies and Islamic ones, should emphasize our common, universal values: mutual respect of human rights, basic freedoms, rule of law and democracy. Though most of the media attention is directed at a marginal minority of radicals, millions of European Muslims are quietly proving every day that they can live perfectly well in secular societies and share a strong ethical pedestal with Jews, Christians and atheist humanists...
...hope that the Pope will be able to transform his former perception of the threat of "the Other," of Islam, into a more open approach--by strongly highlighting the ethical teachings the religions have in common and the ways they can contribute together to the future of a pluralistic Europe. Benedict XVI should be free to express his opinions without risk of impassioned denunciation. But the least one can expect from the Pope--especially in this difficult era of fear and suspicion--is that he help bridge the divide and create new spaces of confidence and trust...
...Tariq Ramadan, a research fellow at Oxford, is the author of several books on Islam, including To Be a European Muslim
...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...
Although the West, and most notably Europe, may be less Christian today, Muslims still view it as the Christian West. For a thousand years, from the days of Muhammad in the 7th century, Islam enjoyed a run of triumphant conquest, interrupted only momentarily by the Christian Crusades. The time of conquest lasted until the failed siege of Vienna in 1683. After Vienna, and most dramatically under 19th and 20th century Western colonialism, Islam was sidelined from history--one of the main sources of the rage and resentment of today's jihadists...