Word: swording
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...14th [an error occurred while processing this directive] century Byzantine Emperor. But this Emperor was making a furious criticism of Islam: "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." Perhaps the 79-year-old Pontiff hoped his remarks at the German university would spark a pointed discussion of Christian-Muslim relations and the rise of faith-based terrorism - just in time for his Turkey trip. What they sparked instead was a virtually instantaneous firestorm of criticism...
...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." POPE BENEDICT XVI, quoting the 14th century Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Paleologus during a lecture in Germany...
...cited Manuel II Paleologus, the emperor of Byzantium from 1391 to 1425, who in a ?dialog? with ?an educated Persian? said: "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.? Benedict then paraphrased Manuel's complaint using the explicit phrase ?forced conversion...
...possible that Benedict has misconstrued what Manuel meant about Islam's being spread by the sword. The ancient emperor may have been alluding not to sword's-edge conversion, but merely (if "merely" is the right word) to Islam's early intent to conquer the world, whose inhabitants would eventually come around to the true faith of their own accord. In that case, it?s probably accurate. That was the plan in the first generations after Mohammed, and that may be enough to scare anyone who thinks that it has been sustained since then...
...addresses his interlocutor with a startling brusqueness on the central question about the relationship between religion and violence in general, saying: "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". The emperor, after having expressed himself so forcefully, goes on to explain in detail the reasons why spreading the faith through violence is something unreasonable. Violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul. "God", he says, "is not pleased by blood...