Measuring words.(ISLAM)(Pope Benedict XVI blundered)

YES, the pope blundered. In discussing the relationship between reason, violence, and Islam, Benedict XVI referred to a Byzantine emperor's comments on the subjects from around 1391. The pope noted that the emperor had raised the question of compulsion in religion "somewhat brusquely," with these words: "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." Benedict then expanded on why the emperor rightly believed this command "unreasonable" and "incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul."

The pope did not endorse the emperor's view that everything distinctive to Islam is "evil and inhuman." His principal error was in failing to say explicitly that he was not endorsing it. We take it that he wasn't, both because he subsequently said so and because the official teaching of his church, which he had a hand in drafting, is somewhat philo-Islamic. (Nor were the offending words necessary to his argument.) His secondary error came elsewhere: He implied that Muhammad had said that there should be no compulsion in religion only because, at the time he said it, Islam was weak. It had actually solidified its position by then.

But these were pretty minor mistakes. The pope's thesis concerning Islam--that it has a troubled relationship with reason and with peace and religious ...