Pope Benedict XVI's quote of a medieval ruler who stated that Muhammad and Islam had brought "evil and inhuman" things to the world has raised rankles throughout the Islamic world. Islamic believers are so horrified at it that they are burning churches and shot one 60 year old Italian nun in the back.
I have read only excerpts from the words of The Prophet Muhammad and Islamic scripture and although those excerpts may have been carefully selected to prove a writer's viewpoint there is little doubt that there is a far higher incidence of exhortations to violent vengeance threaded throughout Islamic scripture than in Christian scripture.
I know of only two references to violence in the New Testament. In one, Jesus states that he does not wish to bring peace but discord between fathers and sons, mothers and daughters-in-law, etc. It's been explained as the disagreement that his message would engender. The second is where Paul states that if the arm is the problem, cut it off and if the eye is, gouge it out. Neither concerns retribution against non-believers. They are far fewer than the many that I have read from The Qur'an and other Muslim sacred scriptures.
It is especially telling to examine the methods of conversion to Christianity vs. Islam. The term Dar-al-Islam means an area where Islam has triumphed, Dar-al-Harb refers to areas in the midst of conquest and Dar-al-Suhl means areas yet to be conquered. This should not bring comfort to non-believers, infidels as they call them. Dar-al-Salam refers also to the government, not necessarily that all within are Muslim.
Christianity was expanded through persuasion. To achieve Dar-al-Islam, it is not necessary that all within become Muslims. Rather, the entire government and society are organized and run according to Islamic scripture. Often, infidels are accorded secondary citizenship and have no choice but to live according to Islamic law, under which conversions to other religions are capital crimes! It's like what's ours is ours; what's yours is negotiable.
Muslims claim that ‘Islam' means peace, however other translations claim it means submission, authoritarian flavored. What happens if one doesn't submit? History suggests the sword is the alternative.
Most of what today is Islamic, was once Christian, primarily Catholic. Christianity originally dominated most of the Mid-east and North Africa. The apostles went to Europe through Rome, and from Judea across northern Africa and north into what is today Asia Minor and Armenia. St. Thomas brought Christianity east into Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and even India. In 1498, Portuguese explorers found Christians on the west coast of today's India who traced their conversion to St. Thomas.
St. Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, today's Annaba, Algeria, is one of the most important theologians in western history. His book, The City of God, was fundamental to the development of Christian theology and is cited by Catholic and Calvinist authorities. Indeed, it would be nigh impossible to be able to speak with any authority on Christianity without a thorough understanding of that epochal book.
Today, The People's Democratic Republic of Algeria is Islamic and has fewer than 60,000 Christians out of a population of nearly 28,000,000. Most are likely descendants of French, Spanish, Maltese and other Christians who fled after independence from France in 1962. It is highly unlikely that they are descendants of original Christians who resisted conversion under the Berbers. Christianity was the dominant faith before Muhammad.
I was taught in Catholic grammar school that most of the conversions from Christianity were under threat of violence. As biased as those teachings may have been, history supports that conclusion. Muslim hordes swept east, west and northwest threatening to overrun all of Europe. They were stopped only in the Balkans and in Southern France in 732, by Charles Martel. The Mediterranean was in danger of becoming an Islamic lake, as it had once been Roman. That threat was one of the reasons that Pope Urban II called for the Crusades to drive back the Muslim hordes. The onslaught of those hordes was part of the reason for the Crusades. Christianity's very survival was at stake.
Another reason was to make The Holy Land safe for Christian pilgrims who were being harassed and killed. A Muslim caliph had ordered the destruction of The Church of The Holy Sepulchre in The Holy Land and a hospice for Christian pilgrims looted. . It would be analogous for a Christian ruler to destroy The Great Mosque in Mecca and deny Muslims access to Mecca and Medina.
It took several hundred years to drive the Moors out of the Iberia. Islam left its imprint on Spanish and Portuguese art, architecture, music and even language. Fatima is an Arabic word. Later, Islam attempted another conquest only to be stopped at Vienna in the seventeenth century.
During Desert Shield and Desert Storm, American Christian military personnel could not have services if stationed in Arabia. Then there was the fatwa placed upon Salman Rushdie for his satire of Muhammad. Islamic tolerance and peace?
Personally, I believe that Islam is a false religion of a false prophet and Muhammad may even be the false prophet that the scriptures warned against. Islam is an entire social prescription, unlike Christianity and far more than even the most extreme Jewish sects such as the Hassids.
I have known several Muslims over the years. Most seem like decent, peace loving people. Some have not. But nevertheless, it is a religion with a constant thread that advocates violence to further its ends.
It is a religion that emphasizes the possibilities of great rewards and pleasures in the afterlife for martyrdom. With 1.5 billion adherents, all its leaders need is to convince a very small fraction of them for a series of horrors to be unleashed on the world. With the acceleration of violence in recent years, exemplified by 9/11, there is a very strong possibility that this is the beginning of a third attempt to bring the world into Dar-al-Islam.
The Pope has not apologized for his remarks, nor should he. He was quoting someone else. The truth remains as the truth but this may unleash more than anyone has thought possible as often as has happened throughout history. This despite The Vatican having been critical of the war in Iraq. Gratitude may not count for much in Islam.
The assaults this time around, however, will not be simply from without but compounded by the millions of Muslims who will undoubtedly be sources for fifth columns throughout Western Europe. Germany, Italy and France all have substantial Muslim minorities, as does America, and in many cases they are poor and uneducated, the most vulnerable to all extremism, especially religious. It is further compounded by demographics.
The fertility rate of native Germans is currently below replacement level and Italy's is not much better. Immigrant populations throughout Europe, just as in the United States, have reproductive rates far higher than natives, partly due to generous subsidies. The specter of Muslim majorities in many formerly Christian countries is very real.
Hold onto your hats. This could be a very rough ride, compounded by the coming economic collapses in the West.
