Misunderstood

Pope Benedict XVI’s visit to Turkey, a largely Islamic country aims to eradicate the negative image he created by the remarks he made linking Islam to violence. The Pope is clearly playing the role of a diplomat role now, a far cry from when he was still the Vatican’s orthodox defender of the faith. But he’s also not back tracking from his stinging criticism of Islam.

In fact, his speech at a university in Germany earlier this year which sparked anger across the Muslim world, remains a pointed challenge to the Muslim faithful to categorically renounce violence as a form of justification of their faith.

By quoting a Byzantine emperor to drive home his point, Benedict underscored the historical fact that for centuries, violence in Islam has been used repeatedly to justify the Islamic faith.

Islam isn’t necessarily violent per se, but jihad, in special circumstances, does allow the use of violence to justify the faith. This is where Benedict raises the red flag. For him, under no circumstance whatsoever should violence be used in the name of God.

Unfortunately, the media and the Muslim faithful failed to fully understand the gravity of Benedict’s message. They thought he was only bullying Muslims, intent on offending them.

Without pointing it out specifically, Benedict trained his guns at the concept of jihad, which is being used by terrorists around the world to justify and advance their own brand of Islam.

Although the Roman Catholic Church has a violent history itself, the use of violence to justify faith is not an accepted doctrine. There is no jihad equivalent in Christianity.

Jihad—the use of violence in the service of Allah-- is an Islamic martyrdom concept which is so wide open to interpretation such that it is being used by Islamic extremists and terrorists to justify their suicidal actions in hotbeds like Jammu and Kashmir, Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan, among others. Let us also not forget the events of 9/11—the terrorists, all jihadists, blew themselves up, killing innocent lives in the process and changing the course of history, supposedly in the service of Allah.

This is the message the Pope is trying to drill especially to Muslim religious leaders and intellectuals around the world. He was not trying to deliberately offend Muslims. He tried to rouse them to reexamine the problematic concept of jihad and its place in Islamic doctrine because of the current deadly consequences if taken to extremes.

Benedict correctly recognized that jihad is at the heart and soul of every Islamic extremist ready to blow himself up. Osama and Al-Qaeda’s terror motives clearly spring from this.

The fanaticism which manifests itself in violence and terrorism cannot be addressed fully if Muslim religious leaders around the world as well moderate Muslims continue to lend a blind eye and a deaf ear on this fundamental religious issue of jihad.

Pope Benedict did everybody a service by pointing this out.