The religion of peace?

What, exactly, is ‘moderate Islam’?

“In December 2006, during his visit to Istanbul, [Pope] Benedict [XVI] backed Turkey’s admission into the EU, prayed toward Mecca in a mosque, and called Islam ‘a religion of peace, tolerance, and love.”

Prof. Gil-White, Historical Investigative Research

Introduction

For those not familiar with him, Pope Benedict XVI (see above quote) is the head of the ‘Catholic Church,’ a worldwide and influential religious institution. The Catholic Church is not a Muslim sect, and the popes of the medieval past — who in fact referred to Muslims as ‘heathens’ and ‘infidels’ — would have called Benedict an ‘anti-Christ’ (an agent of ‘Satan’) and burned him alive at the stake for praying in a mosque toward Mecca while functioning as a priest of the Church.

Some things have obviously changed in the Catholic Church.

One might say that the Catholic Church is joining the spirit of the times, because Pope Benedict’s assessment of Islam is very common in the Western mass media. This admits of a simple statistical demonstration. On 7 January 2007, I asked the Lexis-Nexis database to give me all appearances, just in the major Western newspapers it archives, of the word ‘Islam’ within 10 words of the phrase ‘religion of peace,’ and it returned 738 results. By contrast, when I asked for all appearances in the same database of the word ‘Islam’ within 10 words of ‘religion of war’ I got only 66 results. This means that Westerners hear in the mainstream mass media that Islam is a ‘religion of peace’ more than 11 times more often than they hear the opposite argument. (And many of those 66 results, I must point out, were about how specific individuals got in trouble for saying that Islam was a ‘religion of war,’ so the true ratio is arguably higher.)

If we accept the common media representation of Islam, then those Muslims who quite obviously and openly preach war cannot be true or orthodox Muslims (despite the fact that they seem quite numerous), and therefore some qualifier will be needed to label their movements. Thus, we often encounter the terms ‘fundamentalist Islam,’ ‘radical Islam,’ ‘Islamo-fascism,’ ‘Islamism,’ and ‘Islamist terrorism’ when the media makes reference to warlike Muslim movements. By logical necessity, under this interpretation, the term ‘moderate Islam’ will refer to those Muslims who adhere to the traditional, orthodox, and true nature of Islam, which in this view is peace.

Should we rush to accept this common media representation of Islam, now pushed also by the head of the Catholic Church?

I think that might be rash. Although Pope Benedict XVI is certainly entitled to his own opinion, he is not a Muslim cleric or scholar. So before we commit ourselves to an interpretation it is probably wise at least to consult the recognized Muslim authorities on what the mission of Islam is supposed to be. If the interpretation of Muslim authorities agrees with Pope Benedict, very well. But if it doesn’t, it would be absurd to privilege the views of the Catholic Pope over the views of those who have defined Islam for millions of Muslims throughout the ages.

The first thing I will do is contrast the modern media interpretation of the word jihad, the central concept in Islam, with that of a famous 20th century Muslim cleric and scholar. Then I will look at the views of medieval Muslim clerics and scholars, and finally at the views of modern Muslims whom the Western mass media loudly calls ‘moderates.’

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