THE LOGICAL BASIS FOR RELIGIOUS VIOLENCE
by Ali Bulac

Zaman, Turkey
Oct 5 2006

When we take the matter into consideration with a cool head, we
come to this conclusion in regard to the Pope’s words: Claiming that
in Islam "there is no connection between the nature of God and the
nature of the mind," the Pope implied via the Byzantine Emperor that
"the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) and, consequently, Muslims resort to
unreasonable violence, that is, they identify Islam with the sword."

In order to understand whether or not this claim has any true value,
we must ask these questions:

-If as claimed, Islam resorts to unreasonable violence due to its
teachings, and is spread by means of the sword, how were Christians,
Jews, Sabeans, Magians,Yazidis, Buddhists, animists and those
holding other beliefs able to preserve, in addition to their physical
existence, their beliefs, places of worship, traditions, customs and
cultural existence from Vienna to the Great Wall of China and from
Morocco to Yemen at a time and place when Muslims used their swords
skillfully and others didn’t?

-And in connection to this, why haven’t any different religious groups,
Muslims and Jews in particular, been able to preserve their existence
in all the places where Western Christianity has entered?

It’s not just a claim that Christians and members of other religions
under Muslim rule have been able to preserve their existence until
today; it’s a concrete fact. Saying that "the Pope’s words, which
hurt Islam and Muslims, are contrary to Christian doctrine," Priest
Shenouda of the Egyptian Coptic Orthodox Church states that "they
comprise approximately 10% of the 73 million Egyptian population"
and that they "follow the traditions of the Eastern Orthodox Church"
without any oppression. This is important in relation to the reality
of today’s Islamic world.

It’s helpful to make this small note: Turkey is the country where
according to the general population, the fewest non-Muslims live
(in a population of 72 million, there are approximately 400 thousand
Greeks, 65 thousand Armenians and 20 thousand Jews). Unfortunately,
since the first quarter of the 20th century Turkey has been the
most troublesome for them. The dialectic of "the model country that
harmonizes religion with democracy" doesn’t have a side that can be
defended or embraced by either the Muslim population or non-Muslims.

Keeping the Heybeliada Monastic School closed in a nonsensical way,
denying the ecumenical status of the Phanar Patriarchate and tying
it to a district head office, making unfair prohibitions on religious
community foundations, and almost punishing non-Muslims by acting on
the basis of the "rule of reciprocity" that has no just basis in the
usage of citizen rights are not statutes and applications from the
Islamic religion and Ottoman model. Islam doesn’t have these kinds
of prohibitions, and they weren’t enforced historically. Within this
framework, the guarantee of basic rights and freedoms for non-Muslims
like other citizens is one of the important steps that need to be
taken. If help is expected from non-Muslims outside of Turkey, first
the situation needs to be improved and their rights have to be given
fully. Later, if they are found to be involved in "dirty relations"
with foreign countries, of course, they can be addressed within legal
parameters. Perhaps then non-Muslim leaders will appear at critical
times like these and defend Turkey like Priest Shenouda of the Egyptian
Coptic Church did. Still, forgetting for a moment the difficulties
he has seen, Patriarch Mutafyan of the Armenian Church said, "It’s
necessary to remind the Pope of the history of the Crusades."

Finally, in relation to this subject, there is an important point
that those who are waiting for an "apology" have forgotten regarding
theology: the Pope "can’t apologize" because according to belief he
is a "creature that is infallible and can’t be made to err." If he
"apologizes," he will have lost this basic attribute. This alone
is sufficient to give us an idea about the Catholic Christian’s
connection to the "nature of the mind." Actually, the Pope is only
a man who can become confused; he’s a human and he can be fooled,
forget, change his mind, evolve or forego some of his views. When
Cardinal Ratzinger became Pope Benedict XVI, he did not stop being
human like the rest of us. This infallibility can historically be seen
by the fathers of the Catholic Church, who persistently and stubbornly
said that the world was "flat" even after it was understood that the
world is round, and they burned those who opposed this. I wonder what
the logical basis for this violence was.