Pope, Byzantine Emperor, ‘Educated Persian’ and Islam M.J. Akbar, mjakbar@asianage.com

An intriguing part of the conversation between the Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Paleologus and “an educated Persian” now made world-famous by Pope Benedict XVI, is that the Persian seems to have no
name. There is no mention of it in the speech made by the Holy Father during his “Apostolic Journey” to the University of Regensburg on 9/12.

The Persian must have been an intellectual of some importance if he was good enough to merit an audience with an “erudite” emperor. Does his name exist in the original text, since it was “presumably the Emperor
himself who set down this dialogue, during the siege of Constantinople between 1394 and 1402”?

Was the name mentioned in the version produced by professor Theodore Khoury, which the pope has read, and which he used in a speech on a critical aspect of a sensitive theme at a time of conflict, on the
Islamic doctrine of “holy war”? I ask because names lend greater credibility to text.

There are other uncertainties in the pope’s speech, in which he quotes Manuel’s ignorant, but, given the history of the early and medieval church’s continual diatribe against Islam and its Prophet, predictable
view. This discussion on “holy war” appeared in the seventh conversation and was “rather marginal to the dialogue as a whole”. It is interesting that Pope Benedict should select what was “rather marginal” for
emphasis and ignore the apparently more substantive issues that were discussed. What is genuinely disconcerting is that the Holy Father should accept Manuel’s taunting, erroneous and provocative depiction
of the Prophet’s message without any qualification. Pope Benedict is not at all disturbed by phrases as insulting as “evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached”. This is
utterly wrong, as even a cursory understanding of Islam would have made apparent.

I have a further question: Why didn’t the pope quote the Persian scholar’s answer to Manuel? Are we to believe that the Persian gave no answer, that he did not challenge such a rant? He could not have been much
of a scholar in that case. I am not erudite enough to have read the dialogue in the original Greek, or professor Khoury’s edited version of it. I can only go by the pope’s speech in Germany.

Some uncertainties can be explained by the distance of six centuries, as for instance the sentence that the conversation took place “perhaps in 1391 in the winter barracks near Ankara”. The fact that we are reading
Manuel’s record, rather than the Persian’s, also explains why it lays more stress on the emperor’s view of theology.

What is aggravating is that the pope has been free with assumptions, and liberal with its first cousin, innuendo. The peaceful piety of Manuel becomes an indictment of Islam, which is held to be violent in
preference and doctrine. The innuendo is cleverly expressed, indicating that some effort has been taken to be clever. The famous verse of the Qur’an, that “There is no compulsion in religion”, is juxtaposed
with the proposition that “According to the experts, this is one of the surahs of the early period, when Muhammad was still powerless and under threat”. The implication is that when he was not under threat, he
drew out his sword and went on a rampage. This is the kind of propaganda that the church used to put out with abandon in the early days, adding gratuitously comments about believers and “infidels”. This is the
line that those who have made it their business to hate Muslims, use till today. But the Vatican had stopped such vilification, and it is unfortunate that Pope Benedict has revived it.

If he had consulted a few experts who understood Islam, he might have been better educated on “holy war”.

It is absolutely correct that no war verse was sent down to the Prophet during his Makkah phase. Despite the severest persecution, to the point where he almost lost his life, he never advocated violence. There are
innumerable verses in the Qur’an extolling the merits of peace, and a peaceful solution to life’s problems including a preference for peace over war. The Qur’an treats Christians and Jews as people of the Book,
despite the fact that they did not accept the Prophet’s message. It praises Jesus as “Ruh-Allah”, or one touched by the spirit of Allah (this is the best translation I can think of). Mary, mother of Jesus, is
accepted as virgin, although the Qur’an is equally clear that Jesus is a man, and not the son of God.

The war verses are sent to the Prophet only when he has been in Madinah for some time, and become not only a leader of the community but also head of a multifaith state. War, in other words, is permitted as
an exercise in statecraft, and not for personal reasons, including persecution.

Further, it is circumscribed with important conditions. Surely no one, including Pope Benedict, believes that a state cannot ever take recourse to war? Indeed, the history of the Vatican is filled with war. The Qur’an’s view of war, as an answer to injustice, certainly merits more understanding than censure.

Manuel’s view is better understood in the context of his times. He was monarch of a once-glorious but now dying empire. The Ottomans had been slicing off territory for centuries; the first Crusade had been
called by Pope Urban II three centuries before to save the Byzantines from Muslim Turks. The heart of the empire, Constantinople, was now under serious threat. If Tamerlane (another Muslim) had not suddenly
appeared from the east and decimated the Ottomans, Constantinople might have fallen during that siege which so depressed Manuel. It was hardly a moment when the Byzantine could have the most charitable view of an Islamic holy war. What is less understandable is why Pope Benedict should endorse a fallacy.

The present pope is not a successor to the great and wise John Paul II. He is heir to predecessors like Pope Nicholas V who issued “The Bull Romanus Pontifex” in January 1455. This was the philosophy that created the Inquisition in which Muslims and Jews were killed and driven out of Catholic kingdoms in Spain and Portugal after the Christian reconquests.


A suggestion to those who believe in an “international outcry”. Hyper reactions tend to suggest nervousness. Islam is not a weak doctrine; it is built on rock, not sand. Reason is a more effective weapon than anger.