The Vatican (re)discovers Humanitarian Intervention

In today's news, the Vatican seems to be entertaining the notion of condoning military force in Iraq to stem the tide of Christian persecution at the hands of "The Islamic State" ["IS"], (formerly known as "ISIS"). John Allen Jr. explains:

For anyone familiar with the Vatican’s recent history of bitter opposition to any US use of military force in the Middle East, Rome’s increasingly vocal support for the recent American airstrikes in Iraq may seem, to say the least, a little disorienting.

On Monday, the Vatican’s previously tacit approval for the American intervention turned explicit, as two senior officials offered what amounts to a blessing through official communications channels.

Archbishop Giorgio Lingua, the pope’s ambassador to Baghdad, told Vatican radio that the American strikes are “something that had to be done, otherwise [the Islamic State forces] could not be stopped.” ...

In a similar vein, Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, the Vatican’s envoy to the United Nations in Geneva, told Vatican Radio that “military action in this moment is probably necessary.”

Coming from the Vatican's prior adoption of a functionally-pacifist and "abolitionist" stance on military action in modern times, this is huge. Compare the above with Cardinal Martino (of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace)'s declaration in the National Catholic Register, circa 2003:

Question: "Are you suggesting there is no such thing as a just war anymore?"

Archbishop Martino: "Absolutely. I think with modern weaponry, there is no proportionality between the offense and the reply. It makes much more damage. War is so destructive now. It is not just a fight between one person and another."

But what's the reason for this sudden "about face"? -- John Allen Jr. explains:

The face-value way to read Monday’s comments from Lingua and Tomasi, however, is as a recognition that there are times when the situation is sufficiently urgent that anyone who steps in, with or without a formal U.N. resolution, can claim the moral high ground.

Even if full legitimacy under international law remains the ideal, in other words, there’s now an exception on the record in favor of “unilateral” action.

Second, the emerging Vatican line clearly establishes a limit to pacifism as an option within Catholic social teaching. In effect, the take-away is that there are times when the use of force is the only option left to serve the greater good.

Third, and most basically, what’s different about 2014 with respect to 2003 isn’t so much the theory but the facts on the ground.

One core reason the Vatican opposed the two Gulf Wars, as well as any expansion of the conflict in Syria, was fear that the fall of a police state in the Middle East would lead to the rise of a radical Islamic theocracy in which Christians and other minorities would find themselves in the firing line.

That’s no longer a theoretical anxiety. It’s the lived reality of the new caliphate proclaimed by the Islamic State ...

Hmmmmmmmmmmm. Where have I heard that before? -- seems to me the rationale for military action being posited by Allen (or rather, Lingua and Tomasi):

"there are times when the situation is sufficiently urgent that anyone who steps in, with or without a formal U.N. resolution, can claim the moral high ground";

"there’s now an exception on the record in favor of “unilateral” action";

"there are times when the use of force is the only option left to serve the greater good"

... sounds awfully similar to that bandied about by the dreaded neocons of yore.

And yet, while I can understand the reasoning for the Vatican's opposition to U.S. military intervention in Iraq in Gulf Wars I & II -- "fear that the fall of a police state in the Middle East would lead to the rise of a radical Islamic theocracy [contributing to the persecution of Christians]" -- I confess that I've also found this kind of reasoning a little too "tribal" (for lack of a better term) for my taste.

What I mean is this -- considering all that Iraqis had to endure under life under Saddam Hussein, just to hit a few high points:

• The gas attacks by Saddam on the Kurdish town of Halabja (4,000-5,000 casualties);
• The Al-Anfal campaign of Saddam against the Kurds in Northern Iraq 1988 (reported deaths of 50,000-182,000 people, many women and children);
• Saddam's brutal crackdown on his own people in June 1994 following Bush Sr.'s pull-out of U.S. forces in Gulf War I with full scale massacres of Kurds (20,000-100,000) and (60,000-130,000) Shiites. (Perhaps it was his father's (perceived) abandonment of the Iraqis to their fate under Saddam through a policy of "non-intervention" -- a move that Bush Senior perpetually regretted -- that in part compelled Bush Jr. by conscience to desire to "finish the job"; as well as the development of "The Bush Doctrine").
• Lastly, you have the persecution, rape and torture of his own people throughout the reign of Saddam and his two sons. See Michael Totten's account tour of Iraq's "genocide museum" in the old headquarters of the mukhabarat

  The hardest thing to see was the cell used to hold children before they were murdered. My translator read some of the messages carved into the wall.

  "I was ten years old. But they changed my age to 18 for execution."

  "Dear Mom and Dad. I am going to be executed by the Baath. I will not see you again."

There are testimonies of life under Saddam I could relay that are just as blood-curdling and noxious as any you would read today under ISIS. And yet, what comes to my mind with respect to the Church's predominant stance vis-a-vis Saddam is not one of clear moral condemnation of Hussein's regime at the time (did I miss it?), but rather the mental image of the smug, cigar-chomping Taraq Aziz, Saddam's Deputy Prime Minister -- shaking the elderly Pope John Paul II's hand after receiving "red carpet treatment"; the latter's resounding declaration of "NO TO WAR". No doubt the Holy Father was genuine in his intentions, but I couldn't help but think Saddam got the better of that particular photo-op, or what those persecuted Iraqis under him might have felt.

To clarify: I do not wish to absolve or dispute the United States' own complicity in the aftermath of Saddam's overthrow, its incompetency and mismanagement of affairs in the course of helping to establish the new Iraqi state; the collapse of military discipline that resulted in the human rights abuses of Abu Ghraib and elsewhere (thus challenging Bush's claim that "one thing is for certain … "there won't be any more torture rooms or rape rooms").

Nor am I opposed to the United States taking an armed response against IS[IS]. What is happening over there is horrible and forceful reaction on our part is merited. . . . in fact, I am very much in favor of a "you broke it, you fix it" policy with respect to Iraq, and am persuaded that the United States (perhaps at Obama's wish to have another item to tack onto his post-presidential resume), pulled our troops out of there much too soon.

But to those in Rome who are so emphatic about acting NOW, I am moved to inquire:

Yes, humanitarian intervention NOW . . . but what about THEN?

What I find especially disconcerting about the Vatican's sudden "about face" is the impression given that it's only due to Rome's identification of, and proclaimed solidarity with, the present victims of persecution (= Christians) that they are now urging military action for humanitarian reasons, when humanitarian reasons for intervening on behalf of persecuted minorities strike me to be just as pertinent when said minorities were other than Christian.

Related

• Saddam Hussein massacres Shiite Muslims, and the Vatican looks away, by Sandro Magister. 11/27/02. "Deafening silence from the heads of the Catholic Church regarding religious persecution underway in Iraq. But it´s fully documented. Here are the complete links to the condemning evidence."

• "No religion can justify such barbarity" - Statement of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue:

  the massacre of people on the sole basis of their religious affiliation; -the despicable practice of beheading, crucifying and hanging bodies in public places; -the choice imposed on Christians and Yezidis between conversion to Islam, payment of a tax (jizya) or forced exile; -the forced expulsion of tens of thousands of people, including children, elderly, pregnant women and the sick; -the abduction of girls and women belonging to the Yezidi and Christian communities as spoils of war (sabaya); -the imposition of the barbaric practice of infibulation; -the destruction of places of worship and Christian and Muslim burial places; -the forced occupation or desecration of churches and monasteries; -the removal of crucifixes and other Christian religious symbols as well as those of other religious communities; -the destruction of a priceless Christian religious and cultural heritage; -indiscriminate violence aimed at terrorizing people to force them to surrender or flee. No cause, and certainly no religion, can justify such barbarity.

• DarwinCatholic on Vatican Middle Eastern Realpolitik? - Some questions for John Allen, Jr.:

  This certainly seems like a plausible ex post rationale, but is there any evidence that in 1991, 2003, and 2013 Vatican thinking was indeed driven by the idea that it was better to keep Middle Eastern police states in place in order to prevent radical Islamist regimes from coming to power? I remember vague discussion about violence never solving anything, but I don't recall anything specifically making this argument and in some ways it seems out of character. ...

On the Muslim response to Terry Jones’ Qu’ran Burning (a reply to Rick Sanchez @ Huffington Post)

[A reply to "Burning the Quran Is No Childish Game", by Rick Sanchez (Huffington Post April 1, 2011; republished at Defend The Prophet) ~ Christopher]

With respect to Terry Jones' burning of the Qu'ran, my position (as a Catholic) is to echo the statement of the Vatican: it is "an outrageous and grave gesture against a book considered sacred by a religious community," and an unnecessary provocation (if even to make a point). A peaceful dialogue between communities is not advanced by such a direct attack on the other. Likewise, with respect to caricatures of Mohammed by the Western press:

In addition, coexistence calls for a climate of mutual respect to favor peace among men and nations. Moreover, these forms of exasperated criticism or derision of others manifest a lack of human sensitivity and may constitute in some cases an inadmissible provocation. A reading of history shows that wounds that exist in the life of peoples are not cured this way.

I said as much last year ("Lars Vilks, Gay Muhammad and Freedom of Expression" (American Catholic May 16, 2010) -- Lars Vilks may endorse his right to depict a gay Mohammed or a paedophile Jesus. We might countenance his First Amendment "right" to sacrilege as Americans, but I believe as Catholics we should protest such offenses, not only to ourselves but to Muslims as well.

However, what I think also merits comment as well is exactly what is noted by Rich Sanchez in his column: when a Qur'an happens to be vandalized, such an action is "not only offensive, but also dangerous -- especially to our troops."

But why would it -- why should it -- be considered dangerous, even lethal, to our troops?

Surely this fact is a travesty as well?

In the past several days, a Muslim mob protesting the actions of Terry Jones in Mazar-e-Sharif, Afghanistan, culminated in an attack on the United Nations headquarters, the murder of six Nepalese guards and 3 foreign staff members, "hunted down and shot, some in the back, as they ran from a bunker where they had tried to hide. One person’s throat was also slit." ["Koran Burning Prompts Third Day of Rage" Globe and Mail April 3, 2011.] Two US soldiers were shot dead by an Afghan border policeman in Maymana, northern Afghanistan (The Telegraph April 5, 2011).

By no means am I equating all Muslims with the mob in Afghanistan. We do not see this level of violence here in the United States by American Muslims. But surely those Muslims protesting the actions of Terry Jones, and Mr. Rick Sanchez as well, can agree that there is something seriously amiss when the vandalization of a religious icon -- or cartoons published in a newspaper -- result in a violent mob and the slaughter of innocents.

Christians, much to our dismay, suffer similar incidents of abuse and vandalization of that which we hold sacred here in America: the Holy Mother smeared with feces, the Crucifix dipped in urine, funded with taxpayer dollars and labled "art" to boot.

And yet, has the media ever reported mobs of Christians hunting down and killing the perpetrators of such sacrilege? -- Speaking from personal experience, by and large when such incidents occur, the result is the congregation of Christians in prayer and silent, nonviolent protest.

What is it about Muslims in other nations that we see them react in this manner? Is this a religious thing? -- Can it be so readily dismissed as a ethnic or cultural thing?

When critics of Islam depict it as a "violent religion", why do so Muslim reactions have a tendency to lend credence to the very characterization they are protesting against?

I ask this with all respect, as a reader, as a Christian, and as a friend to the Muslim community.

The Monk-Martyrs of Tibhirine

On the night of 26-27 March 1996, seven Trappist monks from the monastery of Tibhirine in Algeria -- Dom Christian de Chergé, Brother Luc Dochier, Father Christophe Lebreton, Brother Michel Fleury, Father Bruno Lemarchand, Father Célestin Ringeard, and Brother Paul Favre-Miville -- were kidnapped. They were held for two months, and were found dead on 21 May 1996.

The actual cause of their death remains in dispute. Their captors, the Armed Islamic Group, initially lay claim to the murders -- but a French military attaché, retired General Francois Buchwalter, later reported that the deaths were accidental in a botched rescue attempt by the Algerian army.

The fate of these monks was the subject of a book by John Kiser, The Monks of Tibhirine: Faith, Love, and Terror in Algeria (2003). A new film has been made -- "Of Gods and Men" -- recipient of many awards and glowing reviews. America's Fr. James Martin SJ has lauded it "the greatest film I’ve ever seen on faith."

In 1996, First Things published an English translation of a letter by the superior of the monastery, Father Christian de Chergé, "to be opened in the event of my death". In light of the movie it seems appropos to re-post it here, as food for thought:

If it should happen one day--and it could be today--that I become a victim of the terrorism which now seems ready to encompass all the foreigners living in Algeria, I would like my community, my Church, my family, to remember that my life was given to God and to this country. I ask them to accept that the One Master of all life was not a stranger to this brutal departure. I ask them to pray for me: for how could I be found worthy of such an offering? I ask them to be able to associate such a death with the many other deaths that were just as violent, but forgotten through indifference and anonymity.

My life has no more value than any other. Nor any less value. In any case, it has not the innocence of childhood. I have lived long enough to know that I share in the evil which seems, alas, to prevail in the world, even in that which would strike me blindly. I should like, when the time comes, to have a clear space which would allow me to beg forgiveness of God and of all my fellow human beings, and at the same time to forgive with all my heart the one who would strike me down.

I could not desire such a death. It seems to me important to state this. I do not see, in fact, how I could rejoice if this people I love were to be accused indiscriminately of my murder. It would be to pay too dearly for what will, perhaps, be called "the grace of martyrdom," to owe it to an Algerian, whoever he may be, especially if he says he is acting in fidelity to what he believes to be Islam. I know the scorn with which Algerians as a whole can be regarded. I know also the caricature of Islam which a certain kind of Islamism encourages. It is too easy to give oneself a good conscience by identifying this religious way with the fundamentalist ideologies of the extremists. For me, Algeria and Islam are something different; they are a body and a soul. I have proclaimed this often enough, I believe, in the sure knowledge of what I have received in Algeria, in the respect of believing Muslims--finding there so often that true strand of the Gospel I learned at my mother's knee, my very first Church.

My death, clearly, will appear to justify those who hastily judged me naive or idealistic: "Let him tell us now what he thinks of it!" But these people must realize that my most avid curiosity will then be satisfied. This is what I shall be able to do, if God wills--immerse my gaze in that of the Father, to contemplate with him his children of Islam just as he sees them, all shining with the glory of Christ, the fruit of his Passion, filled with the Gift of the Spirit, whose secret joy will always be to establish communion and to refashion the likeness, delighting in the differences.

For this life given up, totally mine and totally theirs, I thank God who seems to have wished it entirely for the sake of that joy in everything and in spite of everything. In this "thank you," which is said for everything in my life from now on, I certainly include you, friends of yesterday and today, and you my friends of this place, along with my mother and father, my brothers and sisters and their families--the hundredfold granted as was promised!

And you also, the friend of my final moment, who would not be aware of what you were doing. Yes, for you also I wish this "thank you"--and this adieu--to commend you to the God whose face I see in yours.

And may we find each other, happy "good thieves," in Paradise, if it pleases God, the Father of us both. Amen.

For this life given up, totally mine and totally theirs, I thank God who seems to have wished it entirely for the sake of that joy in everything and in spite of everything. In this "thank you," which is said for everything in my life from now on, I certainly include you, friends of yesterday and today, and you my friends of this place, along with my mother and father, my brothers and sisters and their families--the hundredfold granted as was promised!

And you also, the friend of my final moment, who would not be aware of what you were doing. Yes, for you also I wish this "thank you"--and this adieu--to commend you to the God whose face I see in yours.

Related

• Conference Given to General Chapter of Trappist Order Monastic Interreligious Dialogue Bulletin 55, May 1996.
• The Spiritual and Theological Itinerary in the Writings of Christian de Chergé Monastc Interreligious Dialogue Bulletin 76, January 2006.
• Father Christian de Chergé ocso and the Dialogue with Islam - Armand Veilleux ocso
• The Challenge of Islam: Christian de Chergé and Mohamed - An interview with Father Christian Salenson on the thought of Christian de Chergé. NetforGod.tv

Nazi Sheikhs.

Nazi Sheikhs: Joel Whitney interviews Paul Berman. Guernica Magazine. May 2010. "The polemicist discusses Tariq Ramadan’s love of extremist sheikhs, Islamism’s ties to Hitler, and the intellectual confusion of liberal journalists."

Fascinating and very informative interview, the focus of which is Paul Berman's latest book, The Flight of the Intellectuals -- but I recall appreciating 2004's Terror and Liberalism.

In THE FLIGHT OF THE INTELLECTUALS, Berman—“one of America’s leading public intellectuals” (Foreign Affairs)—conducts a searing examination into the intellectual atmosphere of the moment and shows how some of the West’s best thinkers and journalists have fumbled badly in their efforts to grapple with Islamist ideas and violence.

Berman’s investigation of the history and nature of the Islamist movement includes some surprising revelations. In examining Hassan al-Banna, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, he shows the rise of an immense and often violent worldview, elements of which survives today in the brigades of al-Qaeda and Hamas. Berman also unearths the shocking story of al-Banna’s associate, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, who collaborated personally with Adolf Hitler to incite Arab support of the Nazis’ North African campaign. Echoes of the Grand Mufti’s Nazified Islam can be heard among the followers of al-Banna even today.

In a gripping and stylish narrative Berman also shows the legacy of these political traditions, most importantly by focusing on a single philosopher, who happens to be Hassan al-Banna’s grandson, Oxford professor Tariq Ramadan—a figure widely celebrated in the West as a “moderate” despite his troubling ties to the Islamist movement. Looking closely into what Ramadan has actually written and said, Berman contrasts the reality of Ramadan with his image in the press.

Lars Vilks, "Gay Muhammad" and "Freedom of Expression"

This past week brings news of yet another fracas involving Swedish cartoon artist Lars Vilks (CNN.com):

When Vilks entered a classroom where he was to deliver a lecture to about 250 people -- all of whom had passed through a security checkpoint to gain admission -- about five people started protesting loudly, Eronen said.

After Uppsala uniformed and non-uniformed police calmed the protesters, the lecture got under way at about 5:15 p.m. (11:15 a.m. ET), Eronen said.

But as Vilks was showing audiovisual material, 15 to 20 audience members became loud and tried to attack Vilks, he said. As police stepped in, a commotion started and Vilks was taken to a nearby room; police used pepper spray and batons to fend off the protesters, Eronen said. Vilks did not return to the lecture. [Video footage of the event]. Last March, an American woman who called herself "Jihad Jane," Colleen LaRose, was indicted in the United States for allegedly conspiring to support terrorists and kill Vilks.

In a 2007 interview with CNN he had drawn the cartoon of Mohammed with a dog's body in order to take a stand.

" "I don't think it should not be a problem to insult a religion, because it should be possible to insult all religions in a democratic way, " says Vilks from his home in rural Sweden.

"If you insult one, then you should insult the other ones."

His crude, sketched caricature shows the head of Prophet Mohammed on the body of a dog. Dogs are considered unclean by conservative Muslims, and any depiction of the prophet is strictly forbidden.

Vilks, who has been a controversial artist for more than three decades in Sweden, says his drawing was a calculated move, and he wanted it to elicit a reaction.

"That's a way of expressing things. If you don't like it, don't look at it. And if you look at it, don't take it too seriously. No harm done, really," he says.

When it's suggested that might prove an arrogant -- if not insulting -- way to engage Muslims, he is unrelenting, even defiant.

"No one actually loves the truth, but someone has to say it," he says.

Vilks, a self-described atheist, points out he's an equal opportunity offender who in the past sketched a depiction of Jesus as a pedophile.

Jews targeted by Mumbai Terrorists

Five hostages have been found murdered at the Chabad House in Mumbai, including Rabbi Gavriel Noach Holtzberg, and his wife, Rivka (New York Times November 28, 2008):

In a news conference broadcast Friday on Israeli radio, Tzipi Livni, Israel’s foreign minister said: “We know that the targets there that were sought out by the terrorists were Jewish and Israeli targets as well as targets that are perceived as Western targets — American and British.”

She added: “We need to understand that there’s a world here, our world, that has been attacked. And it doesn’t matter if it’s happened in India or somewhere else. We have here radical Islamic elements who do not accept either our existence or the values of the Western world. And only when incidents of this sort occur is it suddenly understood from conversations with leaders from around the entire world that we are actually party to the same battle.”

A doctor examining the bodies of the hostages remarked "It was apparent that most of the dead were tortured. What shocked me were the telltale signs showing clearly how the hostages were executed in cold blood":

"Of all the bodies, the Israeli victims bore the maximum torture marks. It was clear that they were killed on the 26th itself. It was obvious that they were tied up and tortured before they were killed. It was so bad that I do not want to go over the details even in my head again," he said.

Corroborating the doctors' claims about torture was the information that the Intelligence Bureau had about the terror plan. "During his interrogation, Ajmal Kamal said they were specifically asked to target the foreigners, especially the Israelis," an IB source said.

It is also said that the Israeli hostages were killed on the first day as keeping them hostage for too long would have focused too much international attention. "They also might have feared the chances of Israeli security agencies taking over the operations at the Nariman House," he reasoned.

• Slain Rabbi's only concern was helping Jews away from home Reuters. November 28, 2008:

  "After he got married he was looking to make an impact in the world, in the Jewish world, and in his case reach out to people who are really, really far away both literally and spiritually from their roots," said Rabbi Berel Wolvovsky of Maryland, a childhood friend of Gavriel Holtzberg.

  "His fears were not fears of terrorism. His fears were of maybe not being able to help as many people as he'd like."

• 'They made the ultimate sacrifice', by Allison Hoffman Jerusalem Post November 28, 2008.

The Vatican, The Anbar Awakening and the "Protector of the Chaldean Catholics"

A quick recap: In September 2006, Sheikh Abdul-Sattar Abu Risha formed the Sunni Anbar Awakening, an alliance of tribes in the Anbar province, to counter -- with training by and cooperation with U.S. military -- the presence of Al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations. “I swear to God, if we have good weapons, if we have good vehicles, if we have good support, I can fight Al Qaeda all the way to Afghanistan,” he was reported to have said ("An Iraqi Tribal Chief Opposes the Jihadists, and Prays" March 3, 2007).

As Steve Schippert noted at the time, most Americans were oblivious to Sattar's contributions to the counter-terrorist effort ("This Is Counterterrorism, Senator" National Review April 25, 2007):

The most significant local ally of Coalition and Iraqi government in Anbar province — and surely in all of Iraq — is Sheikh Abdul Sattar Buzaigh al-Rishawi, or, more properly, Sheikh Abd al-Sattar, where “Abd” translates into “slave” or “totally subordinated” (to God, of course). Sheikh Abdul Sattar is instrumental in fighting and defeating al Qaeda; the incredibly influential Ramadi man sees al Qaeda as terrorists who seek to destroy his country and who are exploiting and murdering his people, Sunni and Shia alike. Al Qaeda wants him dead more than any other man in Iraq, and they have tried numerous times to kill him.

Sattar said recently, “The time for dictatorship is gone, and we are welcoming the new dawn of democracy and freedom here.” He is a powerful Sunni from Anbar province, and, on Iraqi national television, he has pledged his allegiance to Prime Minister al-Maliki — a Shia — and to the democratically elected Iraqi government. In an overt (and televised) gesture of his determination and solidarity with the Iraqi government, Sheikh Abdul Sattar sliced the palm of his hand with a knife and proceeded to pound the blade into the table before him.

The perceived civil war in Iraq is in many ways more a product of foreign Iranian and al Qaeda instigation than internal Iraqi hatred. Had al Qaeda not bombed the Shia al-Askari Mosque and had Iran not provided arms and funds to both sides of the ensuing sectarian killings, there is no telling where Iraq would be right now. It certainly was not in civil war then. Both Iran and al Qaeda require chaos and instability in order to achieve their aims in Iraq. Sattar’s mission is to foil their plans.

Part and parcel of the Anbar Awakening's success was the tribal alliance's ability to work cooperatively with Americans -- according to Col. Sean B. MacFarland of the 1st Brigade Combat Team, 1st Armored Division:

“If you talk to these sheiks, they’ll tell you that they’re in no hurry to see the Americans leave al-Anbar."

“One thing Sheikh Sattar keeps saying is he wants al-Anbar to be like Germany and Japan and South Korea were after their respective wars, with a long-term American presence helping ... put them back together,” MacFarland said. “The negative example he cites is Vietnam. He says, yeah, so, Vietnam beat the Americans, and what did it get them? You know, 30 years later, they’re still living in poverty.”

In fact, over the course of 9 months, the Sahwah Al Anbar, or "Anbar Salvation Council", was able to expel Al Qaeda from Ramadi (once an insurgent stronghold and the capital of Al Qaeda operations) and the Anbar province in general -- a victory which he dedicated to the victims of 9/11:

"In the month when the terrorists attacked the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center, we dedicate the victory of Anbar Province to the families of the victims who suffered that criminal act," the letter said, which was addressed directly to Bush.

"With the help of the president of the United States, we pledge to continue to cooperate and communicate with you to continue to get good results," the letter said.

On September 13, 2007, al-Rishawi was killed along with two of his bodyguards by a roadside bomb near his home in Ramadi, Anbar, Iraq -- 10 days after meeting President George W. Bush at a U.S. base in Anbar. Sheikh Ahmed was selected by his fellow Sheikhs of Anbar province to lead the Sahawa Al Anbar and carry on his brother's legacy ("Iraqis vow to fight al Qaeda after sheikh death" Reuters Sept. 14, 2007).

* * *

This week, a friend forwarded me the following news story from the Arab press: A letter from Pope Benedict XVI to Sheik Ahmed Abu Risha (SahwataliIraq.com).

The article is in Arabic, but the gist of it is that on April 28, 2008, Sheikh Ahmed Abu Risha, President of the revival in Iraq in his official headquarters in the city of Ramadi, met Sheikh Iyad George Aziz, a major leader within the Chaldean Catholic community.

The article references a letter from the Vatican to Sheik Ahmed (delivered to him by Sheikh Iyad), responding to his Christmas and New Year's greetings and expressing the positive desire to join the Muslim-Christian dialogue. The full text of the Vatican's letter:

From the Vatican March 4, 2008

Dear Sheikh Ahmed Basi' Abu Risha,

His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI was pleased to receive the Christmas and New Year's message which you sent to him, and has asked me to thank you. He appreciates the sentiment which has prompted you to write him.

In his message for the 2008 World Day of Peace, His Holiness extended an invitation "for every man and woman to have a more lively sense of belonging to the one human family, and to strive to make human coexistence increasingly reflect this conviction, which is essential for the establishment of true and lasting peace." With these sentiments, His Holiness encourages you and all men and women of goodwill in your efforts to promote harmony and reconciliation throughout your region.

With assurance of my prayers and good wishes, I am yours sincerely,

Archbishop Fernando Filoni

* * * As readers are no doubt aware, by virtue of their Christian faith, the Chaldeans have been subject to horrible persecution, the imposition of jaziyah, kidnappings and even targeted assassinations by Al Qaeda in Iraq.

As my source reports, Sheikh Iyad has apparently agreed to join the Sahawa [Awakening], allowing Sheikh Ahmad to add "Protector of the Chaldean Catholics" to his list of formal titles in a public ceremony covered by Arab media:

After hearing Sheikh Iyad's account of the suffering that the Chaldean Catholics have endured in Iraq, Sheikh Ahmad publicly declared that from this time forward they would be under his protection, that anyone who killed a Chaldean will be regarded as one who has killed in a member of his tribe (under the medieval Islamic concept of qisas this is a capital offense), and money will be provided from the Sahawa al-Iraq treasury to rebuild the churches and cemeteries that al-Qaeda destroyed. He justified this by quoting from the Qu'ran and stating that there should be no compulsion in matters of religion because truth stands free from error.

Consequently, in a moment of Muslim-Christian solidarity, it would appear that the Chaldeans have a new and very significant protector from persecution at the hands of Al Qaeda.

Related Reading

• "Ramadi from the Caliphate to Capitalism", by Andrew Lubin. Proceedings Magazine Issue: April 2008 Vol. 134/4/1,262 provides an detailed look at how Sheikh Sattar Abdul Abu Risha and his Sons of Anbar, together with the assistance of the U.S. Army's 1st Brigade Combat Team (BCT) and the 1st Battalion, 6th Marines, turned around a city once regarded as "a lost cause" and proclaimed by Al Qaeda as the capital of their new caliphate.
• Hope for Iraq’s Meanest City How the surge brought order to Fallujah, by Michael Totten City Journal Vol. 18, No. 2 Spring 2008:

  The results of the Anbar Awakening and the surge are plain to see. Since the Fifth Marine Regiment’s Third Battalion rotated into Fallujah in September 2007, not a single American has been wounded there, let alone killed. ...

  “The al-Qaida leadership outside dumped huge amounts of money and people and arms into Anbar Province,” says Lieutenant Colonel Mike Silverman, who oversees an area just north of Ramadi. “They poured everything they had into this place. The battle against Americans in Anbar became their most important fight in the world. And they lost.”

  (Michael Totten blogs regularly at Michael Totten's Middle East Journal).

• Sons of Iraq Screened for ISF, by Spc. Amanda McBride. Multi-National Force Iraq Sunday, 13 April 2008. The "Sons of Iraq" (two thirds of them Sunni, one-third Shia -- formerly "Concerned Citizens Groups") are being transitioned to formal membership in the Iraqi Security Forces:

  “There is a phenomenal interest in the ISF,” said Getchell, a native of Bridgewater, Mass. “Those who have been in the Sons of Iraq program are our priority over those who are not part of the Sons of Iraq program. They stepped forward to defend and protect their areas, so they’ve already shown the propensity to be part of the security process.”

  In March, Soldiers of the 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division and Sons of Iraq conducted a combined medical engagement in Arab Jabour, treating residents for minor injuries, such as scrapes, sprains and allergies.

Muslim critic Magdi Allam converts, baptised by Benedict XVI

The Associated Press reports that Italy's most prominent Muslim, an iconoclastic writer who condemned Islamic extremism and defended Israel, converted to Catholicism Saturday in a baptism by the pope at a Vatican Easter service:

An Egyptian-born, non-practicing Muslim who is married to a Catholic, Magdi Allam infuriated some Muslims with his books and columns in the newspaper Corriere della Sera newspaper, where he is a deputy editor. He titled one book "Long Live Israel."

As a choir sang, Pope Benedict XVI poured holy water over Allam's head and said a brief prayer in Latin.

"We no longer stand alongside or in opposition to one another," Benedict said in a homily reflecting on the meaning of baptism. "Thus faith is a force for peace and reconciliation in the world: distances between people are overcome, in the Lord we have become close."

Vatican Television zoomed in on Allam, who sat in the front row of the basilica along with six other candidates for baptism. He later received his first Communion.

Allam, 55, told the newspaper Il Giornale in a December interview that his criticism of Palestinian suicide bombing provoked threats on his life in 2003, prompting the Italian government to provide him with a sizable security detail.

Local Muslim organizations responded thus to the news:

The Union of Islamic Communities in Italy — which Allam has frequently criticized as having links to Hamas — said the baptism was his own decision.

"He is an adult, free to make his personal choice," the Apcom news agency quoted the group's spokesman, Issedin El Zir, as saying.

Yahya Pallavicini, vice president of Coreis, the Islamic religious community in Italy, said he respected Allam's choice but said he was "perplexed" by the symbolic and high-profile way in which he chose to convert.

"If Allam truly was compelled by a strong spiritual inspiration, perhaps it would have been better to do it delicately, maybe with a priest from Viterbo where he lives," the ANSA news agency quoted Pallavicini as saying.

There seems to be some disjuncture between the emphasis on Allam as "Italy's leading Muslim writer" and the following description of the convert as: "An Egyptian-born, non-practicing Muslim who is married to a Catholic."

According to another article, Allam himself "says he has never been a practicing Muslim." And in his own conversion story, he refers to himself as having "occasionally practiced [Islam] at a cultural level." Hardly what I would call "Italy's most prominent MUSLIM".

Were the inverse true: -- were a non-practicing Catholic married to a Muslim to embrace Islam -- would it be proper to describe him as "a prominent Catholic"?

This leads me to wonder if the press is deliberately playing up this aspect of the story, so as to foster Islamic-Christian tensions -- along the same lines as their shoddy reporting of Benedict's Regensburg address (ignoring practically everything else in his address, save that which they saw as newsworthy and potentially inflammatory).

It is possible to perceive Benedict's agreement to baptize Allam as signifying his emphasis on religious freedom (particularly for Christians residing in nations with an Islamic majority). Nonetheless I think it would be improper for Christians to treat this conversion in triumphalistic fashion, as seems to be the case on some blogs.

Related

• Muslim Baptized by Pope Sought Dialogue, by Frances D'Emilio. Associated Press March 24, 2008:

  The Egyptian-born commentator who renounced Islam and converted to Roman Catholicism with a baptism by Pope Benedict XVI has built his career crusading against what he calls the "inherent" violence in Islam and championing Israel's existence. . . .

  Allam has credited the pope, who himself has been criticized by some Muslims, as being instrumental in his decision to become a Catholic at age 55 and after spending his adult life in predominantly Catholic Italy.

  A frequent commentator on Islamic issues and terrorism on Italian TV, Allam says he is "passionate" about coexistence in the West of "national identity and democracy, immigration and integration, Islam and terrorism" . . .

  The conversion freed him "from the shadows of a preaching where hate and intolerance toward he who is different, toward he who is condemned as an 'enemy,'" he said.

  In an interview on Italian private TV Canale 5 Monday evening, Allam said he felt "stronger" and "great joy" because of his conversion.

  He dismissed the suggestion that Benedict, in baptizing him, might put at risk the lives of Christian minorities in Islamic nations.

  Benedict "wanted to give a signal to the church throughout the world that whoever" wants to join will be accepted, Allam said.

• A Muslim critic turns Catholic, by Jeff Israeliy. Time March 24, 2008:

  After studying sociology at Rome's La Sapienza University, Allam began writing for the Italian daily La Repubblica, covering the first Gulf War and chronicling everyday life of the country's growing Muslim population. Initially, he wrote favorably about multiculturalism, and warned about the risks of racism against Muslims in this heavily Catholic nation. But after 9/11, now writing for another major newspaper, Corriere della Sera, he became an increasingly harsh critic of Islam, both inside and outside of Italy. He warned against the "Islamization" of Europe, and urged opposition to the building of new mosques in Italy. In his provocatively titled 2007 book Viva Israel: From the ideology of death to the civilization of life, my story, he described his transformation from hating Zionists as a youth to realizing "that hatred easily comes to include all Jews, then all Christians, then all liberal and secular Muslims, and at the end all Muslims who do not want to submit to Islamic radicals' will."

• Magdi Allam Recounts His Path to Conversion Zenit News Service. March 23, 2008:

  On my first Easter as a Christian I not only discovered Jesus, I discovered for the first time the face of the true and only God, who is the God of faith and reason. My conversion to Catholicism is the touching down of a gradual and profound interior meditation from which I could not pull myself away, given that for five years I have been confined to a life under guard, with permanent surveillance at home and a police escort for my every movement, because of death threats and death sentences from Islamic extremists and terrorists, both those in and outside of Italy.

  I had to ask myself about the attitude of those who publicly declared fatwas, Islamic juridical verdicts, against me -- I who was a Muslim -- as an “enemy of Islam,” “hypocrite because he is a Coptic Christian who pretends to be a Muslim to do damage to Islam,” “liar and vilifier of Islam,” legitimating my death sentence in this way. I asked myself how it was possible that those who, like me, sincerely and boldly called for a “moderate Islam,” assuming the responsibility of exposing themselves in the first person in denouncing Islamic extremism and terrorism, ended up being sentenced to death in the name of Islam on the basis of the Quran. I was forced to see that, beyond the contingency of the phenomenon of Islamic extremism and terrorism that has appeared on a global level, the root of evil is inherent in an Islam that is physiologically violent and historically conflictive.

  At the same time providence brought me to meet practicing Catholics of good will who, in virtue of their witness and friendship, gradually became a point of reference in regard to the certainty of truth and the solidity of values. . . .

  But undoubtedly the most extraordinary and important encounter in my decision to convert was that with Pope Benedict XVI, whom I admired and defended as a Muslim for his mastery in setting down the indissoluble link between faith and reason as a basis for authentic religion and human civilization, and to whom I fully adhere as a Christian to inspire me with new light in the fulfillment of the mission God has reserved for me.

  Christianity will certainly procure for me yet another, and much more grave, death sentence for apostasy. You are perfectly right. I know what I am headed for but I face my destiny with my head held high, standing upright and with the interior solidity of one who has the certainty of his faith. And I will be more so after the courageous and historical gesture of the Pope, who, as soon has he knew of my desire, immediately agreed to personally impart the Christian sacraments of initiation to me. His Holiness has sent an explicit and revolutionary message to a Church that until now has been too prudent in the conversion of Muslims, abstaining from proselytizing in majority Muslim countries and keeping quiet about the reality of converts in Christian countries. Out of fear. The fear of not being able to protect converts in the face of their being condemned to death for apostasy and fear of reprisals against Christians living in Islamic countries. Well, today Benedict XVI, with his witness, tells us that we must overcome fear and not be afraid to affirm the truth of Jesus even with Muslims.

• Not suprisingly, Jihadwatch.com is playing up Allam's "Muslim" background as well, in addition to his denunciations of Islam as "intrinsically violent".

• Muslims question Vatican baptism of Islamic critic, by Tom Heneghan. Reuters. March 24, 2008:

  [Aref Ali Nayed, a participant in the Muslim-Catholic dialogue] said the Vatican should distance itself from a searing attack on Islam that Allam published on Sunday in the Milan daily Corriere della Sera, where he is deputy director.

  Commentators in Algeria and Morocco echoed Nayed's view, saying Allam's conversion was a personal affair but his attacks on Islam and his headline-grabbing baptism by the pope strained relations between Muslims and the Catholic Church.

  "The whole spectacle... provokes genuine questions about the motives, intentions and plans of some of the pope's advisers on Islam," Nayed, who is director of the Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Centre in Amman, said in a statement.

  "Nevertheless, we will not let this unfortunate episode distract us from our work on pursuing 'A Common Word' for the sake of humanity and world peace. Our basis for dialogue is not a tit-for-tat logic of reciprocity."

Update 3/24/08

Some reactions from the Catholic blogging world ...

• An Individual Act of Conscience or a Global Phenomenon?, by Sherry Weddell, who expresses her reservations about the publicity being heaped upon Allam (Intentional Disciples March 24, 2008):

  [Allam's baptism] could have been done lovingly and well a thousand different ways – none of which required that his face and story blanket the globe within hours of his reception. Being baptized did not require that he become the poster-boy for Muslims considering Christianity and there were a number of obvious reasons why he isn’t a great candidate for poster boydom and may actually be counter-productive.

  Apart from the geo-religious-political implications, all this publicity could actually hamper his spiritual growth and that of his family. Being a trophy convert is often not a good thing for one’s actual process of conversion. . . .

  Since we aren't actively persecuted, it is easy for us to call for a full frontal assault ( Charge!) and "religious freedom now!" and to talk blithely about the blood of the martyrs being the seed of the Church. Cause the chances of it being our blood or that of our children is very, very small. But as I have said before, "charge!" and spineless cowardice are not the only two options available to us.

  Meanwhile, someone really sharp, spiritually and theological mature, and prayerful needs to stay close to Allam and guide him through this tumultuous transition. It's hard enough to become a Catholic at age 56 from a non-Christian background. Doing it in the middle of a media and geo-political circus (Imagine if Princess Diana had become Catholic as was rumored before her death!) is full of potential pitfalls.

  (Abu Daoud @ Islam & Christianity, responds on The Baptism of Magdi Allam: Wisdom or Folly?:

  Was it the wisest and most prudent path for Benedict to baptize this particular Muslim on Easter at St. Petersburg?

  I think there that Sherry would answer NO. But my answer is Yes. So let me address this specific topic instead of trading in hypotheticals, which is what we have been doing until now. . . .

• And DarwinCatholic, on True Religious Tolerance and Dialog:

  I find myself wondering if Benedict's aim in all this is to make a statement about the nature of true religious toleration and dialog. . . .

  Benedict is no political and cultural fire-breether, but he is a thoughtful and holy man who is in no sense afraid of difficult and unpopular truths. I wonder if the pope, who according to Allam immediately agreed to personally receive him into the Church when Allam made the request, means with this action to make a statement that he will bring to the table when he meets with scholard from the A Common Word initiative in November: Toleration means not merely ignoring and minimizing points of difference, but respecting the conscience of others even in the face of grave and important points of difference.

George Weigel's "Faith, Reason & The War against Jihadism" (Part 1)

Weigel begins Faith, Reason and the War Against Jihadism with the basic observation that the overwhelming majority of humanity receives the narrative for life from religious convictions, and for whom religion constitutes a (or, rather, the) dynamic force. To put it another way (borrowing a familiar phrase from American conservatism:) "ideas have consequences." Failure to understand this, warns Weigel, is to commit a kind of "conceptual self-sabotage."

Criticizing the notion of "the inevitable progress of history" which holds many in its sway ("a hypothetical, not a given"), Weigel intends this book as a wake-up call, a reminder that the very future of the West rests not upon material or technological wealth but "whether our spiritual aspirations are noble or base." He sets out "to identify what we should have learned, since September 11, 2001: about our enemy, about us -- and about what must be done to see us through to a future safe for freedom." Writign for a popular audience, he offers 15 brief lessons categorized in three sections: 'Understanding the Enemy', 'Rethinking Realism' and 'Deserving Victory.'

I'm going to divide my post into two parts -- I'll begin by presenting Weigel's diagnosis of the problem (understanding of "the Enemy"), and offering my impressions; in a later post I plan to review the 2nd and 3rd parts (essentially Weigel's prescription in the form of recommmendations for foreign policy). Read More

"Understanding the Enemy"

Weigel challenges the facile equasion of Christianity, Judaism and Islam as "people of the Book" or "the three Abrahamic faiths." To do so, he contends, obscures the very different characterization and roles assigned to Moses and Jesus in Islamic theology, not to mention the unique nature of Muslim's reverence for the Qur'an.

The focal point of this differentiation is Islamic theological supersessionism: Islam's conviction of itself as the final revelation and a necessary corrective to Judaism and Christianity in such a way that, while "no orthodox Christian holds that God's self-revelation in Christ negates God's self-revelation in the history of the People of Israel," Islam, by contrast, "trumps . . . any prior revelatory value that might be found in the Hebrew bible or the New Testament." [p. 20-21].

Consequentially, Islam has built into its theology a "dynamic of conflict" with Judaism and Christianity. However, while the history of Islamic-Christian relations has been one of "almost continuous conflict", Weigel does not think this inevitable ("it should not be thought that Islamic supersessionism necessarily requires violent conflict"). [p. 21]

Another common mistake, according to Weigel, is believing Islam's understanding of the Qur'an as analogous to our understanding of the Christian scriptures:

The Christian theological understanding of biblical "inspiration" -- which would not be foreign to Judaism -- provides for the possibility of interpretation of the sacred texts [and] the development of doctrine . . . the Qur'an by contrast is understood to be dictated, word for word and syllable for syllable, so there is no question of "exegesis" . . . nor is there any possibility of a postscriptural development of doctrine. The priority on Islam is on jurisprudence, the debate of experts in Islamic law on the applicability of texts to circumstances." [p. 26]

Weigel cites as an example the question of women veiling themselves -- the passages in the Qur'an and the Christian scriptures (I Corinthians 11:3-26) are similar in content, but understood in radically different fashions. Paul's advice (that women be decently dressed) was interpreted contextually and adapted to the times. By contrast, the directive to veil one's self in the Qur'an comes literally "from God" and cannot be abrogated. There is no dispute -- only the question of to what manner this order is to be carried out (precise measurements and what garments to be used).

Another important distinction between Muslims and Christians is the Islamic conception of God, and its consequences for each tradition's "theological anthropology." Weigel turns to the French historian Alain Bensacon ("What Kind of Religion is Islam" Commentary May 2004), who observes that:

The one God of the Qur'an, the God who demands submission, is a distant God; to call him "Father" would be an anthropomorphic sacrilege. The Muslim God is utterly impassive; to ascribe loving feeling to Him would be suspect. [pp. 27-28]

In Christian theology we perceive an analogy between God and humanity: men and women are bound to God by speech and argument; in Genesis, Adam names the animals, thereby participating in the divine work of the Creator. To act rationally is to reflect the Father (Here one is reminded of Benedict's citation of Manuel II in his Regensburg Address: "Not to act reasonably, not to act with logos, is contrary to the nature of God"). According to Weigel, such a conception is not to be found in the world of Islam, whose anthropology is governed instead by "submission to the majesy of God, who neither begets nor is begotten."

What are the consequences of this differentation in conceptions?

"If God is not "Father," it is difficult to imagine the human person as been made "in the image of God." And that, in turn, puts great strain on any idea of intimacy between faith and reason [in the human-divine relationship]." [p. 30]

Christianity and Islam also differ greatly in their understanding of the just society, the latter characterized by the fusion of temporal and spiritual authority. According to Bernard Lewis, "The Islamic state [is] the only truly legitimate power on earth and the Islamic community the sole repository of truth" -- the world thus divided between "The House of Islam" (Dar al-Islam) and "The House of War" (Dar al-harb -- composed of those who have not yet submitted to Islam and his Prophet). Suffice to say this presents a great impediment in creating the cultural conditions for social pluralism between ethnic or religious groups. [p. 31] Considering this impoverishment, Weigel asks:

. . . Christianity's convictions about the rationality built into the world by the world's creator were one important source of "modernity," if by that term we mean the scientific method, historical-critical study, [and] goverment by the arts of persuasion, . . . are there in Islam's theological self-understanding, themes analogous to Christianity's theologically driven convictions about the rationality of the world, themes that could, over time, make Islam's encounter with modernity more fruitful for both Islam and the modern world? [p. 34]

For Weigel, "whether Islam can evolve into a religion capable of providing religious warrants for genuine pluralism" is one of the great questions of our age.

Whom, or what, are we fighting?

Weigel moves on to a proper identification of the enemy with which we are engaged: jihadism - best distinguished from other forms of Islamism by its messianic political aspirations, demanding nothing less than a global Islamic state. Weigel quotes Fr. Neuhaus:

"Jihadism is the religiously inspired ideology [which teaches] that it is the moral obligation of all Muslims to employ whatever means necessary to compel the world's submission to Islam."

To understand jihadism and what motivates these terrorists, one must grasp its intellectual history. Weigel locates this in the writings of several prominent Muslim figures:

• Taqi ad-Din Ahmad ibn Taymiyyah (1263-1328) - who taught that political power was essential for Islam's survival and the establishment of peace and justice is predicated on Islam's victory worldwide; also, for broadening the targets of jihad to include -- through takfir or excommunication -- fellow Muslims deemed to be heretical and apostate opponents of jihad. According to Taymiyyah: "any group of people that rebels against any single prescript of the clear and reliably transmitted prescripts of Islam has to be fought… even if members of this group publicly make a formal confession of the Islamic faith" (See: "The Preacher and the Jihadi", by Steven Brooke. Current Trends in Islamist Ideology Vol. 3

• Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab (1703/4-1792) - from whom the term Wahhabism is derived, which influenced the Taliban in Afghanistan and has become the formal religion of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (and via Saudi funding, propagated in madrassas throughout the world).

  Wahab emphasized the radical unicity (oneness) and lordship of God, the absolute lawgiver, and in relation to whom there is only submission:

  True submission, according to Wahhab, requires both a profound disdain for Islamic mysticism and the destruction of any human artifacts that are thought to embody or express divine attributes.

  See also: Stephen Schwartz on Islam and Wahhabism Q&A with Kathryn Jean Lopez. National Review November 2002).

• Hasan al Banna (1906-1949), Egyptian founder of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, operating under the slogan “God is our purpose, the Prophet our leader, the Qur’an our constitution. Jihad our way and dying for God’s cause our supreme objective.” According to Weigel, Hassan condemned the "mental colonization" of Islam under colonial rule and urged a wholesale Islamic social reformation, in which the educational, social, economic, religious and charitable activities of the Muslim Brotherhood would be wedded to the sword of Jihad, cleansing the owrld of infidels and unbelievers.
  

• Sayyid Qutb (1903-1966), a leading intellectual in the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. Qutb believed that "the index of whether a state was truly Muslim was the degree to which sharia law prevailed," and stressed that those Muslims who failed to live an authentic Muslim life constituted a threat to Islam alongside Jews, Christians and unbelievers.

  Sayiid Qutb's writings were promoted by his brother Mohammad, a professor of Islamic studies in Saudi Arabia. One of his students, Ayman Zawahiri, would become a mentor to Osama bin Laden and a leading figure in Al Qaeda. (For more on Qutbe, see Paul Berman's "The Philosopher of Islamic Terror" New York Times Magazine, March 23, 2003.)

What is important, says Weigel, is to read history and politics "through the prism of jihadist theological convictions." The "generally feckless" response by the United States to attacks on U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 and the bombing of the U.S.S. Cole in 2000 spurred Bin Laden to new heights of hostility. According to Reza Aslan:

The attacks of 9/11, for example, were by Bin Laden's own admission specifically designed to goad the United States into exaggerated retaliation against the Islamic world so as to galvanize other Muslims to join the jihadist cause. The idea was to mobilize the Muslim world to choose sides in an internal battle over the future of Islam by framing the inevitable U.S. response to 9/11 as a war not against terrorism but against Islam itself.

Economic resentment, the United States' relationship with Israel, and the presence of U.S. troops abroad are peripheral to jihadist ambitions: namely, the overthrow of the West and the consequent subjugation of all humanity under Islam:

As Pope Benedict pointed out in [the Regensburg Address], the key theological move that underwrites today's jihadist ideology (and practice) is the identification by jihadists of God as Absolute Will. If that is what jihadists believe God to be (irrespective of the degree of warrant that concept can find in classical Islam, which is disputed), then jihadists are, within their own frame of reference, justified in belieivng that God can command anything -- even the irrational. And so, in extension of the thought of Sayyid Qutb, contemporary jihadists believe that murder of innocents is not only morally acceptable, but morally required, if such murders advance the cause of Islam. Thus the origins of one of today's most lethal weapons: the so-called "suicide bomber" . . . [p. 48]

The line of Islamic thought from Tammiya and Wahhab that would later influence Hasan al-Banna and Sayyid Qutbe was one in which several struggles were being played out: Islam vs. modernity; jihadists vs. other Islamic reformers,; Islam versus the rest. That line of thought came to one terminus when Ayman al-Zawahiri and Osama bin Laden - an Egyptian and a Saudi . . . joined focus to form al-Qaeda. [p. 50]

The consequence of this union was global jihad. Far from crazy, Islamic jihadists from the perspective of their own defective theology make "a terrible kind of sense."

Dialogue and Islamic Renewal

In Chapter 6, Weigel turns his attention to Islamic-Christian dialogue -- he mentions Benedict's 2006 Regensburg Address, and the first "Open Letter" of 38 prominent Islamic leaders in response. The imperative of future dialogues, says Weigel, should be to "address Islam's ability assimilate, in a critical way, the achievements of the Enlightennment - a question which Christianity has been wrestling with for centuries." The skepticism and relativism that are characteristic of one aspect of Enlightenment thought need not deter Muslims from engaging that which is positive:

... [exploring] the possibility of an Islamic case for religious tolerance, social pluralism and civil society -- even as Islam's interlocutor's (among Christians, Jews and others, including nonbelievers) open themselves to the possibility that the Islamic critique of certain aspects of modern culture is not without merit. [pp. 63-64]

While some have recommended an "Islamic Luther" as a panacea for Muslim ills, Weigel envisions someone along the lines of Leo XIII: "... toward the possibility of a religious leader who reaches back into the deeper philosophical resources of his tradition in order to broker a critical agreement with Enlightenment political thought, and to shape his tradition's encounter with the economic and political institutions of modernity." As Leo's retrieval of authentic Thomistic philosophy led to a development of social doctrine in the Catholic Church and eventually to Vatican II's historic Declaration on Religious Freedom and the disentanglement of sacerdotium from regnum, Weigel hopes that Muslims could accomplish a similar

process of retrieval and development, as distinct from rupture and revolution . . . such an approach, emphasizing the capacity of reason to get at the truth of things, also holds out the possibility of interreligious dialogue.

Weigel does caution that non-Muslims can play no significant role in this process; that it must be resolved internally, "in term of Islamic premises."

At the same time, non-Muslims can shape the contours of this struggle -- first, by refraining from dialoguing Muslim religious leaders who do not first publicly denounce jihadism and terrorism (anti-semites and Holocaust deniers need not apply); secondly, by working with those who are "reviving the tradition of reason with Islam" -- specifically, defending reason against the dual threat of "jihadists and postmodernists who deny the human capacity to know the truth of anything with certainty." Weigel envisions building a cross-cultural grammer of natural law, the recognition of moral truths built into the world and human nature which can be grasped by reflection. In such a way we could have "the first building blocks of a philosophical foundation on which to construct together free and just societies that respect religious conviction."

Weigel closes out the first part of his book with a reminder to his readers that this present war is likely to span "at least 2-3 generations" -- birth rates in Islamic countries are actually diminishing, creating a brief "window of opportunity" for jihadists to accomplish their goals. Nonetheless, while still a minority among Muslims, jihadists "can count on a substantial periphery of sympathizers, more than sufficient to sustain long campaigns of terrorism" (Weigel, citing Walter Laqueur p. 72.)

In his interview with Hugh Hewitt, Weigel expresses his frustration with the United States for losing site of the broader context of this war -- as he put it, this war is being fought on multiple fronts -- in Afghanistan, Somalia, Gaza, Pakistan, North Africa/Maghreb, Sudan and Southeast Asia. There are many facets to the conflict: intelligence, financial-flows, economics, energy, and homeland security.

Al-Qaeda attacks on the United States and on American diplomatic assets were, for example, planned in the Phillipines and other parts of Southeast Asia. Places unknown to the vast majority of Americans are now among the most evil places on earth . . . what happens in locales previously unknown save in the most recondite geography bees -- North Waziristan -- has direct effects on our armed forces in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere. What is being plotted in such places could have devastating effects on the homeland.

It's high time that we recognize this threat, that we take it seriously, and that our public leaders, as well as American voters, -- as Weigel put it -- "are not afraid to use the 'J' word." It is not "Islamophobic" to note the historical connection between conquest and Muslim expansion, or between contemporary jihadism and terrorism.

* * *

Impressions of Part I: "Understanding the Enemy"

I admit that when I first heard about Weigel's book I was curious whether he would take an approach akin to Robert Spencer (Jihadwatch.com). His website serves a useful purpose in its daily reports on the activities of jihadists, but goes too far in its fiery rhetoric, tarring Muslims as a whole with sweeping denunciations ("to take the violence out of Islam would require it to jettison two things: the Quran as the word of Allah and Muhammad as Allah's prophet . . . to pacify Islam would require its transformation into something that it is not"). A reader immersing himself soley in Spencer's work might arrive at the conclusion that Islam was nothing more than a violent political ideology and the only authentic Muslim, true to the dictates of his religion, is the radical jihadist engaged in violent struggle against the West. Consider Jihadwatch's response to the question: "If Islam is violent, why are so many Muslims peaceful?":

This question is a bit like asking, "If Christianity teaches humility, tolerance, and forgiveness, why are so many Christians arrogant, intolerant, and vindictive?" The answer in both cases is obvious: in any religion or ideology there will be many who profess, but do not practice, its tenets. Just as it is often easier for a Christian to hit back, play holier-than-thou, or disdain others, so it is often easier for a Muslim to stay at home rather than embark on jihad. Hypocrites are everywhere.

Furthermore, there are also people who do not really understand their own faith and so act outside of its prescribed boundaries. In Islam, there are likely many Muslims who do not really understand their religion

As Dinesh Disouza remarked, such critics -- when following their charge to their ultimate conclusions -- let Bin Laden define Islam. Indeed, the only acceptable Muslim in this perspective would be one who has renounced his faith altogether.

By contrast, Weigel takes care to distinguish jihadism or Islamism from Islam as a religious tradition. For example, it is notable that in his numerous references to Pope Benedict's Regensburg Address, he understands it as a critique of jihadism, as opposed to general Islam (Muslim readers should take note of this).

With over a billion Muslims in the world today, an estimated 5-7 million in the U.S. alone and 10-20,000 serving in our own armed forces, I believe it is important not to adopt the erroneous position of "guilty until proven innocent," regarding everybody in a hijab or carrying a Qur'an as a suspected terrorist. So it comes as a relief to see Weigel taking a less hyperbolic approach to this issue as those who have, post 9/11, made something of a career in racheting up the polemics against Islam.

Fr. Samir Khalil put it best:

The truth is that Islamic terrorism is caused by Islamism that is by a certain reading of the Koran and Sunnah, which has spread throughout the most famous Islamic schools and universities such as Cairo's Al-Azhar. Islamic terrorism is caused by Salafism, that is a blind adherence to the tradition of the ancients, of those who went before us (salaf), a literal and immoveable reading, without life, without soul. This with regards to the Sunni world.

In the Shiite world, the Khomeini theory of the "wilâyat al-faqîh" – according to which the ideal state is that which is governed by the most gifted faqîh, a shariah specialist – opened the door to the all forms of extremism, in the name of shariah, by deciding the daily life of the people and of society.

It is important not to confuse Islam with Islamism, but it is just as important to urge Muslims to reject Islamism as an alteration of authentic Islam and to counter this violent and invasive tendency.

While I am in full agreement with the essential thrust of Weigel's book (awaking the world to the reality of the Islamist threat), I do have some concerns about his treatment of Islam:

"The Muslim God"

In conveying the "Islamic conception of God," Weigel appears largely reliant on the Commentary article by French historian Alain Bensacon. I have to wonder: how many Muslims would characterize their own perception and experience of God in such cold, stark terminology: "distant . . . utterly impassive . . . demanding submission"? -- It may be true that Islam is chiefly characterized by its insistence on God as Absolute, but this is not to say that the Islamic tradition is wholly devoid of love. See, for instance, God and Love, by Dr. Ahmad Shafaat, who disputes the charge; or for more in-depth reading, Perspectives on the Concept of Love in Islam, by Mahnaz Heydarpoor. One would also have to take into account sufism, the mystical dimension of Islam, whose adherents strive to empty themselves of the false self and thereby become a "receptacle for God's love."

Dar al Islam vs. Dar al Harb -- applicable or outdated?

In terms of the separation of the world into the "House of Islam" Dar al-Islam and the "House of War" Dar al-harb, Weigel neglects to point out that this distinction tends to vary and is generally regarded as a matter of ijtihad (independent judgment) by Muslim scholars, given as there is no mention of this concept in the Qur’an or the Sunnah.

Jihadists are quick to identify the non-Muslim world as dar al-Harb (in a state of belligerency against Islam, consequuently making militant jihad incumbent on Muslims). However, other Muslims opt for a more expansive understanding, such as the following from Sheikh `Atiya Saqr, former head of Al-Azhar Fatwa Committee:

Muslim scholars maintain that the labeling of a country or place as being an Islamic country or a non-Islamic one Dar al-Harb revolves around the question of religious security. This means that if a Muslim practices Islam freely in his place of abode despite that the place happens to be secular or un-Islamic, then he will be considered as living in a Dar Islam, meaning that he is not obliged to immigrate from that place.

Curiously, as Dr Zafarul-Islam Khan writes, Muslims may even find themselves more free in non-Muslim countries:

It is evident today that in many ‘Muslim’ countries Muslims’ lives, honour and right to follow Islam are not safe while there are ‘non-Muslim’ countries, like our own country, where Muslims’ lives and properties are safe legally. Moreover, we enjoy legal rights to follow our religion and preach it. Therefore, it is a mistake to apply the old concept of dar al-Islam and dar al-harb on the contemporary world.

("Are the terms of Dar al-Islam and Dar al-Harb still applicable?" Milli Gazette July 15, 2000).

The Muslim philosopher Tariq Ramadan discusses these concepts in his book Western Muslims and the Future of Islam, rejecting the binary confinement of an "us vs. them" mentality. "We are living in an age of diversity, blending and extremly deep complexity that cannot be understood or evaluated through a binary prism, which is as much simplistic as reductionist. . . . It is becoming necessary today to go back to the Qu'ran and the Sunna and, in lgiht of our environment, to deepend our analysis in order to develop a new vision appropriate to our new context in order to formulate suitable legal opinions." Ramadan proposes instead the world of testimony: "in the sense of undertaking an essential duty and demanding responsibility -- to contribute wherever they can to promoting goodness and justice in and through human fraternity."

Muslim vs. Christian Approaches to Scripture

Also, one can only go so far with emphasizing the differences in Christian and Islamic approaches to their scriptures or the assertion that, because Muslims believe in the divine authorship of the Qur'an, the possibilities for exegesis and dialogue with others is limited. For example, shortly after the publication of a second letter by 138 Muslim scholars, Cardinal Tauran asserted that "Muslims do not accept the possibility of discussing the Qur'an, because it is written, they say, as dictated by God" -- this was construed as an attempt to silence the dialogue, and promptly and directly challenged by Muslim scholar Aref Ali Nayed in a lengthy interview with Catholic News Service's Cindy Wooden:

The Qur’an is eternal (qadim) in essence, origin, and as essential divine discourse competence (kalamullah as kalam nafsi). It is, however, also historical in its unfolding, as revelatory performance (kalamullah as kalam lafzi), and was revealed to the Prophet (peace be upon him) in intimate engagement with the historical and living circumstances and events of the Muslim community (tanzil and tanjim).

Muslim scholars have always based their interpretations and exegeses of the Qur’an on the bases of several historical and philological sciences, including the science of the ‘circumstances of revelation’ (asbabulnuzul), the science of the history of the Qur’an (tarikhulqur'an), and the sciences that carefully study the linguistic modes familiar to the Arabs around the time of revelation (ulumulugha). Muslim scholars developed a comprehensive apparatus of historical-critical-linguistic methodologies for understanding the Qur’an (ulumulqur’an).

Muslim scholars were always aware of the fact that the activities of interpretation, understanding, and exegesis (of God’s eternal discourse) are forms of human strenuous striving (ijtihad) that must be dutifully renewed in every believing generation. Solemn belief in the eternity and divine authorship of the Qur’an never prevented Muslim scholars from dealing with it historically and linguistically. On the contrary, belief in the revelatory truth of the Qur’an was the very motivation for spending life-times in close scholarly study of God’s discourse.

So belief in the divine source of the Qur'an may not necessarily be an impediment to Muslim dialogue.

* * *

All this is not to deny the very real theological differences between Islam and Christianity or the challenges Islam must face in its reconciliation with the Enlightenment -- first and foremost, as Weigel asserts, is coming to terms with pluralism and articulating an Islamic case for religious freedom -- together (I would add) with a prohibition of the death sentence for Muslims who commit apostasy in Islam. (Arguing on the basis of the Qur'an and within Muslim tradition, Dr. Jamal A. Badawi makes a case for such in Is Apostasy a Capital Crime in Islam? IslamOnline.net Apr. 26, 2006).

Finally, when Weigel talks about revival of Islam in terms of "retrieval and development" of Islamic tradition as opposed to "reform and revolution", I'd be curious to what extent he has explored traditional Islamic reponses to jihadism? -- I had discussed this aspect of the debate in a previous post, reviewing the book in which traditional Muslim authors offer a critique of jihadism from within their tradition. Weigel would likely be interested in the contributions from David Dadake ("The Myth of a Militant Islam") and Reza Shah-Kazemi Recollecting the Spirit of Jihad.

Also of interest is Shaykh Mohammad Afifi al-Akiti's "Defending the Transgressed by Censuring the Reckless against the Killing of Civilians" - which disputes the fatwa of a jihadist organization defending suicide-bombings and the proposition that "attacks such as the September 11th Hijackings is a viable option in Jihad" -- the latter gives one a sense of how jihadism might be condemned from the perspective of Islamic military ethics.

In many ways, Bin Laden's struggle against the West is also a struggle for the heart of Islam itself. As James Turner Johnson noted ("Jihad and Just War" (First Things June-July 2002):

“Bin Laden’s jihad not only pits Islam against America, the West as a whole and ultimately the rest of the non-Islamic world; it also seeks to overthrow the contemporary Muslim states and mainstream views of Islamic tradition among the great majority of contemporary Muslims."

It would be helpful, then, to more closely monitor and encourage traditional Muslim responses to the jihadism / Islamicism. (My sense is that Weigel was constrained by his intent on writing a popular, not particularly academic, work).

* * *

While expressing qualified praise for the initial "Open Letter to Pope Benedict XVI" from 38 Muslim scholars and leaders, he went on to convey his disapproval of another call for theological dialogue by the same parties, entitled "A Common Word Between Us & You". In his column "A Disappointing Call for Dialogue" ("The Catholic Difference", November 15, 2007), Weigel questioned:

Do these 138 Muslims agree or disagree that religious freedom and the distinction between religious and political authority are the issues at the heart of today's tensions between Islam and the West -- indeed, Islam and the rest? Would it not be more useful to concentrate on these urgent issues of practical reason (which bear on the organization of 21st century societies) than to frame the dialogue in terms of a generic exploration of the two Great Commandments (which risks leading to an exchange of banalities)? Why not get down to cases?

It is of the utmost importance for the human future that a genuine interreligious dialogue unfold between Islam and Christianity (and Judaism, which is largely ignored in "A Common Word"). Genuine dialogue requires a precise focus, and a commitment by the dialogue partners to condemn by name those members of their communities who murder in the name of God. It is unfortunate that "A Common Word" took us no closer to cementing either of these building blocks of genuine dialogue into place.

While I am sympathetic to Weigel's concerns, I am a little more hopeful in the letter's potential to help Muslims and Christians find common ground and engage each other. Since it's publication, the 138 signatories has grown to 216. The letter has moreover received a number of positive responses within the ecclesial Catholic hierarchy, (including, coincidentally, Cardinal Pell, to whom Weigel dedicates this book).

In December, Pope Benedict XVI responded to the letter by inviting some Muslim delegates to meet with the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue for further discussion (Video Coverage). And inasmuch as Benedict has made reciprocity and religious freedom integral to the Christian-Islamic dialogue, I cannot see the dialogue proceeding without a discussion of these issues.

We will see what the future holds and if Muslims can rise to the challenge Weigel (and Benedict) have placed before them.

Next "Rethinking Realism" and "Deserving Victory" - Weigel's policy prescriptions for the United States and the West.

Related Links

• Interview with John J. Miller "Between the Covers" National Review Online (including in part his thoughts on Christopher Hitchens' pragmatic atheism and what he refers to as the "unhinged right.").
• Interview with Hugh Hewitt Townhall.com.

Related Reading

• The Pope and the Prophet, by Robert R. Reilly. Crisis November 1, 2006.
• James V. Schall on The State of the West Interview with Ignatius Insight on the Islamic reaction to Pope Benedict XVI's Regensburg Address.

Pope Benedict Responds to "A Common Word" (Muslim Invitation to Dialogue)

Pope invites senior Muslims to Vatican meeting AFP Nov. 29, 2007:

VATICAN CITY (AFP) — Pope Benedict XVI invited a delegation of senior Muslim personalities, who signed an appeal for greater dialogue between religions, to a meeting at the Vatican, according to a letter released Thursday.

The pope praised the "positive spirit" behind the October 11 message signed by 138 top Muslims from around the world and sent to Christian leaders, said Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone in the letter sent in Pope Benedict's name.

The pope wanted to meet a representative group of the signatories at the Vatican, he added in the letter sent to Prince Ghazi bin Muhammad bin Talal, head of the Institute for Islamic Thought in Amman.

"The Pope has asked me to convey his gratitude to Your Royal Highness and to all who signed the letter," Bertone wrote.

"He also wishes to express his deep appreciation for this gesture, for the positive spirit which inspired the text and for the call for a common commitment to promoting peace in the world.

"Without ignoring or downplaying our differences as Christians and Muslims, we can and therefore should look to what unites us, namely, belief in the one God, the provident Creator and universal Judge who at the end of time will deal with each person according to his or her actions. We are all called to commit ourselves totally to him and to obey his sacred will."

The letter said the pope "was particularly impressed by the attention given in the letter to the twofold commandment to love God and one's neighbour." [...]

Bertone said that with a view to encouraging the "praiseworthy initiative" from the Muslim leaders, "His Holiness would be most willing to receive Your Royal Highness and a restricted group of signatories of the open letter, chosen by you.

"At the same time, a working meeting could be organized between your delegation and the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, with the cooperation of some specialized Pontifical Institutes (such as the Pontifical Institute for Arabic and Islamic Studies and the Pontifical Gregorian University)."

Related

• Rocco Palmo posts the full text of the letter from the Pope to the 138 Muslim leaders.
• Pope invites Muslim scholars to meet with him, dialogue council, by Cindy Wooden. Catholic News Service. Nov. 29, 2007.
• Vatican: Pope expresses "deep appreciation" for Muslim letter ADN Kronos Int'l. Nov. 29, 2007.
• "Pope favors dialogue with Islam" Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, director of the press office of the Holy See, Zenit News. December 9, 2007.
• Al-Qaida Reference to Pope "Not Surprising": Vatican Aide Says Terrorists Worried by a Pontiff Who Dialogues Zenit News Service. December 18, 2007:

  Al-Qaida is worried by Benedict XVI's efforts to dialogue with Muslims, says a Vatican spokesman.

  Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi affirmed this today when commenting on a one-hour 37-minute video from al-Qaida's second-in-command, who criticized Benedict XVI's Nov. 6 meeting with Saudi Arabian King Abdallah bin Abdulaziz Al Saud.

  The video from Ayman al-Zawahri was posted Sunday on the Internet. The al-Qaida leader said the Pope's meeting with King Abdallah, the first ever between a Pontiff and a Saudi monarch, was offensive to Islam and Muslims.

• Letter by 138 Muslim intellectuals calls on Muslims to reflect upon their faith, says Muslim scholar AsiaNews.it January 23, 2008:

  The Open Letter 138 Muslim intellectuals wrote to the Pope and other Christian leaders is indirectly addressed to Muslims because it calls on “Muslims to rethink and to re-educate ourselves about our own Islamic,” said Ali Aiyub in a “reflection” sent to AsiaNews. Mr Aiyub, who is Muslim, is the director of the Silsilah Dialogue Institute, whose president is Fr Sebastiano D'Ambra, a missionary with the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions (PIME).

  “For me as a Muslim,” Aiyub writes, “I consider the Open Letter a milestone in the history of Islam in the contemporary world. I would liken it to Vatican II, a revolution within the Catholic Church’s teachings to respond to the signs of the time. This Open Letter serves as bedrock to drumbeat our local interfaith dialogue as path to peace.”

  This document is “a sign of hope and an inspiration to commit myself as a Muslim in the service of dialogue in today’s chaotic world where religion, as has been done since time immemorial, is misused to legitimize selfish motives.”

Discussion of this topic on Against The Grain:

• Further Responses to "A Common Word" 11/29/07
• Fr. Christian Troll: Response to "A Common Word" 10/28/07
• "A Common Word" and Christian-Muslim Dialogue 10/27/07;
• Readings in Islam: "Islam, Fundamentalism, and the Betrayal of Tradition" 7/2/07.
• Fr. Samir Khalil, SJ: Articles & Interviews 4/29/07
• Pope Benedict, Islam and the Prospect of Reform 4/23/07