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The Regensburg Effect: The Open Letter from 38 Muslims to the Pope
EFL-

ROMA, October 18, 2006 – One month after his lecture at the University of Regensburg, Benedict XVI received an “open letter” signed by 38 Muslim personalities from various countries and of different outlooks, which discusses point by point the views on Islam expressed by the pope in that lecture.

The letter came to pope Joseph Ratzinger through the Vatican nunciature in Amman, to which it was delivered by one of the signatories, prince Ghazi bin Muhammad bin Talal, special advisor to the king of Jordan, Abdullah II.

The complete text of the letter, in English, has been available since Sunday, October 15, on the website of “Islamica Magazine,” a periodical published in the Unites States that holds the copyright to this document.
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A first point on which the letter from the 38 Muslims “reasons” with Benedict XVI concerns sura 2:256 of the Qur’an: “There is no compulsion in religion.” The authors of the letter assert that Mohammed formulated this commandment, not when he found himself “powerless and under threat” – which the pope maintains as “probable” in his lecture – but when he was in a position of strength, in Medina. And that he intended by this to appeal to Muslims, whenever they conquered a territory, “not to force another’s heart to believe.”
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The fourth point is holy war. The 38 signatories of the letter recall that the word “jihad” properly means “struggle in the way of God,” which is not necessarily war. Even Christ used violence when he chased the merchants from the temple. They sum up in this way Islam’s three “authoritative and traditional” rules on war:

– civilians are not approved targets;
– religious creed alone cannot make a person the object of an attack;
– Muslims can and must live peacefully beside their neighbors, although the legitimacy of self-defense and the maintenance of sovereignty remain valid principles.

So if some Muslims – they write – have ignored such well-established teaching on the limits of war, preferring to this “utopian dreams where the end justifies the means, they have done so of their own accord and without the sanction of God, His Prophet, or the learned tradition.”

Well, it's "dialogue". I wonder if the Vatican's reply will be sent before or after Benedict's trip to Turkey (end of November)?
(via vaticanwatcher.blogspot.com)
Posted by: mrp 2006-10-18
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=169017