Further, does the Pope agree with El-Tayyeb that Islam has shared 1,400 years of “peaceful coexistence with the Christians”? In no land that Muslims conquered has there been “peaceful coexistence” with Christians (or with any other subjugated non-Muslims), including Islamic Spain, which is so often held up as an inspiring example of “convivencia,” even though Christians, apparently unconvinced of how happy they were under Islamic rule, spent 770 years fighting for the Reconquista of their own land. Is the Pope afraid to say anything that might anger El-Tayyeb? If so, what kind of “friendship” do they have, when one side is terrified of angering the other?
Then there is what El-Tayyeb did in response to the transfer of the American Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem in January 2018. He went into a rage, refused to meet the visiting Vice President Pence and, still more disturbing, he called the recognition [of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital] an “aggression toward people, countries, cultures and civilizations,” and claimed it would “feed terrorism in the region. Decisions like this one nurture terrorism, create it and propel it forward to act and express itself in methods we all reject. When terrorism rises again, the East and West will drown in seas of blood.” That sounds like a threat: Undo the Embassy Move, Or Suffer The Consequences. “Seas of blood.”
So here is what we know about Grand Sheikh Ahmed El-Tayyeb. First, he despises Jews, for they have always been the “greatest in enmity” toward Muslims. They are greedy, aggressive, favor their own, work to undermine all others. Second, he believes that apostates from Islam should be killed. Third, he dismisses “human rights,” which, he claims, are a “minefield” of unwelcome consequences. Fourth, he is happy to have Al-Azhar University distribute free copies of a book that every few lines denounces Christians, even inciting — by quoting the Qur’an — their murder. Fifth, El-Tayyeb himself misrepresents the history of Muslim-Christian relations as having always been models of “peaceful coexistence.”
Pope Francis is a strange man. He knows that there is no such thing as “Islamic terrorism.” He either doesn’t know (which at this late date is unacceptable), or doesn’t care (which would be intolerable), about those Qur’anic verses that tell Believers “to strike terror” in the hearts of Unbelievers. Nor does he appear to know the famous hadith in which Muhammad declares that “I have been made victorious through terror.’’ He is convinced that “authentic Islam and the proper reading of the Koran are opposed to every form of violence.” Neither the more than 100 Qur’anic verses that command Believers to “fight” and “smite at the necks of” the Unbelievers, nor the 1,400 years of Muslim violence directed at non-Muslims and at fellow Muslims alike, have made much of an impression on this Defender of the Faith — that Faith being Islam.
If the Pope demonstrates an insufficient understanding of Islam, his appreciation of his own civilization is also lacking. In an interview with the French Catholic newspaper La Croix, Pope Francis took a conciliatory line toward Islam, saying “I sometimes dread the tone” when people refer to Europe’s “Christian” roots. Why shouldn’t Europeans mention the “Christian” roots of their civilization? Does the Pope wish to deny those roots? Why does Pope Francis “dread the tone” of those who recognize, and take pride in, those Christian roots? Is he embarrassed by Europe’s success as a civilization? Does he want credit to be given as well, in a spirit of multicultural madness, to those nonexistent “Islamic roots” of Europe? Of all people, shouldn’t the Pope be in the front rank of those forthrightly reminding Europeans of their “Christian [or more accurately, Judeo-Christian] roots,” at a time of cultural confusion, and insist that they must hold onto them, remain true to them, and resist all attempts to make us believe that in Europe, Islam has been a fructifying and positive influence, rather than the destructive one that, not so many decades ago, everyone of sense recognized?
Grand Imam Sheikh El-Tayyeb of Al-Azhar, the man Pope Francis calls his “friend and dear brother,” is delighted with his Papal interlocutor, and with good reason. But you, and I, with even better reason, must deplore this smiling accommodationist in the Vatican. It would take one of the papal assistants at most five minutes of searching the Internet to find out everything Francis needs to know about El-Tayyeb: his antisemitism, his death sentence for apostates, his oblique threats of terrorism should the American Embassy not be moved out of Jerusalem, the anti-Christian literature distributed for free by Al-Azhar. Search away, papal assistant, please do, and make the Pope take notice of what you find. He’s got to understand the meaning and menace of Islam, as the hour is late, and if he can’t, then he must step aside for someone who can.