Islamist terrorists in Egypt bombed Coptic churches and killed dozens of innocent people on Palm Sunday, and Saudi Arabia, which finances and hosts the Muslim World League (MWL), is the global purveyor of extremist Wahhabism. More importantly, it sends a signal to persecuted Christians and moderate Muslims that they really have nowhere to turn. In his attempt at appeasing Muslims, then, the Pope is actually emboldening the “arsonists,” not the “firefighters.”
Perhaps the Pope is unaware of the nature of the MWL and Al-Azhar. If so, here is a brief description of each:
“MWL has a long history of ties to, and financial support for, Islamic extremists, terrorist operatives, and terrorist organizations including Hamas, the Abu Sayyaf Group, al-Ittihaad al-Islami, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, Jemaat-al-Islamiyya, and al Qaeda…. MWL has often provided a platform for hateful, inflammatory rhetoric directed against Jews and the state of Israel.” — Discover the Networks.
“Any Muslim can kill an apostate and eat him, as well kill infidel warriors even if they are young or female and they can also be eaten, because they are not granted any protection..” — Al-Azhar book for high school students; 2015 investigative report conducted by the Egyptian newspaper El-Youn el-Sabi.
After a visit to the Vatican on September 20, a delegation of the Muslim World League (MWL), an international NGO based in, and funded by, Saudi Arabia, lauded Pope Francis for his past statements rejecting the link between Islam and violence. During their “historic meeting,” MWL Secretary-General Muhammad Abdul-Kareem Al-Issa and the Pope exchanged gifts and reportedly vowed to enhance cooperation “in all areas to achieve common goals, notably the spread of peace and harmony.”
The next day, the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue and the WML held an “informal meeting… during which it was repeated that:
Religion and violence are incompatible;
Religions have moral resources capable of contributing to fraternity and peace;
The phenomenon of fundamentalism, particularly when violent, is troubling and joint efforts are required to counter it, and
Situations exist where freedom of conscience and of religion are not entirely respected and protected, so there is an urgent need to remedy this, renewing ‘religious discourse’ and reviewing school books.”
The two groups then agreed to establish a joint permanent committee “in the near future” to address these issues.
Similar sentiments were expressed by the leaders of Cairo’s al-Azhar University — the world’s leading Islamic center of learning for Sunni Muslims — at its International Peace Conference in April, after Pope Francis delivered an address for which the audience awarded him much applause. According to an account in the National Catholic Register, “Probably to avoid offending its Muslim members, who consider Jesus only a prophet, [Pope Francis] seemed to deliberately omit any explicit mention of the Lord’s name, preferring to focus more generally on ‘God’ and the ‘Absolute.'”
The report went on to summarize “key points” of the Pontiff’s speech, among them:
“Despite the need for the Absolute, we must reject any ‘absolutizing’ that would justify violence which is the ‘negation of every authentic religious expression.'”
“Religion is not meant to only unmask evil but promote peace, perhaps today ‘more than ever,’ but without ‘giving in to forms of facile syncretism’ [and instead] ‘praying for one another.'”
“It is of little or no use to raise our voices and run about to find weapons for our protection: what is needed today are peacemakers, not fomenters of conflict; firefighters and not arsonists; preachers of reconciliation and not instigators of destruction.”
Thanking the Pope for his “defense of Islam against the accusation of violence and terrorism,” the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, Sheikh Ahmed Muhammad al-Tayyib, said in his speech that humanity ought to “stress the value of peace, justice, equality and human rights regardless of religion, color, race, or language.” He added:
“We need to liberate the image of religions from false concepts, misunderstandings, malpractices, and false religiosity attached to them. These evils bestir conflicts, spread hate, and instigate violence… [W]e should not hold religion accountable for the crimes of any small group of followers.”
The twin messages at each occasion — Al-Azhar in Cairo and the Vatican in Rome — were the same: that religion is the vessel through which peace is achieved, and that Islam is no more violent than Christianity.
This is not merely ironic, as less than three weeks earlier in Egypt, Islamist terrorists bombed Coptic churches and killed dozens of innocent people on Palm Sunday, and Saudi Arabia, which finances and bases the MWL, is the global purveyor of extremist Wahhabism. More importantly, it sends a signal to persecuted Christians and moderate Muslims that they really have nowhere to turn.
