Aziz Poonawalla is Dean’s “Defender of Islam”. He accepts the Pope’s apology today.

Kinda, sorta.

Aziz writes his apologies for Islam from a nation where he is free to do so, despite the many attacks on that nation by his co-religionists. There are few, if any, nations with Islamic majorities where he would be so free to write in defense of Christianity. His acceptance of the Pope’s apology is really another chance to criticize Christianity for provoking Islam. He continues the meme of blogging Islamists that the West owes them and their religion something. Respect, reparation, repentance and retreat, I guess.

Violence was set off by the Pope’s remarks, but it has nothing to do with Islam. There are “professional thugs” causing it. Yeah, that’s the ticket, a world-wide association of professional thugs.

The riots and tragic murders that the Pope’s remarks set off are tragic, foolish, and yet more evidence of the profound vacuum that exists at the center of the muslim world’s discourse. But riots and murder in the name of insult to religion are hardly limited to Islam. My aim is not to engage in tu quoque but rather to illustrate that violence in the third world is worthless as a metric. Such violence is the product of professional thugs who exploit the lack of civil order in their societies, and seek any pretext upon which to wage chaos. Their efforts are barbaric, and they are transient, and they are ultimately futile.

The violence is a red herring; far deeper damage has been done.

First, the needless propaganda gift to our enemies - the enemies of all civilization, Islamic, Western, whatever label you choose.

In other words, the Pope is responsible for the reactions in the Moslem world. Had he not said this, Islam would not be calling for his head. Discounting, for a moment, the Third World violence, perhaps Aziz would like to recall the murders in Europe by his co-religionists, the murders in the United States. Aziz forgets the assassination attempt BY MOSLEMS on this Pope’s predecessor. Violence in the name of Islam is not just a Third World phenomena.

The Pope’s comments also were disastrously timed with respect to the critical struggle for women’s rights in Pakistan, the face of whom is Mukhtar Mai.

Aziz must have some secret information not in his post, because I truly don’t think the government of Pakistan give’s a rat’s ass what the Pope thinks about rape. To link the speech to any sort of response on this issue by Musharraf is crazy. This is a country where Christians are murdered for their faith all the time.

This is the problem Aziz sees:

In a sense, JPII saw muslims as brothers in Abrahamic faith, whereas Benedict sees them as truly Alien. Note that the default understanding of Christianity for a muslim is that we are indeed heirs to the same tradition. In that sense, John Paul’s passing and Benedict’s ascension represented an easily-foreseeable souring of Christian-muslim relations.

Actually, it represents the recognition that Islam in practice murders Christians. Islam in practice enslaves Christians. Islam in practice tolerates no other religion but Islam. Aziz accuses the Pope of Islamaphobia. Gee, you suppose you ought to be afraid of folks who want to kill you?

I take Islam at face value. The nations that hold to it are backward, poorer, and without the blessings of God as described in our Declaration of Independence and Constitution. Islam denies its believers a choice, and that is a tool of the devil. Free will is the way to paradise, not blind recitation of scripture in a language you don’t understand.

Aziz takes a gratuitous swipe at Christianity, linking to a report of riots in Nigeria in 2004. I have neither the time nor the space to detail the murders committed in the name of Islam in 2004, or since. There is a growing pool of blood around Islam, the blood of the martyrs dying because they are not Moslem. From Nigeria across Africa to Somalia, and through the Gulf to India, Thailand and the Philippines, where ever Islam is in contact with another belief, there is violence by and for Islam.

There is no Islamic civilization. There are learned people who practice Islam but Islam itself has no room in it for civilization. Look at the practice, not the promise.