Hopes for the new papacy

Professor Tan Sri Dato' Dzulkifli Abdul Razak

Learning Curve: Perspective

New Sunday Times - 10-03-2013

 

A FOUNDATION: Positive experiences between the Catholics and Muslims go back to more than 1,000 years ago

 

WE expect a newly elected pope by the middle of this month. Already there are many predictions of who will hold the post.

 

Some punters are betting on a Ghanaian to take the top post. This will be a much awaited development given that there are many members of the Catholic Church in the Global South.

 

Expectations are high and there is much to be done. It is best left to the Catholics to engage the Church and its new leadership.

 

I am keen to see the way the new pope engages with people of other faiths, in particular Muslims.

 

This is in view of Pope Benedict XVI purportedly citing an obscure medieval text that characterised the teachings of Islam as "evil and inhuman" in 2006 (though some argued "bad and inhumane" a more fitting rendering).

 

The remark uttered while making an address entitled Faith, Reason And The University -- Memories and Reflections at the University of Regensburg in Germany referred to the 14th century Byzantine emperor Manuel II Paleologus, one of the last Christian rulers before the fall of Constantinople to the Muslim Ottoman Empire.

 

It drew much criticism from almost all sectors especially from the Muslim world that was still reeling from cartoons depicting Prophet Muhammad.

 

Despite the Vatican denial that the statement was not thrown as a barb at the Muslim community, some experts perceived that the provocation by the spiritual leader of more than a billion Roman Catholics could leave even deeper scars.

 

One analyst based in Cairo, Egypt, Diaa Rashwan, who studies Islamic militancy, was quoted as saying: "The declarations from the Pope are more dangerous than the cartoons, because they come from the most important Christian authority in the world -- the cartoons just came from an artist."

 

Yet another is a commentary by leading advocate of civilisational dialogue, Hans Köchler, who heads the Department of Philosophy at the University of Innsbruck in Austria.

 

He wrote: "In his lecture preaching the compatibility of reason and faith, Benedict XVI, the scholar, deliberately overlooks the fact that the insights of Greek philosophy have been brought to medieval Christian Europe by the great Muslim thinkers of the Middle Ages. What he calls the 'encounter between the Biblical message and Greek thought'... was, to a large extent, the result of the influence of Muslim philosophers -- at a time when European Christians were totally ignorant of classical Greek philosophy."

 

Viewed this way, it brings to mind personalities such as Pope Sylvester II (999-1003), a prominent scholar who was regarded as one of the greatest polymaths in Europe in the 10th century.

 

This aspect is not the only similarity between Pope Sylvester II and Pope Benedict XVI. Their papacies also saw the early days of a new millennium.

 

Indeed, Pope Sylvester II too had to deal with "tainted" practices then which were widespread among the clergy. It was the practice of simony and concubinage instead of homosexuality and paedophilia today.

 

Better known as Gerbert of Aurillac, Pope Sylvester II ascended the papacy when Córdoba was at the zenith of learning in Al-Andalus, Moorish Spain. According to several sources, Gerbert learnt Astrology and Astronomy as well as other subjects such as Arithmetic and Geometry "from the Saracens", and even acquired and wrote about the astrolabe.

 

He even went as far as the University of Al Karaouine in Fes, Morocco -- the first university in the world according to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation.

 

It was at the time of Al-Hakam II that Gerbert began to take interest in the Arabs' passion for Mathematics and Natural Sciences taught at the madrasahs of Córdoba. Reportedly Gerbert's reemphasis on the learning of Liberal Arts in Europe was inspired by the educational institutions in Córdoba.

 

In addition, he learnt about the Indian-Arabic numbers, especially the use of zero to make up its absence in the Graeco-Roman system. It became widespread by the time he assumed the papacy.

 

There seems to be sufficient positive experiences between the Catholics and Muslims going back to more than 1,000 years ago!

 

Let us hope that the new pope will continue to build on them when he assumes power.

 

- The writer is the vice-chancellor of the Albukhary International University