Religion and Violence
September 12, 2007 5:19 pm Religion and ViolenceChien, Religion and Violence, ZNet, December 23, 2006
When Pope Benedict XVI quoted a 14th century Byzantine emperor attributing to Mohammed a command “to spread by the sword the faith he preached,” Muslim and non-Muslim critics alike were quick to point out that the implied criticism of Islam applied equally to Christianity. The Crusades and the Inquisition stand out as obvious examples. It was appropriate to mention the Pope’s own faith, but one could also cite, say, the murderous violence against Muslims by Hindu nationalists in Guajarat, the terrorism of the Stern Gang and other Jewish extremists inspired by visions of the biblical Israel, or Zen Buddhist complicity in twentieth-century Japanese war crimes. From a bird’s-eye level of history at least, it’s easy to undermine the notion that there is any link between Islam and violence that isn’t shared by other major religions.
But it’s not as easy to say just what that link is.