"Don't insult Mohammed", says Jesuit

Christians must distance themselves from anyone or anything that insults Islam's prophet Mohammed and should come to a greater appreciation of his role in bringing millions of people to recognize the one God, said a German Jesuit scholar.

But Christians cannot share Muslims' recognition of Mohammed as the last and greatest prophet, said Father Christian Troll, a professor of Islam and of Muslim-Christian relations at the Sankt Georgen Graduate School of Philosophy and Theology in Frankfurt, Germany.

Islamophobe!

Writing in La Civilta Cattolica (Catholic Civilization), a Jesuit magazine reviewed by the Vatican prior to publication, Father Troll was responding to a question asked by many Muslims: "We Muslims recognize Jesus as a prophet and we venerate him. Why don't you Christians accept Mohammed as a prophet in the same way?"

Or, to rephrase that question, "why don't you Christians convert to Islam?"

While Christians cannot share Muslims' faith in Mohammed as the last and greatest prophet, "Christians must decisively distance themselves from every insult against Mohammed and, in addition, must try to recognize and appreciate his exceptional historic personality, his role as founder of Islam and the extraordinary place he occupies in the faith, piety and religious thought of Muslims," Father Troll said.

True respect for Muslims and for their faith, he said, requires Christians to "investigate that which in the life and teaching of Mohammed is acceptable or even exemplary and admirable for Christians, but also those aspects of his life and teaching that, from the point of view of Christian faith, would seem problematic and unacceptable."

Okay, the second bit is easy. He was a mass-murdering paedophile, after all. Not so sure what in Mohammed's life was "acceptable or even exemplary and admirable", and Fr Troll doesn't appear to make any effort to give any guidance on this point.

Actually, though, I don't feel the need to insult Mohammed. Not in the sense of making offensive things up, anyway, or even merely exaggerating his many known defects. All I need to do is say what is written down for all to see in the Koran and the Hadith. There's enough written about Mohammed in there to earn the author a libel action if he'd written it about anyone else.

Hat-tip: Dhimmi Watch