Samir Khalil Samir

Wearing the all-enveloping outer garment is not a religious requirement, but a cultural tradition from Saudi Arabia. It is the symbol of an attack by extremist Islam on Europe, and this has generated contempt for a certain retrograde form of Islam. A law is needed against wearing full-face veil in public spaces, but what is even more needed is a broad dialogue between East and West that would allow Islam to be modernised and integrated into European culture, and thus have an opportunity to contribute to world civilisation.

The Synod of the Churches in the Middle East called by the pope for October 2010, will seek to highlight their difficult external situation and many internal problems. The biggest plague is emigration, which erases the mission of Christians. If Christians disappear from the Middle East, it will also create problems for Islam.

Opinion polls in Europe show that the Swiss referendum would have also won in France, Holland, Belgium, Italy, Spain, Germany, Austria. The no to the minaret is a no to the increasing (and never satisfied) Islamist demands. The European population thinks differently and wants its leaders to reaffirm its identity. The no to the minarets is an invitation to true dialogue.

The situation in the Middle East is stagnant: a crisis of Islam drags everything into a fatal paralysis. The crisis also affects the West, oblivious to its Christian roots. Yet Islam and the West need each other. A study by our expert on Islam, in preparation for the Synod of the Churches of the Middle East.

The referendum on whether to ban the construction of minarets in Switzerland is an opportunity to rethink the use of these architectural elements. Their use to call people to prayer; or the race to make them ever higher, competing with churches, is excluded. Europe must learn to live with Islam, but Islam also has to rethink its life in Europe as a minority.

The Islamic tradition could die out fear of modernity which it perceives as anti-religious. For some time all Islamic extremism has been proposing is a return to a mythical past, that of the first four ‘rightly guided’ caliphs, by proposing unchanging and superficial ways of life. Christianity has confronted modernity for centuries and can help Islam achieve a necessary insight into the matter.

An analysis of the US President’s speech by an expert on Islam and the Arab world. In general there is a lot of honesty and justified mea culpa. But there is also too much rhetoric on Islam’s contributions; historical falsehoods on the Cordoba Caliphate and the birth of Israel; ambiguity on Israeli settlements in the occupied territories; religious freedom is more than tolerance; forgetfulness on the everyday rights of women. The Pope said more in the Middle East.

The Islamic media’s criticism of Benedict XVI is nothing in the face of the wealth of his proposal. Dialogue with science is essential for the Arab world, at a standstill for centuries; it is crucial that the West does not close itself into relativistic ideologies that despise faith.

Arab and Muslim countries are trying to find ways to reassert their dignity and uphold human rights but are increasingly turning inward, inching closer to Islamism and its calls for Sharia and caliphate. US support for Israel and corrupt Arab states fuel fundamentalism. The Islamic world is thus still waiting to reconcile its religion with modernity.

The Jesuit Samir Khalil, an expert on Islam and among the participants at the Forum in the Vatican, tells of the paths and hopes created by the meeting. Some difficulties on religious freedom. The common challenge of secularism. Muslims ask for Christians help to counter Islamaphobia.

For two days, from November 4-6, Islamic and Catholic experts are meeting at the Vatican, after years of chilly relations due to the growth of fundamentalism. Everything has now resumed, thanks to the address of Benedict XVI in Regensburg, where he affirmed that religion embraces reason and excludes violence. The most urgent theme: religious freedom, so that every community may be guaranteed the right to proclaim and spread its faith.

The Saudi king takes more steps to show openness towards Christians, Jews and other religions. The most urgent reason is to rectify Islam’s violent image but also stems from a new attitude towards inter-faith dialogue towards the People of the Book (Jews, Muslims and Christians), but also atheists, Hindus and Buddhists.