New in PJ Media:
Pope Benedict XVI has just been laid to rest, but when it comes to the Left, the old adage about never speaking ill of the dead doesn’t apply even during the period of mourning. Wrongthinkers must be denounced and excoriated, no matter what. And so Wendy Mallette, an assistant professor of religious studies at the University of Oklahoma whose “research brings critical theories of gender, sexuality, race, and animality” — animality? — “to bear on questions of doctrine and method within religious studies and Christian theology,” took to Religion Dispatches on Thursday. There, she claimed that Benedict’s theological legacy will be forever tainted by “Islamophobia,” which is simultaneously a fictional propaganda concept and one of the foremost sins of today’s academic world.
Mallette is enraged at the late pope because of “his infamous 2006 lecture in which he quoted a 15th-century Byzantine emperor who described the words of Muhammad as ‘evil and inhuman.’” That emperor was Manuel II Palaiologos, who reigned from 1391 to 1425, when the empire was in its death throes and mortally threatened by the Ottoman Turks, who had already conquered and occupied much of its former territory. In September 1390, the Ottoman Sultan Bayezid demanded that Manuel’s father John V Palaiologos send Manuel to the Ottoman court as a permanent hostage. John V had no choice but to comply, but he also ordered that the walls of Constantinople be rebuilt, repaired, and strengthened given a coming Ottoman siege. Bayezid summarily ordered John V to stop repairing the walls immediately, or Manuel would be blinded. John complied. He had no choice.
When John V died, Manuel escaped from the sultan’s palace and claimed the imperial throne. But Bayezid forced him to agree to a treaty in which the Byzantines agreed to pay the Ottomans thirty thousand crowns of gold each year. The sultan also imperiously ordered Manuel to accompany him on a military expedition into the wilds of Anatolia, which had once been the Byzantine heartland, to subdue a rival Muslim group.
While on this journey, Manuel wrote of the desolation that the Ottoman conquest had brought about in what once had been Roman land, as well as in his own individual soul. “There are many cities here,” he wrote from Asia Minor, “but they lack what constitutes the true splendor of a city…that is, human beings. Most now lie in ruins…not even the names have survived.…I cannot tell you exactly where we are.” The emperor wrote forthrightly of his own despondency: “It is hard to bear all this…the scarcity of supplies, the severity of winter and the sickness which has struck down many of our men…[have] greatly depressed me.… It is unbearable…The blame lies with the present state of affairs, not to mention the individual [that is, Bayezid] whose fault they are.” In 1394, Bayezid summoned Manuel to his court, intending to kill him, but Manuel escaped once again.
There is more. Read the rest here.
John1 says
I loved the fact Benedict was brave to speak the truth about Islam. How did Muslim react to this truth in the 21st century? As usual, with violence and killing just as Benedict quoted it from the words of 14th century Byzantine Emperor.Manuel II.
ploome says
well~
Wendy Mallette (she/her), a Ph.D. candidate in religious studies at Yale University, became a member of the AAR in 2013. She is part of the steering committees for the Feminist Theory and Religious Reflection unit and the Lesbian-Feminisms and Religion unit, which belong to AAR’s more than 150 program units.
another crackpot
ploome says
find her photo online…
Scott in PA says
Great lead photo of Benedict showing his appropriate response to Prof. Mallette.