In the seventh conversation edited by Professor Khoury, the emperor touches on the theme of the holy war. The emperor must have known that Sura 2, 256 reads: “There is no compulsion in religion”. According to some of experts, this is probably of the Suras of the early period, when Mohammed was still powerless and under threat. But naturally the emperor also knew the instructions, developed later and recorded in the Koran, concerning holy war. Without descending to details, such as the difference in treatment accorded to those who have the “Book” and the “infidels”, he addresses his interlocutor with a startling brusqueness, a brusqueness that we find unacceptable, on the central question about the relationship between religion and violence in general saying: “Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached”. The emperor, after having expressed himself so forcefully, goes on to explain in detail the reasons why spreading the faith through violence is something unreasonable. Violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature oа soul. “God”, he says, “is not pleased by blood – and not acting reasonably (“syn logo”) is contrary to God’s nature. Faith is born of the soul, not the body. Whoever would lead someone to faith needs the ability to speak well and to reason properly, without violence and threats… To convince a reasonable soul, one does not need a strong arm or weapons of any kind or any other means of threatening a person with death…”
The decisive statement in this argument against violent conversion is this: not to act in accordance with reason is notary to God’s nature. The editor, Theodore Khoury, observes: For the emperor, as a Byzantine shaped by Greek philosophy, this statement is self-evident. But for Muslim teaching, God is absolutely transcendent. His will is not bound up with any of our categories, even that of rationality. Here Khoury quotes a work of the noted French Islamist R. Arnaldez, who points out that that Ibn Hazm went so far as to state that God is not bound even by his own word, and that nothing would oblige him to reveal the truth to us. Were it God’s will, we would even have to practice idolatry”. (taken from the official text of “lecture of the Holy Father”, Aula Magna of the University of Regensburg, Tuesday, 12 September 2006 – “Faith, Reason and the University Memories and reflections”).
It’s a great riddle for us how Ibn Hazm manages to go so far as to say, “that God is not bound even by his own word”. It’s more than once said in Koran that: “There is no changing the words of God” (Sura 10:64); “And you shall not find any change in the course of God.” (Sura 33:62) (and 48:23 tell the same). And there are many other riddles, if only Ibn Hazm was translated and understood right…
In the whole text we take Koranic cites from here: . We use mainly Shakir’s text, and/or sometimes two other translations.
[5] On the September 11, 2001 several hijacked passenger airliners destroyed the two skyscrapers of the World Trade Center in New York City. Although there are lots of facts proving that the tragedy couldn’t happen without the participation of the US Secret Services, the general responsibility is shouldered on the “Islamic terrorists”.
[6] Evidently, the author hints on the fact that Ali Ahdzha who committed an attempt on the Pope’s John Paul II life in 1977 was a Turk, i.e. a Muslim in the Western perception.
[7] Manuel II Palaiologos or Palaeologus (Greek: Μανουήλ Β΄ Παλαιολόγος, Manouēl II Palaiologos) (June 27, 1350 – July 21, 1425) was Byzantine emperor from 1391 to 1425.
Manuel II Palaiologos was the second son of Emperor John V Palaiologos (1341–1376, 1379–1390, 1390–1391) and his wife Helena Kantakouzena. His maternal grandparents were Emperor John VI Kantakouzenos (1347–1354) and Eirene Asanina.
Created despotēs by his father, the future Manuel II traveled west to seek support for the Byzantine Empire in 1365 and in 1370, serving as governor in Thessalonica from 1369. The failed attempt at usurpation by his older brother Andronikos IV Palaiologos in 1373 led to Manuel being proclaimed heir and co-emperor of his father. In 1376–1379 and again in 1390 they were supplanted by Andronikos IV and then his son John VII, but Manuel personally defeated his nephew with help from the Republic of Venice in 1390. Although John V had been restored, Manuel was forced to go as an honorary hostage to the court of the Ottoman Sultan Bayezid I at Prousa (Bursa). During his stay, Manuel was forced to participate in the Ottoman campaign that reduced Philadelpheia, the last Byzantine enclave in Anatolia.
Hearing of his father's death in February 1391, Manuel II Palaiologos fled the Ottoman court and secured the capital against any potential claim by his nephew John VII. Although relations with John VII improved, the Ottoman Sultan Bayezid I besieged Constantinople from 1394 to 1402. After some five years of siege, Manuel II entrusted the city to his nephew and embarked on a long trip abroad to seek assistance against the Ottoman Empire from the courts of western Europe, including those of Henry IV of England (making him the only Byzantine emperor ever to visit England - he was welcomed from December 1400 to January 1401 at Eltham Palace, and a joust was given in his honour), Charles VI of France, the Holy Roman Empire, and Aragon.
Meanwhile an anti-Ottoman crusade led by the Hungarian King Sigismund of Luxemburg failed at the Battle of Nicopolis on September 25, 1396, but the Ottomans were themselves crushingly defeated by Timur at the Battle of Ankara in 1402. As the sons of Bayezid I struggled with each other over the succession in the Ottoman Interregnum, John VII was able to secure the return of the European coast of the Sea of Marmara and of Thessalonica to the Byzantine Empire. When Manuel II returned home in 1403, his nephew duly surrendered control of Constantinople and was rewarded with the governorship of newly recovered Thessalonica.
Manuel II Palaiologos used this period of respite to bolster the defenses of the Despotate of Morea, where the Byzantine Empire was actually expanding at the expense of the remnants of the Latin Empire. Here Manuel supervised the building of the Hexamilion (six-mile) wall across the Isthmus of Corinth, intended to defend the Peloponnese from the Ottomans.
Manuel II stood on friendly terms with the victor in the Ottoman civil war, Mehmed I (1402–1421), but his attempts to meddle in the next contested succession led to a new assault on Constantinople by Murad II (1421–1451) in 1422. During the last years of his life, Manuel II relinquished most official duties to his son and heir John VIII Palaiologos, and in 1424 they were forced to sign a peace treaty with the Ottoman Turks, whereby the Byzantine Empire undertook to pay tribute to the sultan. Manuel II died on 21 July 1425.