In a speech delivered on September 12- in which he called Europe to return to a richer understanding of human reason, one not at odds with belief in a divine being-Pope Benedictus XVI succeeded in enraging an unintended audience: Muslims. The cause of the outcry was his reference to a fourteenth-century Byzantine emperor's claim that Muhammad, the prophet of Islam, had brought nothing new, only things "evil and inhuman." As a result, diplomats have been recalled, parliaments have demanded an apology, and officials in Turkey are considering retracting the pope's invitation to visit.  Churches in Muslim regions have come under attack, Christian minorities are exposed to reprisal, and radical groups have called for jihad against Rome.

Europe was addressed and Muslims responded. The pope's words may not have been intended as anything more than an academic reference in a speech that had nothing to do with Islam, but they have been cast as the latest example of a long-standing pattern, stretching back centuries, in which Europeans speak disparagingly of Muhammad with the goal not of provoking Muslims, but of exhorting those in Europe to a more vigorous commitment to their own civilization. The question is whether we can afford even the perception of such a tactical ploy in a climate where Muslims and Christians no longer live in separate territorial domains, but exist in close contact, jumbled together in cities across the world, including the great ones of Europe.

If the papacy is trying to make a last effort to save Europe from foregoing its Christian identity, arguably a noble cause, it will need to be done in ways that espouse a new global ethic where Christians and Muslims are friends, not foes. Muslims are troubled by the presence of violence in their own history and are eager to have sincere and frank discussions with Christians about the phenomenon of violence in the name of religion. These are trying days for Muslims who feel the image of Islam has been grossly maligned and seek peaceful dialogue with non-Muslims as a way to correct distortions. They want to be treated as genuine partners, not simply objects of Western tutelage with no civilization of their own. The concern registered on Muslim websites is that once again Europe has signaled its unwillingness to take Muslims seriously, and the fact that the signal has been communicated through the papal figure-who in the minds of Muslims is not only Christian leader par excellence but also chief moral voice of the Western world-makes it all the more insulting.

One could certainly question Muslim responses. For many, the violence marking the response to the papal speech only proves the point. One could also ask about prejudiced images of the West that come from the mouths of Muslim religious leaders, not to mention disparaging remarks about Christian belief. But the point here is the image of Islam that prevails in the West. Is it useful anymore, not to mention fair, and does it make sense for papal figures to have any part, even unintended, in perpetuating it?

Let us turn to the pope's speech. Its goal is to rescue reason from the limits that the modern world has put on it, limits that in the pope's estimation have duped Europe into setting reason against faith and turning against faith as something outside the bounds of reason, thus irrational. Benedictus XVI was elected with the hope that his theological acumen would be able to speak to the heart of Europe and nurture within it the sparks of a faith that seems to be fading.

Why then refer to Islam at all? In addition to his citation of the Byzantine emperor, the pope also made note of a dilemma in the theology of Islam, the idea that God's omnipotence makes it impossible to consider Him in terms of human reason. This dilemma has been a favorite target of orientalists of the past who saw it as chief reason for what they claimed was Islam's failure to be rational. Muslims, they boasted, cannot come to terms with rationality and do not understand the finer points of causality, because for them God is not bound by reason and is whimsical in His actions and decisions.

This orientalists' rendition of Islam seems to have informed the pope's remarks.  Set alongside the Byzantine emperor's claim that the prophet brought "things only evil and inhuman," the implication is that Islam and its prophet are not simply violent but irrational. So, the pope's exhortation to Europe made use of Islam as a convenient foil against which to cast the rationality of Christian faith. Papal infallibility, thankfully, is limited to matters of Christian faith and morals and does not extend to Islam. His thinking on Islam, at least as presented in the speech in question, adopted the orientalists' viewpoint, one that is now grossly obsolete in scholarship on Islam, which in recent years has undergone a sea change in its perspective on the rationality of Muslim thought.

Ironically, the very argument made by the pope is one long made by Muslim scholars: Reason has vast horizons and is not limited to what is empirically verifiable, but exists in order to bring us into a relation of harmony with others, with God above all.  The orientalists' tagging of Islam and even its greatest thinkers as enemies of reason is now yielding to a much more nuanced view, one in line with the overall theology of the pope's speech. The great Ghazali, for example, an eleventh-century scholar whom Muslims far and wide continue to revere and read today, advanced a position remarkably similar to the pope's, namely that the human mind exists to acquire knowledge of God, but a knowledge of God that is limited neither to philosophical ruminations nor literal readings of scripture, but to vaster horizons illuminated by the voice of God.  His oeuvre, we understand today, stands as a testimony to the integration of faith and reason-reason, it should be added, very much of the Greek kind (i.e. logic) so enthusiastically defended by the pope's speech within the Christian context.

What emerges from this incident is the struggle within Christianity, at its very papal heart, over the image of Islam that will guide Christian relations with Muslims.  Muslim-Christian relations have warmed over the last decades. This has been due to greater contact among the leaders of the two religions. Contact, however, is not enough. The big issue in Christianity lurking behind the pope's speech is the image of Islam that is to reign within Christianity. Is it from God-or not?  In this question specifically, the Muslim response to the papal citation of a Byzantine emperor is comprehensible. If Islam is from God, one could never make such insinuations about the figure who conveyed it to the world.

Christianity and Islam are like fraternal twins-similar but not the same in their claim to have brought the biblical message to fulfillment. The shared outlook has the potential to draw the two religions together. We hear little of the countless concrete examples of this closeness. Indeed, the Holy See did not hesitate in its assessment of the Danish cartoon controversy: It did not serve the purposes of love and charity. But twins also test each other. The pope may not have expected the magnitude of the outcry that his remarks generated, but he was testing the waters.

Christianity cannot ignore Islam, and this is especially true in Europe, once the bastion of Christendom, where the appearance of sizeable Muslim communities, alongside a precipitous decline in Christian faith commitment, has provoked anxiety in church circles. Exasperation is occasionally expressed in Rome over restrictions faced by Christians, not to mention Muslim converts to Christianity, in some Muslim areas while Muslims in Europe enjoy complete freedom to pursue religion. Demands for reciprocity simplify the state of Muslim life in Europe and can even feed the flames of European Islamophobia, but they also mask a deeper anxiety: Islam is in our midst. Do we have the spiritual confidence, let alone intellectual wherewithal, to respond to it?

Catholic-Muslim relations will suffer as a result of the papal speech, but not irreparably. Catholics and Muslims have come too far to cast all aside. Both Muslim leaders and state officials of Muslim-majority nations benefit from cordial relations with the Vatican. Most significantly, Muslims have their own anxieties, brought to the fore by the current crisis, namely the further setback in the image of Islam, not from the papal speech but the Muslim response to it. Positive relations with Christians are too important to Muslims to be sacrificed for a single infelicitous papal citation.

The vital question is not whether the crisis will pass and inter-religious coexistence resume. The real question is whether the pope will do something to ensure that such misunderstanding never recurs, putting an end once and for all to the centuries-long cycle of using Islam as a negative foil against which to solidify the faith commitments of Christians. A great opportunity lies before the papacy, the possibility of using this crisis to inaugurate a new era of Christian-Muslim harmony, with positive repercussions for the current global climate. The door has been partly opened with the papal invitation to "frank and sincere dialogue", dialogue that, he assuredly meant, would include Christian-Muslim consideration of violence in their respective traditions.  But at this point we need something more than dialogue.

We need a Christian statement, issued by the Vatican, on the prophet Muhammad.  This is what is at stake for Muslims, the image of the prophet whom they love so dearly and who was sent to them by God to convey to them knowledge of Him. It was his prophetic mission that gave to Islam its characteristic features of rationality, justice, commitment to moral virtues, generosity and charity. This is how the prophet is remembered by Muslims. This is why he is revered and loved. The depiction of him as evil and inhuman by a Byzantine emperor and papal citation of that depiction says to Muslims that Christians have turned their back on their fraternal twin.

Muhammad, the prophet of Islam, represents everything Muslims stand for and hold dear, and they hope for some Christian recognition of this reality. The Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) spoke very warmly about Islam as a path to holiness, but was noticeably silent on Muhammad. What is sorely needed is a Vatican statement on the prophet Muhammad that reflects the love that Muslims have for him. This need not appear paradoxical-i.e., Christian reverence for the prophet of Islam. It would create a whole new space for Christians and Muslims to interact positively and dialogue frankly.  It would also work to diffuse so many tensions now existing in the current global divides.

The upcoming papal visit to Turkey, in light of the current crisis, offers a historic opportunity for a pope to express Christian love for the prophet of Islam. Doing so will overcome so many centuries of Christian misusage of Muhammad, establish a permanent basis for Christian-Muslim harmony, and greatly help to put a brake on what now appears to be an unstoppable march to global fragmentation.

Paul L. Heck is a professor of Islamic Studies in Georgetown University's Theology Department. He can be reached at: [email protected]