Pope Takes Credit for Making History in UAE...But Did He?

Pope: My UAE trip Wrote New page in Christian-Islam History

VATICAN CITY —
Pope Francis says his pilgrimage this week to the United Arab Emirates wrote a "new page in history of the dialogue between Christianity and Islam" and in promoting world peace based on brotherhood.

The pope denies there's a current clash between Christian and Islamic civilizations.  
An Egyptian - born Jesuit priest had this to say of the reality of the clash:

An expert of Islam and author of nearly 30 books in 15 languages, Father Boulad told Register Rome correspondent Edward Pentin via email Jan. 19...he also asked that the Holy Father change his position on Islam, calling his approach “much too naive and angelic.”

In an interview with the Register in 2017, Father Boulad said Islamist terrorists were applying what their religion teaches them, but that the Church had failed to address this because she had fallen prey to a leftist ideology that is destroying the West.

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Father Boulad highlighted some Islamic practices that create barriers to improved relations:

• the apostasy considered by Islam as a crime punishable by death; moreover, the UAE do not recognize or authorize the teaching of any religion except Islam.
• The status of second-class citizens and submission (dhimmi) for non-Muslims raises the issue of religious freedom.
• The status of women and the issue of citizen equality should be dealt with.
• If the Emirates disassociate themselves from Islamist terrorism, we expect them to firmly condemn the Muslim Brotherhood, Daesh [ISIS] and other extremist groups.
• The Observatory of Religious Freedom says about Bahrain [e.g. non-Muslim missionary activities among Muslims are not allowed; the country’s Shia majority continues to face oppression] and the UAE [e.g., Muslim citizens do not have the right to change religion. Apostasy in Islam is punishable by death].

Pope Francis has hardly changed his approach to Islam in any way. His policy of the outstretched hand is always the same: that is to say, much too naive and angelic. Massive migration to Europe, mainly from Muslim countries, which he supports, shows that he loses sight of the serious societal problems that will arise: the non-integration/assimilation of Muslims in host countries, the incompatibilities of Islam with human rights, secularism, freedom and equality — not to mention the contradictions in the Pope’s statements.

On the one hand, he asks the host countries to respect the culture of immigrants, their Islamic worldview and traditions. And on the other hand, he asks Muslims to integrate and to respect the laws of the host country. It is quite difficult to reconcile these two opposite views, since Muslims consider the Sharia [law] to stand above the laws of the secular European host countries.

It is well known that Muslims have never integrated in countries invaded by them. Rather, they have forced the conquered countries to lose — often permanently — their ethnic and cultural identities, their religions, their languages and their traditions. This is a serious problem that arises more and more with political Islam in Europe. The Pope seems to ignore the history of Muslim conquests and the societal problems posed to Europe by political Islam. This endangers European identities, their traditions and their Judeo-Christian roots.

The president of Egypt expressed his frustration with the Pope's "partner", Grand Imam of al-Azhar Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb, because al-Tayeb has been less than responsive to making the Sunni university more liberal:

FEW Egyptians dare challenge Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi, their authoritarian president. But one institution has stood up to him. “You wear me out,” Mr Sisi reportedly told Ahmed al-Tayeb, the grand imam of Cairo’s al-Azhar University, last month.

It has been over two years since Mr Sisi, an observant Muslim, lamented that some of his co-religionists were becoming “a source of worry, fear, danger, murder and destruction to all the world”. He urged Egyptian clerics to push back against the jihadists of Islamic State (IS). Egypt itself was a victim, he said: angry Islamists have attacked the government and an affiliate of IS battles the army in Sinai. To combat such extremism, “a religious revolution” was needed, said Mr Sisi—and al-Azhar, the Sunni world’s oldest seat of learning, should take the lead.

But the clerics, led by Mr Tayeb, have largely resisted Mr Sisi’s appeal. Though al-Azhar bills itself as moderate, critics say that it has allowed hardliners to remain in senior positions and failed to reform its curriculums, which include centuries-old texts often cited by extremists. It has blocked efforts at social reform and tried to censor its critics. “Nothing has been done since the president called for renewing religious discourse,” said Helmi al-Namnam, the culture minister, last August.

After the president called for an end to verbal divorce—a man must simply say “talaq” (divorce) three times—a council of scholars from al-Azhar deemed the practice perfectly Islamic. “Society needs to adapt to the rules of Islam, not the other way round,” said one professor.

Mr Tayeb insists that al-Azhar is “the pulpit of moderate, centrist and tolerant Islam”, but it is not monolithic. “People within al-Azhar are just as divided as the Egyptian society,” says Amr Ezzat of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, a pressure group. Some of its students and preachers are Salafists (purists); many are sympathetic to the Brotherhood. The government has little control over its personnel and Mr Tayeb tolerates the different factions. “He is not strict against religious extremism,” says Mr Ezzat.

....al-Azhar has tried to shut down debate outside. It has filed lawsuits against several authors and artists under Egypt’s blasphemy laws. A recent victim is Islam Behery, who parsed sayings of the Prophet Muhammad and criticised al-Azhar on his television show, “With Islam”. The institution brought several suits against him, resulting in a one-year prison sentence (he was later pardoned by Mr Sisi). “The blasphemy law is used by al-Azhar as a sword,” says Ahmed Khatib, who has reported on corruption at the institution—and who is also being sued by the clerics.

While Francis was the first pope to visit the Arabian Peninsula, it remains to be seen if the outcome of the visit is as historic.