Like Christians, Muslims are obligated to "convert nonbelievers." Unlike Christianity, however, "the doctrines of Islam dictate war against unbelievers." Jihad, or holy war, is justified as self-defense whenever Islam is threatened -- be it by a conquering power or an offensive cartoon.

Most Muslims do not take those interpretations of the Hadith, or Islamic teaching, as far as Osama bin Laden and the Taliban, Archbishop Bustros said. But the fact is that "the concept of nonviolence is absent from Muslim doctrine and practice."

Although the situation appears grim, Archbishop Bustros noted, "Nothing is inevitable. The clash of civilizations can be avoided" by heeding the words of the Second Vatican Council's document on non-Christian religions, "Nostra Aetate" ("In Our Time"), which called on Christians and Muslims to "forget the past and strive sincerely for human understanding and make common cause of safeguarding and fostering social justice, moral values, peace and freedom."

That means "the West has to respect all other religions and all other civilizations" and not impose its values on them, the archbishop said. It also means "Islam has to change its mentality" and arrive at a new, less literal interpretation of its teachings.

"With the Islam of bin Laden, it's impossible," said Archbishop Bustros. (read more...)

Unfortunately, the Islam of bin Laden appears to be heavily represented in the Muslim population. On the flip side, there are a lot of Muslims "out there" that have much different views of their faith than bin-Laden. We just need them to start standing up and being counted - in a very big way, and sooner not later! As for the clash between Islam and the West referred to here by Archbishop Bustros, I'm far more comfortable with the description of the situation given by Wafa Sultan, that there Is no clash of civilizations (here - worlds), but rather a clash between the mentality of the middle ages and that of the 21st century. With this in mind, one could say that the Islam of bin Laden and the Wahabbis is indeed locked into a mentality belonging to the middle ages, but there are many Muslims that have begun to step into the 21st century.