Why would the pope raise these volatile questions, and in an academic lecture that he surely knew would be reduced to sound bites that distorted his meaning? I think that Benedict knew precisely the risks he was taking and thought the risks worthwhile. Why? Because he believes in the power of reason to cut through the fog of passion. Because he believes that serious problems — such as those posed by jihadist Islam — can be solved only by examining them at their roots. And because he might well have wanted to extend a helping hand to those Islamic reformers who are trying to convince the extremists among their fellow Muslims that irrational violence in the name of God is, in fact, offensive to the one true God.
Will the pope's wager prove foolish or wise? An influential Italian Muslim commentator, Magdi Allam, writing in Corriere della Sera, Italy's leading daily newspaper, got the point: Why is it, he wrote, that "Muslims, especially the so-called moderates, never stand up ... against the true and perpetual profaners of Islam, the Islamic terrorists who massacre Muslims themselves in the name of God?" Against the jihadist calls for Benedict's death, voices such as Allam's suggest that, far from provoking a clash of civilizations, Pope Benedict XVI has put on the table the questions that have to be debated, rationally, to avoid just such a confrontation: How do we imagine God, and how do our ideas of God shape the way we live?
