Is it wrong to exclude Muslims by calling Europe Christian?

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TIME magazine recently put together an article about the Pope and Islam. One of the commentaries, written by a Muslim, was critical of the Pope for ignoring the contributions of Islam to European thought when the Pope said Europe has its roots in classical thought and Christianity, and that Europe owed it’s existing culture and being to Christianity. He brought up some interesting points, such as the contributions to European thought Muslims like Averroes made.

His conclusion was that the Pope was reading history selectively, that European society and thought has pluralistic origins, and the Pope is wrong to give all the credit to Christianity. When the Pope says the EU ought to give credit to Christianity, he’s silencing Muslim voices from the past and making Europe seem more homogeneous than it was, and that it’s wrong to not acknowledge the Muslim contributions to European culture. Ergo, Turkey should be in the EU, since to be European does not mean being Christian. What do people think of this?
 
mcliffor said:
TIME magazine recently put together an article about the Pope and Islam. One of the commentaries, written by a Muslim, was critical of the Pope for ignoring the contributions of Islam to European thought when the Pope said Europe has its roots in classical thought and Christianity, and that Europe owed it’s existing culture and being to Christianity. He brought up some interesting points, such as the contributions to European thought Muslims like Averroes made.

His conclusion was that the Pope was reading history selectively, that European society and thought has pluralistic origins, and the Pope is wrong to give all the credit to Christianity. When the Pope says the EU ought to give credit to Christianity, he’s silencing Muslim voices from the past and making Europe seem more homogeneous than it was, and that it’s wrong to not acknowledge the Muslim contributions to European culture. Ergo, Turkey should be in the EU, since to be European does not mean being Christian. What do people think of this?
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While it is true that the Muslims of the time contributed to the development of European thought in the Middle Ages it is not true to say that Islam contributed to the thought itself. There is a minor distinction that must be made.

As you state the commentator mentions Averroes and I would all reference Al Gazelle. However, it was not the philosophy of these two scholars that was accepted in Europe but rather it was the thought of Aristotle that was brought back to Europe through the philosophies of Islam. Remember, Western Europe was cut off from the East because of historical calamities. Many of the great writings of the great thinkers were lost. However, they still existed in the East in Byzantium. During the Abassid Caliphate Baghdad was a center of learning bringing together Islamic, Jewish and Christian (Byzantine) thinkers together. These thinkers used the ancient Greek philosophers and had their writings. Through the course of migration, trade, conquest, etc the West was reintroduced to these Greek writings through the above mentioned philosophies. There were some western scholars that took on the philosophy of Averroes but these were condemned as error (see: De unitate intellectus contra Averroistas by St. Thomas Aquinas).

Rather, the contribution that Islam gave to Europe was really only as a conduit of rediscovering the works that had been lost to them because of barbarian invasions. Actual Muslim thought was either ignored or condemned.
 
mcliffor said:
His conclusion was that the Pope was reading history selectively, that European society and thought has pluralistic origins, and the Pope is wrong to give all the credit to Christianity. When the Pope says the EU ought to give credit to Christianity, he’s silencing Muslim voices from the past and making Europe seem more homogeneous than it was, and that it’s wrong to not acknowledge the Muslim contributions to European culture. Ergo, Turkey should be in the EU, since to be European does not mean being Christian. What do people think of this?
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Muslim countries don’t generally give credit to anything from non-muslim sources, nor do they acknowledge the contributions to the countries from the non-muslims living in them. Some do not give rights to any non-muslims, to the point of denying they even exist. Perhaps the author should consider the hypocrisy of his position.

The remark that EU ought to give credit to Christianity does not silence muslim voices from the past, as much as muslims’ refusal to accept the existence of the worst excesses of Islamic expansionism silences non muslim voices both in the past and in the present.

Turkey should not be in the EU because it is not a democracy and it has wide ranging human rights abuses that would be incompatible with EU law signed up by everyone else. Also, while claiming to be secular, turkey does not recognise any religion other than Islam, nor any ethnicity other than Turkish. I believe the Pope was discussing Turkey should not be in the EU, not because Turkey is not Christian, but because Turkey does not subscribe to Christian values - including respect for all irrespective of faith.
 
As others are saying, Muslims merely reintroduced what was already written by authors of European descent, etc. If had not been for Aristotle, Plato, etc. then Muslim philosophy and theology would not have achieved what it did.
 
The contribution of Islam to European history. Hmmmm. Let’s see. There was the conquest of Spain, the invasion of France, the destruction of Byzantium, the conquest of the Balkans, the Tatar Yoke in Russia and Ukraine, the sack of Sicily and Italian coastal cities, the destruction of Hungary, the conscription of Christian children to become Janissaries to fight their own people, slave-catching raids as far north as Poland, Lithuania, Ireland, England and Iceland and the siege of Vienna. Gosh! There really is a lot of Islamic contribution to European history when you think about it!
 
I don’t think it’s wrong to exclude Muslims from Europe, period. Christianity civilized Europe, and Europe is historically Christian. If Muslims (or anyone else, for that matter) are offended by that, well, they need to get over themselves.
 
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