Muslims and the pope

By linking Turkey8217;s hope of a European future to a change in its attitude to minority faiths, the pope has given heart to a growing body of people who demand 8220;reciprocity8221; in relations between the Muslim world and the West. Their argument is that since Muslim minorities are free to practise their faith in historically Christian countries, the Western world should expect Muslim countries to show more respect for the rights of local Christians8230;

In countless ways, the argument goes on, those rights are violated 8212; ranging from Saudi Arabia8217;s ban on non-Muslim worship to the more subtle pressure on the Copts of Egypt who fear the rising power of Islamism. In divided lands like Nigeria and Sudan, Christians in Muslim-dominated regions say they are subject to sharia law at its harshest. In Iran, around 300,000 Christians and 30,000 Jews report harassment, discrimination and hostile propaganda from the official media; followers of the Bahai faith suffer even more.

One problem is that church leaders such as the pope are not best placed to make that case. As he has found in Turkey, many Muslims fear that their Christian neighbours are fifth-columnists for hostile Western powers. That fear grows when Westerners lobby for fellow believers in the East.

Who, then, is the ideal advocate for the rights of religious minorities in the Muslim world? One group of people who should join the fray are Muslim thinkers who live in the West and are hence free to interpret their own religion, and interact with other faiths, in a more generous spirit than tends to be possible in the more conservative atmosphere of most Muslim-majority societies. As beneficiaries of a culture of religious tolerance, they are especially well placed to explain its merits to co-religionists in Islam8217;s heartland8230;

Excerpted from 8216;The Economist8217;, November 30