The Persian, a representative of a religion Manuel II views as embodying things “evil and inhuman,” is left to passively listen, not allowed to contribute anything meaningful to the conversation.

I have described this situation as illustrating what I see as a “monologue of civilizations.” The West dictates and the rest are left to passively consume the intellectual or moral products offered up for their guidance. I see this same, subtle air of superiority informing the second part of the question we are asked to respond to here, namely, “Do you think he [the Pope] and the Christian church in general can help Muslims take on their more violent and extreme elements?”

The subtlety here revolves around the implicit assumption that the church has brought about a society that has escaped the scourge of politically-motivated violence. Hence, from the moral high ground it occupies, it has much to offer us beleaguered Muslims.

It may be comforting for some Christians in this country to believe that they command such moral heights, but millions of massacred civilians stretching from Wounded Knee to Dresden, Hamburg, Tokyo, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Hanoi, Panama City, and more recently throughout the rubble strewn streets of Baghdad, Falluja, Ramadi, and other Iraqi cities bear silent witness to the contrary.

Saying that, I do not mean to imply that the lives of those civilians who have been senselessly slaughtered in operations attributed to Muslim extremists in Dar as-Salaam, New York, Madrid, Bali, Casa Blanca, London, and indeed in Iraq itself, while far fewer in number, are any less valuable than those killed in the places mentioned above.

The murder of an innocent human being anywhere is condemnable and inexcusable, regardless of that individual’s race, religion, national origin, gender or social class. This is a lesson that must be reiterated by the Pope, the Rabbi, the Imam, the Church, the Mosque, the secularists, the atheists, everyone.

Yes, we Muslims, like the adherents of most other faiths, religious or secular, have a problem with violent extremists. That being the case, we can use any assistance we can get in our effort to transcend the current situation. Perhaps the most beneficial thing the Pope and the church can offer is discouraging the violent extremists in their ranks from invading and occupying Muslim lands.

Much of the violence and extremism that currently plagues some parts of the Muslim world and increasingly threatens some countries in the West has been incubated in the societal dysfunction that ensues in the aftermath of violent interventions. Iraq and Afghanistan provide convincing case studies to bear this out.

At the end of the day, politically-motivated violence targeting unsuspecting civilians is our collective problem, and it begs a collective solution. If we are trapped into seeing it as strictly a Muslim problem, we will be prevented from addressing some of its most fundamental causes, and we will be limited in our pursuit of effective, far reaching solutions.