Among all the extraordinarily remarkable qualities Karol Joseph Wojtyla possessed and displayed to the world as Pope John Paul II, the one that was most striking was his role as a fearless, and yet humble, teacher of the eternal truth as he understood and witnessed it.
As a Muslim, I was one among the millions who watched him from a distance, grew to respect and then adore him for teaching us in countless ways by his words and gestures, and through his writings, what he came to represent in himself by reflecting the splendour of eternal truth.
The abundance of obituaries, commentaries and television coverage of John Paul’s demise over this past week has reminded the world once again of how great and history-making was his papacy.
From the moment he ascended the throne of St. Peter as the first Polish Pope, John Paul’s role as the head of the Catholic Church became inextricably bound with the destiny of Soviet communism. Historians writing about the final two decades of the 20th century will continue to be amazed at how a religious leader armed with the Gospel of Christ confronted a military superpower, urged his fellow believers to “Be not afraid,” and by renewing faith in the hearts of people ruled by godless power, unleashed such a political storm that it dissolved communism across the Soviet empire.
In helping bring about this one momentous event—the liberation of Poland and eastern Europe from Moscow’s control, followed by the disintegration of the Soviet Union—John Paul became a world historical figure. He could then have slipped quietly into the night, his papacy assured a place in history at the end of the most blood-soaked century since Christ walked on Earth.
But then he did so much more. In reaching out to Jews, in a way no other successor of St. Peter had, he turned his church around to open an entirely new Christian-Jewish relationship of healing and respect as the living memory of Holocaust recedes.
He also opened his arms to Muslims and people of other faith traditions. He showed through his ecumenical pilgrimages the meaning of empathy with others, and its immeasurable value in our global village if we are going to make any progress in dealing with the inequities and injustice in our world.
This was his role as a teacher, and John Paul excelled in it. In 1993, two years after the fall of the Soviet Union, he presented his encyclical letter Veritatis Splendor (The Splendour of Truth).
In it he dealt with the troubling phenomenon of the modern world, the unhinging of the meaning of freedom from natural moral law whose author is God. He wrote: “God’s law does not reduce, much less do away with human freedom; rather, it protects and promotes that freedom.”
He taught again, lest the world had forgotten the madness of a century that produced Nazism and Communism, that any diminution of the life and dignity of an individual by deliberate choice imperils human freedom and becomes an assault on God, in whose image we are all created.
Each faith tradition might be likened to a window opening—each lets its followers behold the universal truth beyond themselves, to the extent it is wide enough to let light enter their rooms.
The Koran, Islam’s sacred text, declares: “God is the Light of the heavens and the Earth,” and this “Light upon Light” is incomparable in its majesty.
This light’s universal glory, in the mystical language of the Koran, invariably finds particular expressions in human history.
In John Paul, the world witnessed a remarkable instance of the universal truth become incandescent in one special human being.
?2005 – Salim Mansur is a columnist at Canada’s Sun Media. His column appears at ProudToBeCanadian.ca with Salim Mansur’s express permission by special arrangement with him. Link to ProudToBeCanadian.ca.
He is a member of the Board of Directors for the Center for Islamic Pluralism based in Washington, D.C., a Senior Fellow with the Canadian Coalition for Democracies, and an academic-consultant with the Center for Security Policy in Washington, D.C. He has been a consultant with CIDA on development issues and has published widely in academic journals on foreign policy matters and area studies of the Middle East and South Asia.
Mansur is featured on the documentary Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West produced by the David Horowitz Freedom Center. He also unsuccessfully ran for the Canadian Alliance party in 2000.
Mansur has been accused by Canadian Islamic Congress of using "provocative, self-serving rhetoric", and for "promoting an anti-Arab and anti-Muslim agenda".
He is an Ismaili Muslim.
At a press conference on October 2, 2008, Mansur stated that "Islam is my private life, my conscience...[but] my faith does not take precedence over my duties...to Canada and its constitution, which I embrace freely;" "I am first and most importantly a Canadian;" "only in a free society will you find Islam as a faith and not a political religion." Mansur also criticized New Democratic Party Leader Jack Layton, whom Mansur said "has gone to bed with Islamists", because he is running candidates in Ontario and Quebec who are closely identified with the push for Sharia law.
- Israel: Decades-old conflict not about to cease - Saturday November 24, 2012 at 1:56 pm
- The better man lost the U.S. election - Saturday November 10, 2012 at 9:16 am
- The puzzle in U.S. presidential elections - Saturday November 3, 2012 at 8:43 am
