The Regensburg Lecture, The Islam Peace Lie
14th March 2026
I first read this book in February of 2013 and read it again in 2015 in the face of attempts by Muslims, media, Obama and others to claim that “Islamic terrorism is not Islamic” after Paris. Probably time to bring it out again to at least skim my highlights.
Such claims fly directly in the face of history, the Koran, Islamic tradition, and numerous events and discussions, including the response to Pope Benedict’s Regensburg lecture covered in this book, which I consider to be extremely important for the trinity of faith, reason, and truth in our time — both relative to Islam and secular attacks on that holy trinity of meaning.
The proximate reason that the political left and Islam reacted to the speech was Benedict’s use of a quote from a 14th century dialogue between Byzantine Christian emperor Manuel II Paleologus and a Persian scholar relative to violence in Islam which reads:
“Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached,”