ABSTRACT
Napoleon's Egyptian campaign customarily marks the beginnings of Islam's encounter with modernity. The Christian West's reflections on Islam had, until then, been dominated by apologetic and polemical exchanges. The Christian–Muslim encounter of modernity, though, is characterised by the forensic scrutiny of Islamic culture and anthropology by French scientists inextricably linked to the colonial aspirations of empire. The still largely Christian empires of Europe would be gone within a generation following the financial exhaustion of the Second World War and the growing demand for political autonomy in the Indian subcontinent, Middle East, Africa and the Caribbean. Pope Benedict XVI's speech to his alma mater, the University of Regensburg, in September 2006 encapsulates the complexity of the twenty first century of mistrust between Christians and Muslims. Aside from the political clumsiness of the pope, the truly controversial aspect of the lecture is the inference that it is the Christian tradition that has fostered religious rationalism and thus liberal freedoms in the West.
