Muslim chivalry

I love public television and depend on it for dependable information on a variety of topics. Its series "Beyond Theology" was superb. But last evening I watched a program of inferior quality, and this morning I sent this feedback to PBS:

I am a Catholic Christian disappointed in "Jerusalem: Center of the World" because it failed to distinguish between history and myth, between fact and legend. Contrary to the impression it left, for instance, we do not know the spot where the man Jesus was born.

Pandering to piety, the program reinforced naive, literal belief, thus missing an opportunity to advance spiritual understanding and religious harmony. Several times I turned off the TV in disgust and turned it on again, waiting for the segment shown on the Newshour about Saladin. I wish the rest of the program had been as informative and uplifting.

Saladin was a Muslim military and political leader who roundly defeated Christian crusaders but treated them with respect and offered extremely generous terms of surrender. He refused to destroy Christian churches in Jerusalem or supplant them with Muslim mosques, and he invited Jews to resettle in Jerusalem. Admirable.