Regarding the dust-up that the Pope instigated by quoting the 14th-century Byzantine emporer Paleologus, when he said “Show me just what Mohammed 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”… I would like to know, what was the Persian intellectual’s response to this?
The one to whom he wrote? I suspect the questions were rhetorical and received no answer, but I’ll await someone with more detailed knowledge of the history of the period.
And as a minor nitpick: Paleologus was the emperor’s surname, his house. I believe this was one of the several Michaels from that house to serve as emperor. To call him Emperor Paleologus is about equivalent to calling the British monarch Queen Windsor VII. 