What made that moment so significant was the reciprocal courtesy between the pontiff and his Muslim hosts. He walked into the Muslim shrine with Istanbul Grand Mufti Mustafa Çagrici — who about a month ago had signed an "Open Letter to His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI by 38 Leading Muslim Scholars and Leaders," a scholarly response to the Regensburg address. After taking a tour in the beautifully decorated 17th century masterpiece, the pope stood beside the mufti with his face turned towards Mecca "in a moment of meditation." Then he accepted the gift of a ceramic tile inscribed with the words "In the name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful" in the form of a dove. Placing his hand on the tile, he said: "Thank you for this gift. Let us pray for brotherhood and for all humanity." "Your Holiness," the mufti replied with a smile, "please remember us."

The Rev. Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman, later said the mosque visit was "truly a great step forward" in relations between Muslims and Christians and that "the welcome the pope received certainly was very cordial without any coldness or reserve."

This cordiality was not taken for granted before the pope's four-day visit to Turkey. Most Westerners feared that a poisonous attitude might be awaiting the pontiff. According to Tony Blankley of The Washington Times, he was walking into "the lion's den." Many in the Turkish media, on the other hand, were worried that he would do and say things which would spark further reaction among Turks.

It did not turn out to be so. Of course, there was an unwelcoming rally in Istanbul before his arrival, and small groups of protestors on his route, but the Turkish public proved to be much calmer than expected. Turkish officials, including the devoutly Muslim prime minister and the country's top clerics, showed great respect for their holy guest and took meticulous measures to ensure his safety.

Pope Benedict, on the other hand, made gesture after gesture from the first moment he arrived in Ankara. His repeatedly respectful remarks about Islam and the Turks created a noticeable sympathy towards him in the Turkish media, including some prominent Islamic commentators. While the radical Islamist Vakit remained bluntly anti-papal, the more moderate Yeni Safak took a mild stance, and the arch-moderate Zaman almost praised the pontiff's inter-faith ecumenism.

On the other hand, some secular nationalists who were not moved at all by the pope's gesture at the mosque were quite displeased with him for nationalist — not Islamic — hype: that the Patriarchate should not be called the Ecumenical Patriarchate, but the pope did so. Emin Cölasan — a Hürriyet columnist famed for his nationalism, secularism and anti-liberalism — wrote that the pope and the patriarch "scored a goal" on the Turks by using the term "ecumenical." Cölasan also blamed the government for not being able to prevent the pope from using the heretical word. For him, even the fact that the two Christian leaders did not publish a Turkish version of their Common Declaration was an offense to the Turkish nation.

Another secular nationalist pundit, Güler Kömürcü of the daily Aksam, in her piece titled "The Secret Agenda of the Pope," asked, "How dare the pope come to Turkey and call the Patriarchate ecumenical, defying Turkish law?" According to Kömürcü, this was a conspiracy cooked up in Washington, and the Turks should have better aligned themselves with the Russians in the face of this "threat."

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What all this implies is that the anti-Western (and to a degree anti-Christian) trend in Turkey is more complex than most Westerners seem to assume. This trend is actually a manifestation of the ideology called "Occidentalism" — a term coined Ian Buruma and Avi Margalit to define the distorted depiction and the systematic detestation of the West — and it is not limited to the Islamists. Not all Occidentalists are Muslim, to put it succinctly, and not all Muslims are Occidentalist.

And that's why a dialogue between the West and Islam, or Christians and Muslims, is not only possible but desperately needed. Positive steps, like the Sultan Ahmet moment, do find echoes on the other side of the world, and this means that there is really hope for averting a clash of civilizations.

So what we need is more of such steps. Or, to borrow a slogan from the '60s, "Two, Three, Many Sultan Ahmets!"