It is not without reason Pope Francis chose a Friday to kickstart his visit to Muslim-majority Iraq. The pontiff is displaying the Western world’s symbolic outreach to Muslims by setting his foot on Iraqi soil on a Friday, the weekly congregational prayer day for all Muslims, to prove that the great Abrahamic religion of Islam stands tall beyond the insignia of Islamophobia and the terrorism tag. By breaking bread with Muslims on a Friday, the pope is asking the Western world to rethink its confrontational cultural theory of a “clash of civilizations” and down the shutters of all theaters of war in Islamic nations, from Afghanistan to Syria and beyond.