Why I want Pope Francis on my team

Haroon Moghul is a fellow at the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding. He is an author, essayist and public speaker. Follow him @hsmoghul. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author.

(CNN)I’d like to invite His Holiness Pope Francis to convert to Islam. I hope the world’s Catholics don’t misunderstand me. In fact, I hope they see my overture as a compliment — we’d love to have him on our team, even though it’s a desperate concession. I mean, have you seen who’s on our team?

There’s no Muslim figure comparable to Pope Francis, and certainly none with the kind of platform he enjoys. We Sunni Muslims used to have a Caliph, but not since 1924. Of course, we do have leaders who aspire to similar authority, including Saudi Arabia’s King Salman bin Abdulaziz, whose official titles include that of “Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques.”

Sounds nice, right? Virtuous, humble, devotional: He leads by serving. And leads who? Pope Francis is leader of 1.2 billion Catholics, Christianity’s largest denomination. Saudi Arabia claims to be, and is often described as, the principal Sunni Muslim power, leading the world’s more than 1 billion Sunnis, though its government isn’t even chosen by its own citizens.

But lets take a step back from Saudi Arabia for a moment, and look at what has been going on in its backyard and beyond.

FULL ARTICLE FROM CNN