Controversy rages about Pope's comments on Islam

[Al-khiyal]

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman."

~ 14th Century Byzantine Christian emperor, Manuel II, quoted by Pope Benedict XVI

Pope Benedict XVI hit out at Islam and its concept of Holy War late Tuesday during one of the last public appearances of his six-day visit to his Bavarian homeland.

The thinly-veiled attack on extremist Islam's justification for terrorism came in a complex theological lecture to staff and students at the University of Regensburg, where the former Joseph Ratzinger taught theology in the 1970s.

Using the words, "Jihad" and "Holy War" in his lecture, the pope quoted criticisms of the Prophet Mohammed by a 14th Century Byzantine Christian emperor, Manuel II.

"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," Benedict quoted him as saying in a contemporary debate with a learned Persian.

"The emperor goes on to explain in detail the reasons why spreading the faith through violence is something unreasonable," said Benedict, during his 32-minute lecture on the relationship between faith and reason.

"Violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul," he added.

Reiterating his concerns about a modern world "deaf" to God, he warned that other religious cultures saw the West's exclusion of God "as an attack on their most profound convictions".

"A reason which is deaf to the divine and which relegates religion into the realm of subcultures is incapable of entering into the dialogue of cultures," he said.

Although the section of the lecture dealing with Islam was relatively short, its inclusion made his address at Regensburg the most political of his six-day visit, which had previously dealt exclusively with spiritual matters.

Presiding later over an ecumenical prayer meeting with Orthodox Christian and Protestant leaders, the pope led prayers for the success of ongoing discussions with other Churches aimed ultimately at uniting Christians, a clear aim of his pontificate.

At a giant open-air mass earlier Tuesday attended by some 250,000 pilgrims, the pope urged them to stand up for their beliefs in the face of the "hatred and fanaticism" tarnishing religion.

Such an atmosphere made it "important to state clearly the God in whom we believe," the pope said.

The white-haired pontiff waved to the cheering crowd from his popemobile as he arrived for the mass, celebrated atop a giant altar surrounded by priests and choirs.

"Today, when we have learned to recognize the pathologies and life-threatening diseases associated with religion and reason, and the ways that God's image can be destroyed by hatred and fanaticism, it is important to state clearly the God in whom we believe," said the pope.

"Only this God saves us from being afraid of the world and from anxiety before the emptiness of life."

A young man charged towards the altar where the pope was sitting at the end of the mass, but he was stopped by plain-clothes police officers and the pontiff was not in danger, Bavaria's Interior Minister Guenther Beckstein said. The mayor of Regensburg, Hans Schaidinger, said: "It was not a serious disruption to security. It was apparently a young fan, who in his excitement wanted to reach the altar."

Benedict earlier told the congregation at his open-air mass that he had been taken aback by the goodwill of local people, including those who spruced up the house he maintains in nearby Pentling which he will visit on Wednesday.

The Vatican said the pope would spend Wednesday on a private visit with his 82-year-old brother Georg, a retired priest, and visit the cemetery where their parents and sister are buried.

Pope hits out at Islam

[Al-khiyal]

CAIRO (Reuters) - Muslim leaders on Thursday condemned Pope Benedict over comments he made about Islam on a visit to Germany and demanded he apologize.

The head of the Egyptian-based Muslim Brotherhood called on Islamic countries to threaten to break off relations with the Vatican unless the pontiff withdrew his remarks.

A top religious figure in Turkey suggested the pope should reconsider a trip he is planning to Turkey later this year.

The Vatican issued a statement to say the Pope had never meant to offend Islam.

In his speech at the University of Regensburg on Tuesday, Benedict quoted criticism of Islam and the Prophet Mohammad by 14th century Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Palaeologus, who wrote that everything Mohammad brought was evil and inhuman, "such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached."

Benedict, who used the terms "jihad" and "holy war," repeatedly quoted Manuel's argument that spreading the faith through violence is unreasonable, adding: "Violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul."

The head of the Muslim Brotherhood, Mohamed Mahdi Akef, whose organization is one of the oldest, largest and most influential in the Arab world, said the pope "aroused the anger of the whole Islamic world and strengthened the argument of those who say that the West is hostile to everything Islamic."

"The general guide (Akef) expressed his surprise that such comments should come from someone who sits at the summit of the Catholic Church and who has an influence over public opinion in the West," said a statement on the Muslim Brotherhood's official Web site, www.ikhwanonline.com.

The Vatican press office said in a statement the pope had not intended to carry out an in-depth study of jihad (holy war) and Muslim thinking about it, "even less to offend the sensitivity of the Muslim faithful."

"It is clear that the Holy Father's intention is to cultivate a position of respect and dialogue toward other religions and cultures, and that clearly includes Islam," the statement by chief Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi said.

He said a careful reading of the Pope's lecture would show that "what really matters to the Holy Father is a clear and radical rejection of religious motives for violence."

In Turkey, the Anatolian state news agency quoted Ali Bardakoglu, the head of Ankara's Directorate General for Religious Affairs, as describing the Pope's words as "extremely regrettable."

"I do not see any use in somebody visiting the Islamic world who thinks in this way about the holy prophet of Islam. He should first rid himself of feelings of hate," NTV's Web site quoted Bardakoglu as saying.

Bardakoglu, whose directorate controls all imams in Turkey and sends prayer leaders to Turkish communities abroad, recalled atrocities committed by Roman Catholic Crusaders during the Middle Ages in the name of their faith against Orthodox Christians and Jews as well as Muslims.

Benedict is due to visit Turkey, an avowedly secular state whose population is predominantly Muslim, in November at the invitation of President Ahmet Necdet Sezer.

In Qatar, prominent Muslim scholar Sheikh Youssef al-Qaradawi rejected the Pope's comments and said Islam was a religion of peace and reason.

"Muslims have the right to be angry and hurt by these comments from the highest cleric in Christianity," Qaradawi told Al Jazeera television. "We ask the pope to apologize to the Muslim nation for insulting its religion, its Prophet and its beliefs."

Muslim leaders condemn Pope's speech, want apology

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Vatican says Pope didn't mean to offend Muslims

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Paris • Pope Benedict XVI faced sharp reactions yesterday to a lecture in which he linked Islam with violence, with Muslim leaders in several countries demanding he apologise.

Dr Youssef Al Qardawi, widely respected Muslim scholar said: “This is not the first time this pope has adopted a negative attitude towards Islam and Muslims."

"Does the pope want to close the door on dialogue and new crusades to be readied?” he asked.

"We hope the pope will call for positive dialogue between religions, true dialogue between civilisations rather than confrontation and conflict," Qardawi added.

“Some violence is legitimate in the eyes of both religion and law, such as resistance to the occupation in Palestine, Lebanon or in Iraq.”

“We call for peace because our religion orders it, but if war is imposed on us we will take it to our hearts,” Qardawi added.

Benedict provoked the outcry with comments on Tuesday in a theological lecture in which he implicitly denounced connections between Islam and violence, particularly with regard to jihad, or ‘holy war’.

The head of the French Council for the Muslim Religion (CFCM), Dalil Boubakeur, said: “We hope that the (Roman Catholic) Church will very quickly... clarify its position so that it does not confuse Islam, which is a revealed religion, with Islamism, which is not a religion but a political ideology.” The pope's official spokesman later issued a response to the outcry, saying that Benedict respected Islam but rejected violence motivated by religion.

"It was certainly not the intention of the Holy Father to do an in-depth study of jihad and Muslim thinking in this field and still less so to hurt the feelings of Muslim believers," said Federico Lombardi, head of the Vatican's press department.

The pope's comments, made in a lecture at the University of Regensburg during a visit to his native Bavaria in southern Germany, were couched in a historical reference to a 14th century Byzantine emperor.

"He said, I quote, '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,'" Benedict said, quoting the Byzantine source on the Prophet Mohammed, peace be upon him.

The comments provoked an outcry among Muslims in several countries.

"It is a statement full of enmity and grudge," said Ali Bardakoglu, the head of Turkey's state-run religious affairs directorate. He also expressed opposition to the pope's planned visit to Turkey in November.

Senior Islamic officials in Kuwait and Egypt demanded an immediate apology by the head of the Roman Catholic Church.

Hakem Al Mutairi, secretary general of Kuwait's Umma (Islamic Nation) party, urged Muslim countries to recall their ambassadors from the Vatican until the pope apologised for what Mutairi called his “calumnies” against Islam.

Several Islamic parties in Pakistan expressed their regret at the pope's comments, and the 57-nation Organisation of the Islamic Conference in Jeddah called on the Vatican to clarify its "true position on Islam and its precepts".

This demand was echoed by Mustapha Cherif, an Algerian Islam expert and co-founder of an Islamic-Christian friendship group, who said Benedict's views should be "made explicit".

"If they are confirmed, that proves Islam is misunderstood," Cherif said in Paris. He also called on Muslims to help promote understanding of their faith.

Benedict's speech at Regensburg University explored the historical and philosophical differences between Islam and Christianity, and the relationship between violence and faith. "Violence is incompatible with the nature of God," he said.

Muslims also objected to another part of the lecture, in which Benedict quoted a scholar's assertion that the Muslim view of God, unlike the Christian, was not informed by the Greek-inspired western philosophical tradition of "rationality".

Pope’s comment on Islam sparks outrage

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Pope invited to a public debate

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Pope Benedict XVI did not intend to offend Muslim sensibilities with remarks about holy war, the Vatican said Thursday night, scrambling to defend the pontiff as anger built in the Islamic world over some of his remarks during his pilgrimage in Germany.

"It certainly wasn't the intention of the pope to carry out a deep examination of jihad (holy war) and on Muslim thought on it, much less to offend the sensibility of Muslim believers," a Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, who accompanied the pontiff on the trip, said in a statement after Benedict returned to Rome.

A few hours earlier, Turkey's top Islamic cleric asked Benedict to apologize about the remarks and unleashed a string of accusations against Christianity, raising tensions before the pontiff's planned visit to Turkey in November on what would be his first papal pilgrimage in a Muslim country.

Religious Affairs Directorate head Ali Bardakoglu, a cleric who sets the religious agenda for Turkey, said he was deeply offended by remarks about Islamic holy war made Tuesday during the pilgrimage to the pontiff's homeland, and called the remarks "extraordinarily worrying, saddening and unfortunate."

Bardakoglu said that "if the pope was reflecting the spite, hatred and enmity" of others in the Christian world, then the situation was even worse.

The pope made his remarks on Islam in a speech in which he quoted from a book recounting a conversation between 14th-century Byzantine Christian Emperor Manuel Paleologos II and an educated Persian on the truths of Christianity and Islam.

"The emperor comes to speak about the issue of jihad, holy war," the pope said.

"He said, I quote, '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,'" he quoted the emperor as saying.

Clearly aware of the delicacy of the issue, Benedict added, "I quote," twice before pronouncing the phrases on Islam and described them as "brusque," while neither explicitly agreeing with nor repudiating them.

In Egypt, Mohammed Mahdi Akef, the leader of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, also called for an apology.

"The remarks do not express correct understanding of Islam and are merely wrong and distorted beliefs being repeated in the West," Akef said in a statement Thursday evening. Akef said he was "astonished that such remarks come from someone who sits on top of the Catholic Church, which has its influence on the public opinion in the West."

The 57-nation Organization of the Islamic Conference, based in Jiddah, Saudi Arabia said it regretted "the pope's quote and for the other falsifications."

Militant Islamic Web sites also unleashed a scathing campaign against the pope.

Lombardi insisted that the pontiff respects Islam.

Benedict wants to "cultivate an attitude of respect and dialogue toward the other religions and cultures, obviously also toward Islam," Lombardi said in a statement released by the Vatican.

"It is opportune to note that that which is at the pope's heart is a clear and radical refusal of the religious motivation of violence," Lombardi said.

"Proper consideration of the religious dimension is, in fact, an essential premise for a fruitful dialogue with the great cultures and religions of the world," Lombardi said.

While in Germany, Lombardi said that the pontiff had not given an interpretation of Islam as "something violent," although the spokesman said the religion contained both violent and non-violent strains.

The Muslim Brotherhood's Akef contended that the pope's remarks "threaten world peace" and "pour oil on the fire and ignite the wrath of the whole Islamic world to prove the claims of enmity of politicians and religious men in the West to whatever is Islamic."

The Organization of the Islamic Conference expressed hopes that "this sudden campaign does not reflect a new trend for the Vatican policy toward the Islamic religion."

In his address Tuesday, Benedict did not touch directly on the current controversy over Islamic extremism, although it is an issue he follows closely with concern. In Cologne, Germany, last year, he urged Islamic leaders to take responsibility for their communities and teach their young to abhor violence.

Although officially secular Turkey is 99 percent Muslim, the main purpose of the pope's pilgrimage there is to meet with the spiritual leader of the world's 200 million Orthodox, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, whose headquarters, for historical reasons, are in Istanbul.

As recently as Saturday, while flying to Germany, the pope mentioned Turkey as one of his next pilgrimages abroad.

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Pope compared to Hitler and Mussolini over Islam remarks