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Uproar over Speech

Muslims Angered by Pope's Remarks

An inflammatory remark about Islam in a lecture by Pope Benedict XVI has caused a wave of protest throughout the Muslim world. The Vatican says the comment was not meant to offend, but a papal trip to Turkey may be in trouble.

When Pope Benedict XVI travelled to Bavaria last week for six days of speeches and celebrations in and around his hometown, he wasn't expecting controversy. But criticism spread around the world on Friday in the wake of remarks he made about Islam in a lecture at the University of Regensburg.

Pakistan's lower house passed a unanimous resolution Friday morning condemning a passage in the speech that referred to violent Islamic struggles. "This statement has hurt the sentiments of Muslims," the resolution said. "This is also against the charter of the United Nations. This house demands the Pope retract his remarks in the interest of harmony among different religions of the world."

The leader of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, Mohammed Mahdi Akef, also called for an apology. A statement on the organization's web site said the pope's remarks "threaten world peace" and expressed surprise "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."

Leaders from Turkey to Indonesia made similar criticisms, and the Vatican was forced to try and explain the comments. A statement from the pope's chief spokesman, the Reverend Federico Lombardi, said the pope wanted to "cultivate an attitude of respect and dialogue" toward other religions "and obviously also toward Islam." Lombardi added, "What is important to the pope is a clear and radical rejection of the religious motivation of violence."

"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," Lombardi said in a statement.

Most of the pope's lecture was about reason and religion, not Islam, but he did use the word "jihad" and dropped an inflammatory quotation from a 14th-century Byzantine emperor, Manuel II Paleologus, who said the Prophet Mohammed's teachings had brought "things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." The pope called the quotation "brusque" but otherwise didn't temper it. He said the emperor "goes on to explain in detail the reasons why spreading the faith through violence is something unreasonable. Violence is incompatible with the nature of God," the pope declared.

Din Syamsuddin, chairman of Indonesia's second largest Islamic organization, said the pope's use of the word "jihad" for "holy war" was irresponsible because "jihad" can also mean a campaign against sin waged within an individual. "The pope's statements reflect his lack of wisdom," said Syamsuddin, who warned that the remarks might hurt relations between Muslims and Catholics. "Whether (he) apologizes or not, the Islamic community should show that Islam is a religion of compassion."

Turkey Trip Threatened

The controversy is poorly timed for the pope because he plans to visit Turkey in November. A Muslim cleric named Ali Bardakoglu, who heads the Turkish government's department of religious affairs, wondered in a TV interview on Thursday whether Benedict XVI should cancel his trip. "I do not think any good will come from the visit to the Muslim world of a person who has such ideas about Islam's prophet," Bardakoglu said. "He should first of all replace the grudge in his heart with moral values and respect for the other."

Similar sentiments were echoed in the Turkish press on Friday. "We don't want to see anyone who mocks our prophet in Turkey," wrote Ahmet Yildiz, chairman of a trade union for employees in Turkey's religious-affairs department, in an Islamic newspaper.

Turkey is a majority Muslim nation, but the pope's main reason for travelling there will be to meet the spiritual leader of Eastern Orthodox Christians, Patriarch Bartholomew I, who has his headquarters in Istanbul.

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