Muslims demand apology from Pope
Muslims demand apology from Pope
By FT reporters
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2006
Published: September 15 2006 09:44 | Last updated: September 15 2006 17:34
Religious and political leaders across the Muslim world on Friday demanded that Pope Benedict XVI apologise for a speech he made this week indirectly criticising the Islamic concept of “holy war.” Muslim clerics said the speech reflected ignorance of Islam and was insulting to Mohammed.
The latest flare-up of tensions between Christian and Muslim faiths has raised fears in the Vatican about the pope’s safety and cast further doubts over his plans to visit mainly Muslim Turkey in November. The proposed trip had already stirred controversy because of the Pope’s public opposition to Turkey’s ambitions to join the European Union.
Ali Bardakoglu, Turkey’s director of religious affairs, said the Pope’s most recent speech was “an extraordinarily worrying, saddening and unfortunate statement.” He added: “Biased and hostile assessments of Islam and the Prophet Mohammed are common in the western world.”
“It looks like an effort to revive the mentality of the Crusades,” said Salih Kapusuz, a senior figure in the ruling Justice and Development party, which has its roots in political Islam.
The Pope made his controversial remarks in a speech on Tuesday evening at Regensburg university, where he was a theology professor in the late 1960s. The leader of the Catholic church quoted from a book that recounted a conversation between 14th century Byzantine Christian Emperor Manuel Paleologos II and a Persian scholar 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.”
According to the text of the speech, the Pope did not explicitly distance himself from the remarks, but noted positively that the emperor as “erudite” and the unnamed scholar as “educated”.
Elsewhere in the 30-minute speech, which was greeted with a standing ovation, he condemned violence, arguing “violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul.” Throughout his six-day trip to Germany the Pope had stressed the need for a closer dialogue between the Christian and Muslim faiths.
A Vatican spokesman said the Catholic leader had not intended to provide “an in-depth study of jihad and Muslim thinking” but had hoped to “cultivate an attitude of respect and dialogue toward other religions and cultures”.
“The Pope’s words are being extrapolated and disconnected from the context in which he said them and then used for ulterior purposes,” said Monsignor Luigi Padovese Apostolic Vicar for Anatolia.
Theologians noted that the highly academic speech was focused not on Islam but on the relationship between reason and faith in the Christian church. Islamic scholars said the Pope should have been more aware that, even with this focus, he needed to present a more differentiated view of Islam.
Abel Theodor Khoury, a Germany-based Islam professor, from whose book the Pope took the controversial passage, said on Fridayday: “I would have wished for a one or two words of differentiation (in the speech). Two or three lines would have been very effective.”
Edmund Stoiber, conservative state premier of Bavaria, on Friday defended the Pope, arguing that the latter’s “clear rejection of religiously motivated violence should be taken seriously around the world.”
At Friday prayers, Muslim clerics in Pakistan, Lebanon, Egypt and Iran and elsewhere denounced the Pope’s comments. The latest controversy comes six months after Muslim protests against a Danish newspaper that published cartoons of Mohammed.
Reporting by Vincent Boland in Istanbul, Hugh Williamson in Berlin, John Thornhill in Paris, and William Wallis in Cairo
By FT reporters
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2006
Published: September 15 2006 09:44 | Last updated: September 15 2006 17:34
Religious and political leaders across the Muslim world on Friday demanded that Pope Benedict XVI apologise for a speech he made this week indirectly criticising the Islamic concept of “holy war.” Muslim clerics said the speech reflected ignorance of Islam and was insulting to Mohammed.
The latest flare-up of tensions between Christian and Muslim faiths has raised fears in the Vatican about the pope’s safety and cast further doubts over his plans to visit mainly Muslim Turkey in November. The proposed trip had already stirred controversy because of the Pope’s public opposition to Turkey’s ambitions to join the European Union.
Ali Bardakoglu, Turkey’s director of religious affairs, said the Pope’s most recent speech was “an extraordinarily worrying, saddening and unfortunate statement.” He added: “Biased and hostile assessments of Islam and the Prophet Mohammed are common in the western world.”
“It looks like an effort to revive the mentality of the Crusades,” said Salih Kapusuz, a senior figure in the ruling Justice and Development party, which has its roots in political Islam.
The Pope made his controversial remarks in a speech on Tuesday evening at Regensburg university, where he was a theology professor in the late 1960s. The leader of the Catholic church quoted from a book that recounted a conversation between 14th century Byzantine Christian Emperor Manuel Paleologos II and a Persian scholar 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.”
According to the text of the speech, the Pope did not explicitly distance himself from the remarks, but noted positively that the emperor as “erudite” and the unnamed scholar as “educated”.
Elsewhere in the 30-minute speech, which was greeted with a standing ovation, he condemned violence, arguing “violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul.” Throughout his six-day trip to Germany the Pope had stressed the need for a closer dialogue between the Christian and Muslim faiths.
A Vatican spokesman said the Catholic leader had not intended to provide “an in-depth study of jihad and Muslim thinking” but had hoped to “cultivate an attitude of respect and dialogue toward other religions and cultures”.
“The Pope’s words are being extrapolated and disconnected from the context in which he said them and then used for ulterior purposes,” said Monsignor Luigi Padovese Apostolic Vicar for Anatolia.
Theologians noted that the highly academic speech was focused not on Islam but on the relationship between reason and faith in the Christian church. Islamic scholars said the Pope should have been more aware that, even with this focus, he needed to present a more differentiated view of Islam.
Abel Theodor Khoury, a Germany-based Islam professor, from whose book the Pope took the controversial passage, said on Fridayday: “I would have wished for a one or two words of differentiation (in the speech). Two or three lines would have been very effective.”
Edmund Stoiber, conservative state premier of Bavaria, on Friday defended the Pope, arguing that the latter’s “clear rejection of religiously motivated violence should be taken seriously around the world.”
At Friday prayers, Muslim clerics in Pakistan, Lebanon, Egypt and Iran and elsewhere denounced the Pope’s comments. The latest controversy comes six months after Muslim protests against a Danish newspaper that published cartoons of Mohammed.
Reporting by Vincent Boland in Istanbul, Hugh Williamson in Berlin, John Thornhill in Paris, and William Wallis in Cairo
posted by Carlos T Mock @ 10:33 AM
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