Muslims Fume at Pope's Islam Jibe
"The remarks reflect the hatred in his heart. It is a statement full of enmity and grudge," Bardakoglu said.
Pope Benedict XVI's criticism of Islam and the Islamic concept of Jihad as unreasonable and against God's nature has sparked furor in the Muslim world on Thursday, September 14, amid calls for the pontiff to retract his remarks.
"These remarks are unacceptable and demonstrate ignorance of the Muslim faith," Mohamed Kanaan, the chief judge of the Supreme Shari`ah Courts in Lebanon, told the Doha-based Al-Jazeera channel.
"The remarks only play into the hands of those seeking to tarnish the image of Islam."
In what some Vatican watchers see as a watershed speech to academics on Tuesday, September 12, Benedict had portrayed Islam as a religion which endorses violence, where faith is "spread by the sword".
Using the words, "Jihad" and "Holy War" in lecture at the University of Regensburg, he quoted criticism of Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessing be upon him) by a 14th Century Byzantine Christian emperor.
"Show me just what Muhammad 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 Manuel II.
In Morocco, the daily Aujourd'hui said the pope's remarks have upset a million Muslims around the globe.
"The global outcry over the calamitous cartoons (of Prophet Muhammad) has only just died down and now the pontiff, in all his holiness, is launching an attack against Islam," it said.
Last September, a series of lampooning cartoons of Prophet Muhammad printed by a Danish daily and republished by European newspapers sparked a global outcry.
The daily urged the pope, as political leader of the Roman Catholic Church, to "quickly prove that his ambition is not to spark a war of religions."
Hatred
Mazyek said the Roman Catholic Church, which had violent chapters, should not point a finger at extremist activities in other religions.
Chief judge Kanaan asked Pope Benedict to retract his insulting remarks.
"He must apologize," he told the Doha-based broadcaster.
The remarks have also drawn fire from Turkey's highest religious authority, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).
"The remarks reflect the hatred in his heart. It is a statement full of enmity and grudge," Ali Bardakoglu, the head of Turkey's religious affairs directorate, told the NTV news channel.
"It is a prejudiced and biased approach," he added.
Bardakoglu said the pope was not welcome in Turkey unless retracting his remarks.
"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. He should first of all replace the grudge in his heart with moral values and respect for the other."
Pope Benedict is expected in Turkey on November 28-30 on an invitation from the Turkish government and the Ecumenical Orthodox Patriarchate in Istanbul.
In 2004, the pontiff caused a stir by opposing Turkey's accession into the European Union.
He said Turkey should seek its future in an association of Islamic nations, not with the EU, which has Christian roots.
Bloody History
Ejaz Ahmed, a member of an Italian governmental consultative committee on Islam, also criticized the Vatican pope, reported Italy's ANSA news agency.
"In his speech the pope overlooks the fact that Islam was the cradle of science and that Muslims were the first to translate Greek philosophers before they became part of European history," he said.
"The Muslim world is currently undergoing a deep crisis and any attack from the West can aggravate this crisis," he said.
Aiman Mazyek, the president of Germany's Central Council of Muslims, said the history of the Roman Catholic Church had violent chapters.
"After the bloodstained conversions in South America, the crusades in the Muslim world, the coercion of the Church by Hitler's regime, and even the coining of the phrase 'holy war' by Pope Urban II, I do not think the Church should point a finger at extremist activities in other religions," he told the Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper.
Haken al-Mutairi, Secretary General of Kuwait's Umma party asked Pope Benedict to immediately apologize "to the Muslim world for his calumnies against the Prophet Muhammed and Islam".
Mutairi hit out at the pope's "unaccustomed and unprecedented" remarks, and linked the Catholic Church leader's comments to "new Western wars currently under way in the Muslim world in places such as Afghanistan, Iraq and Lebanon".
The pope's statements amounted to "the pursuit of crusades", he told AFP.
"I call on all Arab and Islamic states to recall their ambassadors from the Vatican and expel those from the Vatican until the pope says he is sorry for the wrong done to the Prophet and to Islam, which preaches peace, tolerance, justice and equality."
Mutairi urged Christian and Muslim religious leaders to "spread the values of tolerance and clemency preached by the prophets Jesus and Muhammed". |
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