Pope's remark on jihad sparks Muslim protests

BERLIN -- Anger flared across the Islamic world yesterday over comments by Pope Benedict XVI, with Muslims from London to Jakarta assailing the pontiff for implicitly linking Islam with religious violence in a speech earlier this week.

Pakistan's parliament passed a unanimous resolution condemning the pope's words. A prominent Turkish politician accused the German-born spiritual leader of Roman Catholicism of resurrecting the spirit of the Crusades, the medieval wars launched by European kingdoms -- usually with papal blessings -- against Islamic strongholds in lands sacred to Christians, Muslims, and Jews.

Benedict ``has a dark mentality that comes from the darkness of the Middle Ages," Salih Kapusuz, a deputy minister of Turkey's governing party, said in remarks quoted by the state-owned Anatolia news agency. ``It looks like an effort to revive the mentality of the Crusades."

The pope set off the controversy Tuesday during an academic lecture on reason and religion at the University of Regensburg. He quoted a 14th-century Byzantine Christian emperor, Manuel II Paleologos, as having said: ``Show me 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 seemed to be criticizing the concept of ``jihad," or holy war -- an idea that Islamic radicals exploit to justify terrorist attacks, but also a notion that peaceful Muslims use to describe the mystical struggle between good and evil. Historically, jihad was often invoked by Islamic rulers as giving spiritual license to wage wars of conquest and conversion against nonbelievers.

But Aiman Mazyek, leader of Germany's Central Council of Muslims, called it hypocrisy for the pope to preach against religious extremism.

``One only has to recall the church's history of bloody crusades in the Muslim world and the expulsion of Muslims and Jews [from medieval] Spain," Mazyek told reporters in Berlin, also repeating criticism that the Vatican failed to act forcefully to stop the genocidal atrocities of Hitler's Germany and citing the Catholic-inspired conquests of Mexico and South America. ``I do not think the church should point a finger toward extremist activities in other religions."

Yesterday, a statement posted on the website of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, a highly influential Islamist organization, declared that the pope's remarks ``threaten world peace."

Benedict's words, said Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohammed Mahdi Akef, ``arouse the anger of the entire Muslim world and strengthen the argument of those who say the West is hostile to everything Islamic."

In the Gaza Strip, thousand s of Palestinians took to the streets to protest. And in Iraq, Shi'ite and Sunni Muslim clerics often divided by religious differences united to criticize Benedict.

The Vatican said Benedict's remarks were meant neither as analysis of jihad nor barb aimed at Muslims.

``It certainly wasn't the intention of the Holy Father to carry out an in-depth examination of jihad, much less to offend the sensibility of Muslim believers," Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman, said in a statement.

Instead, Lombardi said, Benedict intends ``to cultivate an attitude of respect and dialogue toward the other religions and cultures, and obviously also towards Islam."

German Chancellor Angela Merkel defended Benedict's comments, saying the pope intended only to promote dialogue between Christians and Muslims.

``What Benedict XVI emphasized was a decisive and uncompromising renunciation of all forms of violence in the name of religion," Merkel told the newspaper Bild.

But many Muslims took a sharply different view of remarks by the 79-year-old pope, who has expressed more concern about Islam and terrorism than did his predecessor, John Paul II.

In passing its resolution yesterday condemning the pope's comments, Pakistan's National Assembly demanded an apology.

``The derogatory remarks of the pope about the philosophy of jihad and Prophet Mohammed have injured sentiments across the Muslim world and pose the danger of spreading acrimony among the religions," stated the resolution, according to Agence France-Presse. ``This house demands that the pope should retract his remarks."

The rapid spread of anger from Muslim communities in Europe to Islamic nations in the Middle East, Asia, and beyond reminded some of the furor provoked earlier this year after a Danish newspaper published political cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed.

``The pope has thrown gasoline onto the fire in a world where the risk of a clash between religions is high," Haluk Koc, deputy head of Turkey's Republican People's Party, told the Associated Press after protesters left a black wreath at the Vatican Embassy in Ankara.

At the very least, the uproar over the pope's remarks threatens to derail Benedict's planned trip to Turkey, his first papal visit to an Islamic land, scheduled for late November.

``I don't see any use in somebody visiting the Islamic world who thinks in this way, about the holy prophet of Islam," Ali Bardakoglu, a moderate Islamic scholar and religious leader, told Turkish television. ``He should first rid himself of feelings of hate in his heart."

The Council on AmericanIslamic Relations, in a statement in Washington, criticized the pope's remarks as ``inaccurate and divisive" and urged ``Muslims and Catholics worldwide to increase dialogue and outreach efforts."