Fitzgerald told Tantawi the final text would include footnotes to comment on anti-Islam remarks in the lecture.

CAIRO — Pope Benedict XVI is working on a "final" version of his last month's controversial lecture about Islam, the papal nuncio in Cairo has told Al-Azhar Grand Imam Sheikh Mohamed Sayyed Tantawi.

During a meeting late Wednesday, October 4, Michael Fitzgerald told Sheikh Tantawi the final text would include footnotes to comment on anti-Islam remarks in the lecture, a well-kept source familiar with the meeting told IslamOnline.net on Thursday, October 5.

Pope Benedict has triggered global storm of criticism after quoting criticism of Islam and Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) by 14th century Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Palaeologus that everything Muhammad brought was evil and inhuman, "such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached."

Coming short of a clear apology, Benedict said the Muslim reaction to his lecture was the result of "unfortunate misunderstanding" and that the quotes did not reflect his personal opinion.

Dissatisfied with the pontiff's response to the crisis, fifty six Muslim foreign ministers asked the Vatican on Tuesday, September 26, for a retraction.

Fitzgerald said the Vatican official in charge of foreign relations will visit Cairo soon to meet with Al-Azhar officials on ways to defuse the crisis.

The influential Dublin-based International Union for Muslim Scholars (IUMS), which brings together prominent Sunni and Shiite scholars from across the world, has halted inter-faith dialogue with the Vatican and cancelled an Islamic-Christian summit slated for November or December in protest.

It insists hat the pontiff should make a clear apology and retract the controversial quotes from his lecture, should is considered a Vatican document.

Apology First

The papal nuncio called on Al-Azhar, the highest seat of learning in the Sunni Muslim world, to refute the Byzantine emperor's argument.

He proposed that Sheikh Tantawi delivers a lecture at a Catholic Church university to highlight the true image of Islam.

But Al-Azhar grand imam insisted any such move is pending an apology from the pontiff.

"The Pope must retract his statements," Sheikh Tantawi said.

He stressed that Muslims were ready to engage in dialogue with the pontiff only after he apologizes for his offensive remarks.

"We don't mind engaging in dialogue with the Vatican."

Al-Azhar has earlier snubbed a papal invitation to visit the Vatican as well as a proposal to invite the Pope to deliver a lecture on Islam, insisting on a clear-cut apology.

Father Youhana Qilta, the deputy patriarch of Egypt's Catholics on Saturday, September 16, blamed the Pope anti-Islam jibe on his poor knowledge of Islam, warning that the "surprising" remarks could play into the hands of extremists.

Theologians and scholars agree that Pope Benedict's remarks on Islam dealt a blow to the dialogue between the Muslim world and the Roman Catholic Church that his predecessor John Paul II did much to encourage.