Muslim Countries Want Pope Retraction

The Muslim foreign ministers said the crisis reflects the pope's poor knowledge of Islam. (Reuters)

"It is befitting to the Vatican to retract or redress the said statement, in demonstration of the correct spirit of Christianity in dealing with Islamic issues," the umbrella Organization o Islamic Conference (OIC) said in a statement by its foreign ministers, reported Reuters.

The ministers expressed their concern that the language used by the pope might engender a situation of tension between the Muslim world and the Vatican.

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

The pontiff met on Monday September 25, with Muslim envoys but make no apology.

He has repeatedly blamed the crisis on the misunderstand of his speech, insisting the controversial quotes do not reflect his views on Islam.

Meeting on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly session, the OIC ministers asked Pope Benedict to apologize for linking Muslims and violence.

Pope Benedict has so far resisted Muslim calls for a clear apology and the removal of the controversial quotes from the text of his lecture, considered an official Vatican document.

Ignorance

The pope remarks have sparked worldwide protests.

"These terms reflect lack of correct information about the Holy Qur'an, the Prophet and the Islamic faith," said the statement.

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

The OIC foreign ministers said the offensive remarks came "at the time when the Muslim world was expecting from His Holiness the new Pope to continue the promotion of the cordial ties which prevailed with his predecessors, and with the Vatican since many decades."

Theologians and scholars agree that Pope Benedict XVI'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.

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.

Al-Azhar, the highest seat of learning in the Sunni world snubbed a papal invitation to visit the Vatican and a proposal to invite the pontiff to deliver a lecture on Islam, insisting on a clear-cut apology.

John Paul II, the German pope's predecessor, made considerable achievements in improving relations between Islam and Catholicism.

In 1986 he took the unprecedented step of hosting a grand inter-religious gathering that saw Jewish, Christian and Muslim dignitaries gather in Assisi, central Italy, alongside Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs, representatives of the Shinto faith and African and Amerindian religions for a day of prayer for peace.

Years later in November 2004 the Polish pope was still promoting the same ideals: "No one has the right to use religion as an instrument of intolerance, as a means of aggression, violence and death," he told a mixed-faith delegation from Azerbaijan, a mainly Muslim country.

John Paul II also sought direct dialogue with Islam. Already the first pope to enter a synagogue, in May 2001 in Damascus he became the first pope to enter a mosque.