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Religious officials: remarks worrying
Turkey and Kuwait's religious official yesterday called on Pope Benedict to apologise for comments he made about Islam.
- Agencies
- Published: 00:00 September 15, 2006
- Pope Benedict XVI (centre) and Archbishop of Munich and Freising Cardinal Friedrich Wetter (left of the Pope) are surrounded by a crowd of believers outside Freising Cathedral (also called St Mary's Cathedral) in Freising near Munich, Germany, yesterday. Yesterday was the last day of the pontiff's visit to his native Bavaria.
- Image Credit: EPA
Ankara/Kuwait City: Turkey and Kuwait's religious official yesterday called on Pope Benedict to apologise for comments he made about Islam.
In a lecture in Germany on Tuesday, the Pope quoted a 14th century Byzantine emperor who wrote that the Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) had brought things "only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached".
Benedict made the comment during an appeal to Muslims to join a dialogue of cultures that agrees the concept of Islamic "holy war" is unreasonable and against God's nature.
"[The Pope's words are] extremely regrettable and worrying... both for the Christian world and for the common peace of humanity," the state Anatolian news agency quoted Ali Bardakoglu as saying.
Bardakoglu heads Ankara's Directorate General for Religious Affairs, which controls all imams in Turkey and sends prayer leaders to Turkish communities abroad.
Benedict is due to visit mainly Muslim but secular Turkey in November at the invitation of President Ahmet Necdet Sezer. He is also expected to meet Patriarch Bartholomew, Istanbul-based spiritual head of the world's Orthodox Christians.
NTV television quoted Bardakoglu as suggesting the Pontiff should not visit if he holds such critical views about Islam. "I do not see any use in somebody visiting the Islamic world who thinks in this way about the holy prophet of Islam. He should first rid himself of feelings of hate," NTV's website quoted Bardakoglu as saying.
Bardakoglu recalled atrocities committed by Roman Catholic Crusaders during the Middle Ages in the name of their faith against Orthodox Christians and Jews as well as Muslims.
In Kuwait, Haken Al Mutairi, secretary-general of the nation's Ummah (Islamic Nation) party, urged the pope to apologise immediately "to the Muslim world for his calumnies against the Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) and Islam".
Al 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 added.
"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," Al Mutairi told AFP.
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