Muslims are comparing Pope Benedict to a medieval crusader after the comments about Islam he quoted in a lecture this week, reports Mary Fitzgerald in Istanbul
It lasted little more than half an hour. Delivered to an audience of 1,500 students and faculty members gathered at the Bavarian university where he once taught, Pope Benedict XVI's speech last Tuesday concentrated for the most part on the creeping secularisation of European society, one of his major concerns since he assumed the papacy last year.
The title of the lecture - Faith, Reason and the University: Memories and Reflections - could hardly have hinted at the furore that would unravel over the days that followed. But his opening remarks, just three paragraphs of the entire lecture, now threaten to further upset relations between Muslims and the West, already strained following the Danish cartoon controversy earlier this year.
Quoting from a book recounting a conversation between Byzantine Christian emperor Manuel Paleologos II and a Persian scholar on the truth of Christianity and Islam, the Pope said: "The emperor comes to speak about the issue of jihad, holy war. He said, I quote, '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.' "
Continuing, the pontiff said: "The emperor, after having expressed himself so forcefully, goes on to explain in detail the reasons why spreading the faith through violence is something unreasonable. Violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul. 'God,' he says, 'is not pleased by blood - and not acting reasonably is contrary to God's nature. Faith is born of the soul, not the body. Whoever would lead someone to faith needs the ability to speak well and to reason properly, without violence and threats.'" The Pope twice added "I quote" to emphasise that the words were not his, and at one stage referred to the emperor's "brusqueness", while neither explicitly agreeing with nor countering his statements on Islam.
"The intention here is not one of retrenchment or negative criticism, but of broadening our concept of reason and its application," he concluded at the end of his lecture. "Only thus do we become capable of that genuine dialogue of cultures and religions so urgently needed today."
It may not have been his intention, but by the end of the week Pope Benedict's use of 14th- century historical references had provoked a furious response in the Muslim world, stirring fears of a repeat of the violent protests that followed the publication last year of Danish cartoons lampooning the prophet Muhammad.
The cartoons, which were later reprinted in several other European newspapers, included one showing Muhammad wearing a turban shaped like a fizzing bomb and decorated with the Muslim declaration of faith.
Muslim leaders and clerics criticised the caricatures, saying they defamed Islam's founder and linked the faith with terrorism. Violent protests followed, claiming the lives of more than 100 people, mainly in Nigeria, Pakistan, Libya and Afghanistan.
In Europe, initial criticism of the Pope's speech centred on speculation about why he had used a centuries-old conversation to illustrate his argument, an example that risked appearing inflammatory in a modern context.
"One would expect a religious leader such as the Pope to act and speak with responsibility and repudiate the Byzantine emperor's views in the interests of truth and harmonious relations between the followers of Islam and Catholicism," said Dr Muhammad Abdul Bari, secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain, who described the emperor's views as "ill-informed and frankly bigoted". Some commentators interpreted Pope Benedict's remarks as appearing to suggest Islam is distant from reason.
Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi was quick to point out that the Pope's comments were not intended to be a statement on Islam, rather a minor example to support his warning against the perils of separating religion and reason.
"I believe that everyone understands, even inside Islam, there are many different positions, and there are many positions that aren't violent," Lombardi said. "Here, certainly, the Pope doesn't want to give a lesson, let's say, an interpretation of Islam, as violent. He is saying, in the case of a violent interpretation of religion, we are in a contradiction with the nature of God and the nature of the soul."
LATER IN THE week, as the controversy gathered pace, the Vatican issued another statement saying the Pope had not intended to carry out a comprehensive study of jihad and its place in Islam, much less "offend the sensitivities of the Muslim faithful". But it wasn't enough. By Friday, Muslim countries from Egypt to Indonesia roiled with anger and indignation at what was widely interpreted as a provocative slur not just on the concept of jihad, but on Islam itself. Newspapers, TV shows and websites were abuzz with both condemnation of the Pope's comments and demands for an apology.
Clerics, scholars and politicians joined the outcry. In many Muslim countries the issue dominated sermons given at Friday prayers. Some religious leaders called for relations with the Vatican to be broken off until the Pope apologised. Protesters gathered in many places, including outside Cairo's Al Azhar university, Sunni Islam's foremost seat of learning. In the predominantly Muslim disputed territory of Kashmir, in south Asia, police seized copies of newspapers containing the controversial remarks to prevent any outbreak of violence. It all began to feel like the early days of the cartoon controversy revisited.
In Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation, Din Syamsuddin, chairman of the country's second-largest Islamic organisation, said the Pope's words could endanger "harmonious" relations between Muslims and Catholics.
"The Pope's statements reflect his lack of wisdom. It is obvious from the statements that the Pope doesn't have a correct understanding of Islam," he said.
Calling for an apology, Syamsuddin also urged Muslims to refrain from violent protest.
"Whether the Pope apologises or not, the Islamic community should show that Islam is a religion of compassion," he said.
Members of parliament in Pakistan, which has the world's second-largest Muslim population, unanimously passed a resolution demanding that the Pope retract his remarks "in the interest of harmony among different religions of the world".
"The derogatory remarks of the Pope about the philosophy of jihad and prophet Muhammad have injured sentiments across the Muslim world and pose the danger of spreading acrimony among the religions," the resolution said.
"Anyone who says that Islam is intolerant or Islam is spread through use of force shows his ignorance. Islam is a very tolerant religion," said Pakistan's foreign ministry spokeswoman Tasnim Aslam. "Statements of this nature are very unhelpful in the efforts that we are making to bridge the gap and promote understanding between different religions."
In Morocco, an editorial in Aujourd'hui newspaper said the Pope's comments had offended Muslims around the world.
"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. The daily newspaper urged the Pope to "quickly prove that his ambition is not to spark a war of religions". What was interesting about the Muslim world's reaction was the frequency with which the crusades were mentioned, with several commentators comparing the Pope's rhetoric with that of Pope Urban II, loathed by Muslims for instigating the First Crusade.
"The language used by the Pope sounds like that of his 12th-century counterpart who ordered the crusade," said Hamid Ansari, chairman of India's National Commission for Minorities. "It surprises me because the Vatican has a very comprehensive relationship with the Muslim world."
Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the influential Qatar-based cleric who hosts a popular programme on Arab satellite channel al-Jazeera, was scathing.
"To say that prophet Muhammad brought evil and inhuman things, like spreading faith by the sword, is either a calumny or pure ignorance," he said. "Does the Pope want to close the door on dialogue and new crusades to be readied?"
Some of the most vehement criticism came from Turkey, where Pope Benedict is due to visit in November.
"[The Pope] has a dark mentality that comes from the darkness of the Middle Ages," said Salih Kapusuz, a deputy leader of the governing AKP, a political party with Islamist roots. "He is a poor thing that has not benefited from the spirit of reform in the Christian world. It looks like an effort to revive the mentality of the crusades."
The controversy dominated Turkey's Islamist newspapers, with much space given to comments made by the country's leading cleric, Ali Bardakoglu. Bardakoglu, head of the government directorate that controls all the country's imams, recalled atrocities committed by crusaders during the Middle Ages and said the Pope would not be welcome in Turkey unless he retracted his comments.
"I do not think any good will come from the visit to the Muslim world of a person who has such ideas about the holy prophet of Islam. He should first rid himself of feelings of hate," Bardakoglu told the NTV news channel. "The remarks reflect the hatred in his heart. It is a statement full of enmity and grudge."
POPE BENEDICT'S SPEECH will deepen suspicions among Muslim leaders that relations between the Vatican and the Islamic world have cooled considerably since the death of his predecessor.
Unlike the late Pope John Paul II, who made history by becoming the first leader of the Catholic Church to set foot inside a mosque, Benedict is known to be sceptical of the value of inter-faith dialogue. He has reportedly voiced doubts about Islam's ability to reform within a modern context, given its view of the Koran as the unchangeable word of God. Once, when asked by reporters if Islam was a "religion of peace" he replied: "I would not like to use big words to apply generic labels. It certainly contains elements that can favour peace; it also has other elements. We must always seek the best elements."
Idris Tawfiq, a former Catholic priest from Britain who converted to Islam after he left the priesthood and is now living in Egypt, says Pope Benedict is sending out "alarming" signals to Muslims.
"His comments are both ill-timed and ill- conceived. Unfortunately, they reflect a very negative trend that is slowly coming to the fore in this papacy. Benedict has put back all the great work done by his great predecessor," Tawfiq says. "There were some people who could find possible reasons for defending those who published the Danish cartoons, but these comments from the Pope are indefensible.
"My own prayer is that he will not have stirred up a hornets' nest by making such insensitive remarks. It makes those of us who devote our lives to encouraging tolerance and understanding between religions and between peoples very sad."
Mary Fitzgerald is the winner of the Douglas Gageby Irish Times Fellowship in Journalism. She writes about Islam each Friday in the Under the Crescent series in The Irish Times