Anger spread throughout the Muslim world yesterday following an address given by Pope Benedict XVI at the university of Regensburg in Germany last Tuesday in which he quoted a 14th century Byzantine emperor on the spread of Islam through violence.
Last night a high-ranking Catholic Church source expressed fears for the Pope's safety, saying "while I think the controversy will go away, it has done damage and if I were a security expert I'd be worried".
In his Tuesday address the Pope recalled that in 1391 Emperor Manuel II Paleologus had said "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." Pope Benedict remarked on the "startling brusqueness" of the comment, which he said had been expressed "so forcefully".
Pakistan's National Assembly, its parliament's lower house, yesterday unanimously passed a resolution condemning the Pope's address. The Muslim Brotherhood, the Arab world's largest group of political Islamists, havey demanded an apology from the Pope and called on the governments of Islamic countries to break off relations with the Vatican if he does not make one.
The 57-nation Organisation of the Islamic Conference, the world's largest Muslim body, said quotations used by the Pope represented a "character assassination of the Prophet Muhammad" and a "smear campaign". It hoped "this campaign is not the prelude of a new Vatican policy towards Islam".
In Cairo, Sheikh Mohamed Sayed Tantawi of al-Azhar, in charge of one of the Sunni Muslim world's most prestigious seats of religious studies said: "These statements indicate clear ignorance of Islam. They attribute to Islam what it does not contain," he said
Several thousand flag-waving Palestinians protested in the Gaza Strip against the address. "This is another crusader war against the Arab and Muslim world," said Hamas official Ismail Radwan as he addressed 5,000 demonstrators.
In Iraq, the Pope's comments were condemned at Friday prayers by followers of radical Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. Beirut-based Sayyed Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah, one of the world's top Shia Muslim clerics demanded that the Pope "apologises personally, and not through [ Vatican] sources, to all Muslims for such a wrong interpretation."
In Dublin, Sheikh Hussein Halawa, Imam of the Islamic Cultural Centre of Ireland at Clonskeagh, said the Irish Muslim community would very much hope that the Pope would explain the remarks.
"I hope the Pope will go to read the Koran and read the history of Prophet Muhammad and then he will find out whether what he reported was true or not," he said.
Vatican spokesman Fr Federico Lombardi defended the address. "It was certainly not the intention of the Holy Father to undertake a comprehensive study of the jihad and of Muslim ideas on the subject, still less to offend the sensibilities of Muslim faithful," he said.
Fr Brendan Leahy, professor of systematic theology at St Patrick's College Maynooth, described the Pope's address as a "critique of modern reason" and said it was about trying "to extend the notion of reason". Its intention, where the quotations from Emperor Manuel II were concerned, was to promote dialogue between Islam and Christianity, as had taken place between the emperor and his Persian interlocutor, Prof Leahy said. Such dialogue was proving difficult to get off the ground, he indicated. - (Additional reporting, Reuters)