Pope’s comments spur backlash among Muslims

By Chris Dignam
Collegian Reporter
September 20, 2006

After continuous demands from Muslim leaders around the world, Pope Benedict XVI issued an apology Sunday for the angry reaction to his recent remarks about Islam.

The Pope said he was “deeply sorry” for some comments he made during his speech, which he said came from a text that didn’t reflect his personal opinion.

“These [words] were in fact a quotation from a medieval text which does not in any way express my personal thought,” Benedict told pilgrims at his summer palace outside Rome.

The pope initiated the hullabaloo when, in a speech Tuesday to university professors during a pilgrimage to his native Germany, he cited the words of a Byzantine emperor who described some of the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad, Islam’s founder, as “evil and inhuman.”

“At this time, I wish also to add that I am deeply sorry for the reactions in some countries to a few passages of my address at the University of Regensburg, which were considered offensive to the sensibility of Muslims,” the pope said.

Muslim leaders in the Middle East had mixed reactions to the pope’s apology.

“The pope’s comments that downplayed his earlier remarks are not enough. We will not accept anything less than an apology,” said Mohammed el-Sayed Habib, deputy leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt’s main opposition group.

The pope said he hoped his recent comments and an explanation issued by the Vatican on Saturday were enough to “placate spirits and give the true meaning of my address, which in its totality was an attempt to frankly and sincerely express my great reciprocal and mutual respect with the Muslim faith.”

But the leader of over one billion Roman Catholics failed to make the full apology called for by some Muslims, and it was unclear if his words on Sunday would end the dispute.

Mohammed al-Nujeimi, a professor at the Institute of Judicial and Islamic Studies in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, criticized the pope’s statement.

“The pope does not want to apologize. He is evading apology and what he said today is a repetition of his previous statement,” he told Al-Arabiya TV.

Mahmoud Ashour, the former deputy of Cairo’s Al-Azhar Mosque, the Sunni Arab world’s most powerful institution, told Al-Arabiya TV immediately after the pope’s speech that, “It is not enough. He should apologize because he insulted the beliefs of Islam. He must apologize in a frank way and say he made a mistake.”

The alert level is now at its highest point since the controversial speech was given. The anger and violence, including attacks on several churches in the West Bank and Gaza, is one of the worst crises the Vatican has faced in years. In Somalia, an Italian nun was killed on Sunday in an attack one Islamite source said may be linked to the pope’s speech. Until the pope offers a satisfactory apology, the violence may continue.

dignamc1@lasalle.edu