Press Interpreter

09/15/06 -- Pope Benedict XVI has stirred a wave of criticism in the Muslim world with comments he made regarding Islam and the Prophet Muhammad, PBUH. Among those criticisms are calls for him to apologize regarding the insulting fallacies.

The president of the World Union of Muslim Clerics, Dr. Yousef Al-Qardawi, expressed his regret upon hearing the “insults and sophisms for which there is no excuse and which are insulting to a billion Muslims, “demanding from the Pope a sincere apology for each comment he made.]

In an interview with Al-Jazeera, Al-Qardawi clarified that, “Islam imposed jihad in self-defense, and Islam did not gain victory because of the sword, but rather it became victorious despite the sword, which had been imposed upon it from the beginning.�

And in his remarks in response to the Pope’s charges that the belief in Islam is established on the basis that God’s will is subject neither to the trying of the intellect nor to logic, Al-Qardawi said that Islam is a religion that praises intellect and thought, and that Islam has always concerned itself with the blending of the World and the Hereafter, and of the Spiritual and the Material.

In a statement the Organization for the Islamic Conference has demanded from Pope Benedict XVI that he clarify his position towards Islam, and stating that the Organization “hopes that this surprising attack against Islam doesn’t mark a new direction for the Vatican’s policy towards the religion of Islam.�

[Remaining text untranslated]

By Al-Jazeera and other news agencies

--Translated by Steven Kyle Ridgill

Go to original article:

http://www.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/0557ECBD-F7E2-4877-80CA-37F7935B4E5C.htm