This item is available on the Militant Islam Monitor website, at http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/2395
Terrorist group Al Sunna calls upon 'sleeping Muslims' to 'prove their manhood' by rampaging
September 22, 2006
Qaeda issues warning to Pope
Sep. 18, 2006. ASSOCIATED PRESSProtests broke out in South Asia and Indonesia, with angry Muslims saying Benedict's statement of regret a day earlier did not go far enough. In southern Iraq, demonstrators carrying black flags burned an effigy of the Pope.
Islamic leaders around the world issued more condemnations of the Pope's comments, but some moderates in the Middle East appeared to be trying to put a damper on the outrage, fearing it could spiral into attacks on Christians in the region.
On Sunday, Benedict said he was "deeply sorry" over any hurt caused by his comments made in a speech last week, in which he quoted a medieval text characterizing some of the Prophet Muhammad's teachings as "evil and inhuman" and calling Islam a religion spread by the sword.
Benedict said the remarks came from a text that didn't reflect his own opinion, but he did not retract what he said or say he was sorry he uttered what proved to be explosive words.
The Vatican on Monday sought to defuse the anger, ordering papal representatives around the world to meet with leaders of Muslim countries to explain the Pope's point of view and full context of his speech.
Roman Catholic leaders stepped forward to defend the pontiff. At an Italian bishops' conference, Camillo Cardinal Ruini underlined the bishops' "total closeness and solidarity to the Pope" and said they deplored interpretations of the Pope's comments "which attribute to the Holy Father . . . errors that he has not committed and aim at attacking his person and his ministry."
Few in the Islamic world were satisfied by Benedict's statement of regret.
"The Pope's words have caused a deep wound in the hearts of Muslims that won't heal for a long time, and then only after a clear apology to Muslims," Egypt's religious affairs minister, Mahmoud Hamdi Zaqzouq, wrote in a column in the government daily Al-Ahram on Monday.
An influential Egyptian cleric, Sheik Youssef al-Qaradawi, called for protests after weekly prayers on Friday, but maintained they should be peaceful.
Extremists said the Pope's comments proved that the West was in a war against Islam.
Al Qaeda in Iraq and its allies issued a statement addressing the Pope as "a cross-worshipper" and warning, "You and the West are doomed, as you can see from the defeat in Iraq, Afghanistan, Chechnya and elsewhere.
"You infidels and despots, we will continue our jihad (holy war) and never stop until God avails us to chop your necks and raise the fluttering banner of monotheism, when God's rule is established governing all people and nations," said the statement by the Mujahedeen Shura Council, an umbrella organization of Sunni Arab extremist groups in Iraq.
Another Iraqi extremist group, Ansar al-Sunna, challenged "sleeping Muslims" to prove their manhood by doing something other than "issuing statements or holding demonstrations."
"If the stupid pig is prancing with his blasphemies in his house," the group said in a web statement, referring to the Pope, "then let him wait for the day coming soon when the armies of the religion of right knock on the walls of Rome."
In Iran, supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei used the comments to call for protests against the United States. He argued that while the Pope may have been deceived into making his remarks, the words give the West an "excuse for suppressing Muslims" by depicting them as terrorists.
"Those who benefit from the Pope's comments and drive their own arrogant policies should be targeted with attacks and protests," he said, referring to the United States.
The anger recalled the outrage earlier this year over cartoons depicting the prophet published by a Danish paper. The caricatures, which Muslims saw as insulting Muhammad, set off large, violent protests across the Islamic world.
So far, protests over the Pope's comments have been smaller. However, there has been some violence: Attackers hurled firebombs at seven churches in the West Bank and Gaza Strip over the weekend, and a nun was shot to death in Somalia.
Some 200 Khamenei loyalists in the Syrian capital, Damascus, held a protest Monday at an Islamic shrine, dismissing the Pope's apology. "The Pope's sorrow was equivocal," read one banner.
Dozens protested outside the Vatican Embassy in Jakarta, Indonesia, and schools and shops in the Indian-controlled section of Kashmir shut their doors in protest.
"His comments really hurt Muslims all over the world," Umar Nawawi of the radical Islamic Defenders' Front said in Jakarta. "We should remind him not to say such things which can only fuel a holy war."
Islamic countries also asked the UN Human Rights Council to examine the question of religious tolerance. Malaysia's foreign minister, Syed Hamid Albar, said Benedict's apology was "inadequate to calm the anger."
In Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood said the anger should not be allowed to hurt ties with the Middle East's Christian minorities. But worries among Christians in the region are high.
Guards have been posted around some churches, and the head of Egypt's Orthodox Coptic Church, Pope Shenouda III, disassociated himself from Benedict's statements.
The Dominican mission in Cairo also criticized Benedict's words, saying he chose a text for his speech that "revived the polemics of the past."
"These comments, seen by many Muslims as hurtful, risk encouraging extremists on all sides," it said in a statement, "and put in danger all the advances in dialogue made in recent decades."
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Pak warns West of 'severe consequences' ASSOCIATED PRESS Lahore, September 22: Pakistani clerics and religious scholars urged Muslims to hold peaceful rallies across the country on Friday to condemn Pope's remarks on Islam, a spokesman for a radical Islamic group said. The appeal for "nationwide peaceful protests" after the main weekly prayer services was made on Thursday when 1,000 clerics and religious leaders met in the eastern city of Lahore, said Abdullah Muntazir, a spokesman for the Jamaat al-Dawat group. The meeting called for Pope Benedict XVI to be replaced by someone like the previous Pope John Paul II, who died last year. The controversy began last week when the Pope quoted a medieval text that characterised some of the teachings of Islam's founder, Prophet Muhammad, as "evil and inhuman" and referred to Islam as being spread "by the sword." The Pope acknowledged that his remarks were open to misinterpretation, but insisted he had not intended to endorse a negative view of Islam and that the comments did not reflect his own opinions. Jamaat al-Dawat runs schools, colleges and medical clinics. In April, Washington put the group on a list of terrorist organisations for its alleged links with militants fighting in Kashmir. After Thursday's meeting, a statement demanded the West "change its stance regarding Islam (or) it will face severe consequences." It did not elaborate. It also said that jihad was not terrorism and that "Islam was not propagated with the sword." Muntazir said religious leaders have called for Pakistanis to protest outside of every mosque on Friday and that their main protest would be held in Lahore. | ||
This item is available on the Militant Islam Monitor website, at http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/2395