Pakistan Parliament demands Pope retract Islam comments

PAKISTAN: Pakistan's parliament Friday called on Pope Benedict XVI to retract his controversial remarks linking Islam with violence, while the foreign office accused him of "ignorance".

The overwhelmingly Muslim country's national assembly unanimously passed a resolution proposed by a legislator from an alliance of hardline Islamic parties, officials said.

"This House demands that the Pope should retract his remarks in the interest of harmony between religions," said the resolution, a copy of which was read to AFP by a parliamentary official.

"The derogatory remarks of the Pope about the philosophy of jihad and Prophet Mohammed have injured sentiments across the Muslim world and pose the danger of spreading acrimony among the religions."

The Pakistani foreign office also waded into the row, saying that the Roman Catholic leader's comments would undermine international efforts for peace between religions.

"Anyone who says that there is anything inherently evil or inhuman about Islam only shows his own ignorance of this great religion," foreign ministry spokeswoman Tasnim Aslam told AFP.

The Pakistani foreign ministry said Benedict's remarks were "regrettable."

"They widen the gulf between religions that we are working so hard to bridge," Aslam said.

"It also shows ignorance of history. It was certainly not Muslims who persecuted the followers of other religions," she said, adding that Islam was the most tolerant religion.

Meanwhile Pope Benedict's attack on Islam has stirred anger in India with the head of the National Commission for Minorities saying he sounded like a medieval crusader.

Pope Benedict provoked worldwide outcry with comments Tuesday during a visit to his native Germany in which he talked about the "issue of jihad, holy war" a term used by Islamic extremists to justify acts of terror.

"The language used by the pope sounds like that of his 12th-century counterpart who ordered the crusades," said Hamid Ansari, chairman of the National Commission for Minorities.

The commission's role includes maintaining harmony between officially secular India's majority Hindu population and other groups, including Muslims who number 130 million in the country of 1.1 billion.

A member of the All India Muslim Personal Law Board also slammed the pope's comments, saying that "What he said was nothing but blasphemy," and called on Muslims to "exercise restraint and not lose their cool."

The national daily, The Hindu, said the pope sounded "downright sinister" in his theological address in which he cited a 14th-century Christian emperor who said the Prophet Mohammed had brought the world "evil and inhuman" things "such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached."

Islamabad, New Delhi, AFP