The Pope took his campaign of reconciliation with Muslims a step further yesterday by praying inside a mosque with the Grand Mufti of Istanbul.

On the third day of his visit to Turkey, Benedict XVI, the second Pope to visit a mosque, was shown round the celebrated Blue Mosque by Mustafa Cagrici, the Grand Mufti.

When the two men reached the mihrab, the focal point of the mosque facing Mecca, the Mufti explained that Muslims stand for 30 seconds there “to achieve serenity”. He then announced: “I am going to pray.” The pontiff turned towards Mecca and joined him, his lips clearly moving in prayer for over a minute.

Father Federico Lombardi, the Pope’s spokesman, said that the pontiff had “paused in meditation and certainly he addressed his thoughts to God”.

However, Pope Benedict’s act of prayer differed significantly from that of Pope John Paul II, who when he visited a mosque in Damascus in 2001 was left to meditate alone. The Pope continued praying yesterday after the Mufti had stopped.

The historic gesture underlined the Pope’s wish to use his visit to reach out to Muslims outraged by his remarks on Islam at Regensburg University in September.

When the Pope arrived on Tuesday Dr Ali Badakoglu, the head of the Religious Affairs Directorate and Turkey’s top Muslim official, admonished him for having contributed to Islamophobia by quoting a Byzantine medieval emperor as saying Islam was spread by violence. However when the imam of the 17th-century Blue Mosque gave him an ornately bound volume of Islamic prayers, pointing out that all began with the word Allah, the Pope — who had removed his shoes to enter the mosque — placed his hand on the book and said: “Let us pray to find the means and paths of peace for the good of all humanity.” The visit to the Blue Mosque was added to the Pope’s programme at the last minute.

Turkish media had given warning that the Pope would offend both Islamic opinion and defenders of the secular state if he genuflected or made the sign of the cross. Instead, however, the Pope behaved like any other tourist, gazing up in wonder at the Christian and Islamic iconography with his hands clasped, listening to the guide.

Protesters were kept away from the area by riot police. Earlier the Pope, who began his trip by reversing his opposition to Turkish entry into Europe, emphasised Europe’s Christian “roots, traditions and values” at a service with Bartholomew I, the Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarch, regarded as the spiritual head of 300 million Orthodox Christians.The Pope described divisions among Christians as a scandal at the Mass marking the feast day of St Andrew. Catholic and Eastern Christianity split 1,000 years ago. He added that all Christians faced a common enemy in secularisation.

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