HOWZAT

Mohammed Mahdi Akef, the leader of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, said: "The remarks do not express correct understanding of Islam and are merely wrong and distorted beliefs being repeated in the West."

The 57-nation Organisation of the Islamic Conference, based in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, said it regretted "the Pope’s quote and for the other falsifications".

Last night, after the Pope had returned to Rome, the Rev Federico Lombardi, a Vatican spokesman, issued a statement defending the speech. "It certainly wasn’t the intention of the Pope to carry out a deep examination of jihad (holy war) and on Muslim thought on it, much less to offend the sensibility of Muslim believers," he said.

Rev Lombardi said that the Pope was not giving an interpretation of Islam as "something violent" - although the spokesman said that the religion contained both violent and non-violent strains.

He said that Benedict wanted to "cultivate an attitude of respect and dialogue toward the other religions and cultures, obviously also toward Islam...

"It should be said that what is important to the Pope is a clear and radical rejection of the religious motivation of violence."

But this has been rejected by speakers in Muslim countries, who say that the concept of jihad - interpreted by moderates as the struggle against evil, rather than a literal picking up of an AK-47 assault rifle - is one of the central pillars of the Islamic faith.

"Muslims can’t eliminate jihad from the Islamic discourse, the same way Christians can’t do away with the doctrine of Trinity," said Fauzan Al-Anshori, spokesman for the radical Indonesian Mujahideen Council. He challenged the Pope to a dialogue.

"Anyone who says that Islam is intolerant or Islam is spread through use of force shows his ignorance. Islam is a very tolerant religion," said Tasnim Aslam , a spokeswoman for the Pakistan Foreign Ministry. The Pakistan Government has summoned the Vatican ambassador, to complain about the Pope's remarks.

Din Syamsuddin, chairman of Muhammadiyah, the second largest Islamic organisation in Indonesia, agreed: "The Pope’s statements reflect his lack of wisdom. It is obvious from the statements that the Pope doesn’t have a correct understanding of Islam."

Now the Pope's planned tour of Turkey in November appears to be in doubt. Ali Bardakoglu, Turkey’s leading Islamic cleric, said that he was deeply offended by the remarks and called them "extraordinarily worrying, saddening and unfortunate". He asked Benedict to apologise, and added that "if the pope was reflecting the spite, hatred and enmity" of others in the Christian world, then the situation was even worse.

Salih Kapusuz, a deputy leader of the Turkish Prime Minister's political party, said that Benedict’s remarks were either "the result of pitiful ignorance", or worse, a deliberate distortion of the truths.

"He has a dark mentality that comes from the darkness of the Middle Ages. He is a poor thing that has not benefited from the spirit of reform in the Christian world," Mr Kapusuz said to the state-owned Anatolia news agency.

"Benedict, the author of such unfortunate and insolent remarks is going down in history for his words. However ... he is going down in history in the same category as leaders such as Hitler and Mussolini."

Turkey’s opposition party - a staunchly pro-secular party - said that Benedict must apologise before his visit to Turkey. "The Pope has thrown gasoline onto the fire ... in a world where the risk of a clash between religions is high," said Haluk Koc, a deputy head of the Republican People’s Party, as a small group of protesters left a black wreath in front of the Vatican’s embassy in Ankara.

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