EVEN his critics agree that the Pope did not intend to cause offence to the world’s Muslims.

In quoting a work edited by the highly respected Lebanese-born scholar Theodore Khoury, he was trying to assert his academic credentials in the university where he once taught.

This speech, as its esoteric tone and content testifies, was an address by Professor Joseph Ratzinger, scholar, rather than by Benedict XVI, world religious leader. His mistake was his failure to distance himself from the emperor’s comments — surely inflammatory enough in their own time, but a thousand times more so when repeated today.

He can hardly complain that he has been taken out of context by thousands of enraged Muslims around the world when he is himself guilty of the same offence in regard to Manuel II Paleologus.

His address is undermined further by a serious error in regards to the Koran. “Sura 2,256 . . . is one of the suras of the early period, when Muhammad was still powerless and under threat.” In fact, this sura [Koranic chapter] is held by Muslim scholars to be from the middle period, around the 24th year of Muhammad’s prophethood in 624 or 625, when he was in Medina and in control of a state. Contrary to what the Pope said, this was written when Muhammad was in a position of strength, not weakness.

The Pope’s old sparring partner, Professor Hans Küng, a former colleague of his at Tübingen university, agrees that he did not intend to provoke Muslims. “He is very interested in dialogue with all religions. But this quotation and his whole approach to Islam in the lecture was very unfortunate.”

He found it incredible that the Pope quoted an emperor, a Christian adversary of Islam, who had set down the comments while in the middle of a battle, the siege of Constantinople in 1394 to 1402.

“If a Jewish person said such a thing about a Christian, we would also be offended,” said Professor Kung.

“He can of course quote what he wants, but he did this without saying the emperor was incorrect.

“This shows the limits of the theologian Joseph Ratzinger. He never studied the religions thoroughly and obviously has a unilateral view of Islam and the other religions.”

The Pope has a history of criticism of Islam. According to a leading Catholic, he believes that Islam cannot be reformed and is therefore incompatible with democracy.

Earlier this year, Father Joseph Fessio, provost of Ave Maria University in Naples and founder of the publishing house Ignatius Press, said that the Pope believed that reform of Islam was impossible “because it’s against the very nature of the Koran, as it’s understood by Muslims.”

Professor Kung said: “The Pope just was not aware of the implications of what he was saying.”

The tragedy of the episode is that the Pope was arguing against the idea that violence can be justified in any religion. He was making the case for the compatibility of reason with religion at a time when fundamentalism is gaining terrifying ground across the religious spectrum.

The irony is that the Islamic response illustrates how desperately the world needs to hear his message.

Times Recommends

• 'New York has lost its edge'
• Copenhagen will fail – and quite right too
• More than 17,000 new underwater species found