The Pope did not mean to offend Muslim sensibilities, the Vatican said, as anger built in the Islamic world over some of his remarks during his pilgrimage in Germany.
The Pope made his remarks on Islam in a speech in which he quoted from a book recounting a conversation between 14th century Byzantine Christian Emperor Manuel Paleologos II and an educated Persian on the truths of Christianity and Islam.
"The emperor comes to speak about the issue of jihad, holy war,'' the Pope said.
"He said, I quote, 'Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached'."
Benedict added "I quote'' twice before pronouncing the phrases on Islam and described them as "brusque'', while neither explicitly agreeing with nor repudiating them.
"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,'' Vatican pokesman Rev Federico Lombardi said in a statement after Pope Benedict returned to Rome.
Turkey's top Islamic cleric asked the Pope to apologise about the remarks. Ali Bardakoglu, a cleric who sets the religious agenda for Turkey, said he was deeply offended by remarks about Islamic holy war made during the pilgrimage to the pontiff's homeland, and called the remarks "extraordinarily worrying, saddening and unfortunate.''
Bardakoglu said that "if the Pope was reflecting the spite, hatred and enmity'' of others in the Christian world, then the situation was even worse.
