Paris, France - Senior Muslim scholars, taking up Pope Benedict's call for a frank dialogue, have written him an open letter listing factual errors in his recent speech on Islam that sparked protest across the Muslim world.
The 38 experts, including grand muftis from the Muslim world and scholars based in Britain and the United States, said they accepted the Pope's stated regrets over the uproar and his expressions of respect for all Muslims.
The politely worded letter challenged the former theology professor on his own area of expertise and gave him poor marks for misreading the Koran, failing to use terms correctly and citing obscure and possibly biased sources.
"The letter represents an attempt to engage with the papacy on theological grounds in order to tackle wide-ranging misconceptions about Islam in the Western world," said Islamica Magazine, an international quarterly on Muslim affairs that posted the open letter on its website on Saturday.
Managing editor Mohammad Khan told Reuters a copy of the letter would be handed to the Vatican nuncio (ambassador) on Sunday in Amman, where Islamica has an editorial office.
MISREADING THE KORAN
Speaking in Regensburg in early September, Benedict quoted a 14th century Byzantine emperor as saying Islam was evil and irrational and had been spread by the sword.
The speech sparked protests across the Muslim world, several churches were attacked in the Middle East and an Italian nun was murdered in Somalia. Benedict has said he did not agree with the emperor he quoted.
The scholars included grand muftis of Egypt, Oman, Uzbekistan, Istanbul, Russia, Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo as well as a Shi'ite ayatollah, Jordanian Prince Ghazi bin Mohammad bin Talal and Western-based academics.
They faulted Benedict for arguing that a Koran verse advocating religious freedom was written while the Prophet Mohammad was politically weak and "instructions ... concerning holy war" written when he was strong.
The verse was written when Mohammad ruled in Medina and wanted to keep converts from forcing their children to abandon their Christian or Jewish faith for Islam, they wrote.
The letter also faulted him for translating "jihad" as "holy war," saying "jihad" means a "struggle in the way of God" and did not necessarily have to include force.
DODGY SOURCING
Benedict used a "very marginal source," the scholars wrote, when he quoted an obscure 11th century thinker, Ibn Hazm, to say Muslims thought God was so transcendent that he was not even bound by his own word.
They also disputed passages where he said or implied that Islam was irrational, violent and based on forced conversion.
"Had Muslims desired to convert all others by force, there would not be a single church or synagogue left anywhere in the Islamic world," they wrote.
They asked how Benedict could argue that violence was against God's nature when Jesus Christ used it to drive the money-changers out of the Temple in Jerusalem.
It would be better to say cruelty, brutality and aggression were against God's will, they argued, adding that the Islamic concept of jihad also condemned these scourges.
The letter acknowledged that some Muslims used violence "in favor of utopian dreams", but said this went against Islamic teaching and specifically condemned the murder of the Italian nun in Somalia.
The scholars also chided Benedict for basing his view of Islam on books by two Catholic writers, saying Christians and Muslims should "consider the actual voices of those we are dialoguing with, and not merely those of our own persuasion."