Renowned Muslim Cleric Pressured into Cancelling Yesterday’s Scheduled Meeting with Pope
When the meeting was first announced last month, it was viewed as a potential landmark in Islamic-Catholic relations. The cleric Sheik Mohammed Sayyed Tantawi, head of the Al Azhar university in Cairo is a top authority on theology for Sunni Muslims all over the world. Thursday in the Vatican press office’s daily bulletin, made no mention of the expected meeting. It is suspected that the meeting cancellation was due to pressure from Muslim ‘Ulema’ scholars in Egypt and also from the Muslim Brothers, the Arab world’s largest group of political Islamists.
“The offensive observations by Pope Benedict XVI against Islam make this visit not positive,” he told the Gulf News agency, going on to rebuke Benedict for having “abolished” the Vatican department for inter-religious dialogue. In fact, Benedict merged it with the Pontifical Council for Culture in a bid to put a more cultural slant on dialogue.
According to Egyptian daily Al Akhbar, the invitation issued by the Vatican to Tantawi earlier this year aroused fresh anger in Islamic world still reeling from the Regensburg incident.
How do you say get over it in arabic?
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