Around 2,000 green flag-bearing Hamas followers swelled the streets of the West Bank town of Ramallah, haranguing Pope Benedict XVI whom they said "knows nothing about history" after his controversial remarks during a lecture September 12.
The leader of the world's 1.1 billion Roman Catholics quoted a medieval Christian emperor who criticized some teachings of the Prophet Mohammed as "evil and inhuman," sparking days of sometimes violent protests in Muslim countries.
In the wake of bloody demonstrations over cartoons of Mohammed published in a Danish newspaper last year, the Pope said at the weekend that he was "deeply sorry" for any offense, attributing Muslim anger to an "unfortunate misunderstanding."
The Pope has since invited the ambassadors of Muslim countries to the Vatican for a meeting Monday as part of a diplomatic offensive to repair rifts caused by his remarks.
But Jordan's Islamic Action Front derided the Pope's call for an ambassadors' meeting, with secretary-general Zaki Saad Beni Rasheid saying "an apology is necessary to defuse the crisis."
"The Pope committed a great wrong against Islam and a meeting with Muslim countries' ambassadors is not sufficient. There must be a clear apology," the opposition leader said at a sit-in protest in Amman.
In Iraq, an aide to revered Shiite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali Al Sistani called for an apology for the "harmful and objectionable" remarks, calling also in a sermon for a dialogue among religions.
"If the Pope was mistaken or his statement was a slip of the tongue, he should apologize," said Ahmed Al Safi. "Apology is a virtue. It is objectionable to keep the situation ambiguous."
Up to 300 demonstrators filed into Tehran's revolution square, burning US, British and Israeli flags that had been bound into a single cloth and chanting "Death to America" and "Death to Israel."
"We want once again for the Pope to officially apologize. He should debate with Iranian scholars so logic replaces his irrelevant comments," one of the leaders of the protest told the gathering. "We strongly condemn his comments and we ask Muslims and Christians to be alert in the face of attempts to create tension and we ask him to correctly apologize to all Muslims."
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has voiced respect for the Pope and acknowledged that he had "modified" the offending remarks.
Influential Qatari Sheikh Youssef Al Qaradawi accused the Pope of saying things "even a secondary school pupil shouldn't say," in a sermon that was partly broadcast by Qatar-based pan-Arab satellite channel Al Jazeera. "The Pope ... should have been prudent before making remarks that hurt a nation of a billion-and-a-half people. Unfortunately, the pope has flouted this nation," the visibly angry Egyptian-born cleric said.
A gathering of around 300 angry scholars in Kabul called on mullahs across the conservative country to use Friday prayers to read to their congregations the words that the Pope had used that linked Islam with violence.
"In the history of humanity, the Pope has shown himself to be like Hitler, Lenin, and the contemporary dictator and bloodsucker Bush," said the head of the Kabul provincial council, Habibullah Hisam.
He was referring to German dictator Adolf Hitler, Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin - a hate figure in a country occupied by the Red Army during the 1980s - and US President George W. Bush.
Former Malaysian premier Mahathir Mohamad meanwhile urged Muslims to refrain from violent protests similar to those held over the cartoons. "You can give your comments but do not be physical about it," Mahathir told reporters.
Asked if Muslim anger over the comments seen as linking Islam with violence was justified, he said: "Not to the point of burning embassies and such."
© 2006 Agence France-Presse
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