In a year's time first there were the cartoons and then the Pope himself celebrating despondency to damage social harmony between Muslims and Christians across the globe.

The global outcry over the audacious cartoons had only just died down when the pontiff himself, in all his holiness, launched an attack against Islam doing a great disservice to humanaity. Who will benefit from this? The very people Pope Benedict XVI has taken upon himself to condemn.

If he was to condemn all violent movements in all religions then his common  sense should have granted him caution not to mention the name of Islam alone. He ignored the dictum, 'do not pronounce on subjects that you know nothing about.'

While delivering a speech at Regensburg University in Germany, he quoted a 14th-century Byzantine emperor as saying: 'Show me just what Muhammad (PBUH) 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.'

The pope also used the word jihad, or holy war, saying violence was contrary to God's nature and to reason. He wanted to have a good start saying 'brusque' words about Islam to bring his message home to a select gathering of highly educated peoples. Truth needs no ornament. The pope's quoting of fourteenth century Christian King Manuel II Palaeologus reflects upon the paucity of his own knowledge of Islam and its institutions.

How could a holy man forget that all things said by emperors, kings, rulers and other all powerful peoples on earth are not supposed to be truthful, right and legitimate? God unveils the truth through revelations and inspirations of scholars with integrity, dignity and enlightenment.

Instead Pope Benedict quoted a king whose brother had deposed his father John V Palaeologus (1332-91), Byzantine emperor (1341-76, 1379-91), who later regained the throne in 1379 with the aid of the Ottoman Turks and Venice. Later both internal dissension and extension  of Ottoman control over the Balkans caused progressive decline in John's power.As he was unsuccessful in seeking Western aid, he was forced (1371) to acknowledge himself tributary to the Ottomans.

Later because of political rivalry and Turkish influence on the court his nephew John VII deposed his grandfather again in 1390. John V fought back again in five months time and regained the control of the country. Manuel II must have been an accomplice in both events as later when he had succeeded the throne he nominated his nephew from 1399 to 1403 to serve him as regent, while he was absent seeking support in the West against the Ottoman Empire.

In-court treacheries, political exigencies, foreign intervention and  Turkish  hegemony was what governed the life of the king whose observation the pope was quoting as a religious authority to his audience: religiosity would not have been more opportune.

Despite the contrary claims of the pope, Islam has a singular distinction of leading the world religions to set standards for seeking out the truth. One of the lessons of Karbala, when the grandson of the Holy Prophet sacrificed his own life along with the lives of 72 of his relatives, companions and children, was that the rulers with questionable integrity did not have the authority to interpret Islam.

There are four aspects of the controversy that merit attention. The tone and phraseology of apology tendered by the office of the Pope makes it extremely doubtful whether the Pope had called for dialogue between religions in good faith: if it were so he should not have been so provocative in the first place and secondly he should not have questioned the understanding of his victims that he did not mean this or that. Rather the apology should have been explicit and unqualified showing genuine regret and contrition.

The pope has hurt the feelings of Muslims in an audacious departure from the legacy of his predecessor John Paul II who lately had pleaded and worked hard for inter-faith confidence building and had even visited mosques to bring two people belonging to the same Ibrahimic traditions of religion together.

It is understandable that Pope Benedict XVI is not expected to eulogise Islam as a belief system and an institution that has benefited humanity more than any other religion in the world, rather a lack of sympathy from him would have been in order, however, his outright condemnation of Islam and rejection of all the benefits that it has yielded to humanitybespeak gravely ill of his scholarship; a person who has been aprofessor of theology for so long.

The pope must have been carried away by his proselytising spirit to compromise his common sense to such an impudent level as to call in question the faith of over a billion peaceful people while authenticating the saying of a king whose own religious credentials and scholarships are open to question: truth does not gather authenticity from authority, it gets this from erudition, learning and integrity of a scholar.

The Pope's vitriol against Islam is not without its ramifications. He has already created a lot of bad blood among peaceful Christian-Islamic communities living together all across the globe. There has been condemnation from the OIC, Pakistan, Iran, Turkey, Kuwait, Indonesia, Malaysia, Morocco, Saudi Arabia and scores of other Islamic countries. His November 2006 tour to Turkey is already in danger. All Muslim communities in the lands of Islam and beyond are in agitation. Does the pontiff understand that a great disservice to humanity has been done in the name of truth and peace?