We could head many posts with that title, but just for today, this AsiaNews essay by Jesuit Samir Khalil Samir. A bio from something Magister reprinted earlier this year from him:

The author of the essay, Samir Khalil Samir, an Egyptian Jesuit, is a professor of Islamic studies and of the history of Arab culture at the Université Saint-Joseph in Beirut and at the Pontifical Oriental Institute in Rome; he is the founder of the Centre de Recherche Arabes Chrétiennes and president of the International Association for Christian Arabic Studies. In September of 2005 he participated, at Castel Gandolfo, in a study meeting with Benedict XVI on the concept of God in Islam.

From the AsiaNews piece:

At least 99% of those who protested have not even read the speech as yet. Yesterday I took part in a broadcast on Iranian television with two imams, a Palestinian Sunni and an Iranian Shiite. They all told me they had read the speech in Arabic two days after it was given. But this was not true: the translation into Arabic was prepared only eight days later, by a friend who put it on his private site. When I tried to explain the meaning of the entire text, they kept quoting the famous phrase of Manuel II Paleologus, like a script. Even the pope has been used to hit out at the west. Usually, Muslims hesitate to attack the pope, even if the Catholic Church is always perceived alongside the West. Even in that broadcast on Iranian television, Benedict XVI, Bush, Blair, Merkel, Israel, Zionists and so on, were thrown together, accused of “conspiring against Islam”.

<snip>

Islam’s no.1 problem today is that of violence. Yesterday on television, the Iranian imam said Zarqawi and Bin Laden were only “terrorists”, they did not represent Islam because “no one follows them”. But this is another falsehood. A survey conducted by al-Jazeera on “what do you think about Bin Laden?” revealed that 50% of those interviewed backed Ban Laden, while the other half rejected him.

The problem of violence of Islam cannot be put off. It also affects peace on the planet. Today, many wars in the west and in Asia are caused precisely by Muslims who want autonomy, a state for themselves. It is enough to cite Bosnia, Thailand, the Philippines, Kosovo, Kashmir, Nigeria… to say nothing of Pakistan and Bangladesh. Wherever there is a Muslim minority concentrated in an area where it becomes the majority, a separatist war is quick to break out. It should be noted that violence is practiced mostly against their fellow members of the faith, Muslims. Just look at violence in Iraq, or in Pakistan, where Sunnis and Shiites attack each other to the point of striking mosques, their most sacred places. In Algeria, in the name of the Koran and the Prophet, nearly 100,000 people were killed in recent years…

But when violence is committed in the name of God, this is a blasphemy, an offence against God. And this is what the pope was talking about. A text attributed to Muhammad says: “Take the sentiments, the customs of God” (takhallaqû bi-akhlâq Allâh) [the same expression we use to translate St Paul: “Have the same sentiments of Jesus Christ…”]. There is the need, then, for Islam to rethink its relationship with violence, to take on the “sentiments” of God. Therefore the pope insisted: “Violence is contrary to the nature of God”.