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Surely you can understand that to the eyes of the average Muslim observer, one can’t help but see it as the Pope praying to Allah.

To pray to a llah, you need to follow the ritual bowing, saying the Shahnamah (la illah allah, muhammed al rasurillah, shadwan al rasurillah: "there is no god but allah, and mohammed is his prophet, here is no other prophet after him").

Anything else is NOT a prayer to Alla and Mozzies KNOW That -- visit a Moz land and you'll see.

Unless the Pope does the entire "touch my head, touch my chest, touch my ba**s, and repeat", the average Moz would know that's not a prayer. Rather the average Moz would be outraged saying that the mosque has been defiled because the Pope prayed to God there, not all ah.

Have you ever been inside a mosque or a temple or a pagoda? You can freely worship God in your thoughts and your words, you do not have to mouth what they want.

"Have you ever been inside a mosque or a temple or a pagoda? You can freely worship God in your thoughts and your words, you do not have to mouth what they want."

Yes, I've been in plenty...including mosques in Egypt, Morocco, and the great moseques of Turkey. I've also visited dozens of Buddhist shrines all over Asia. I didn't go to any of them to pray to my God...I went, observed the art, architecture and ceremony, and left. I'm not saying that a prayer offered to God there could not ascend to heaven, I'm saying that symbolically, it sends a very poor message for the head of the Catholic Church to have done so (which he gratefully did not). Since perhaps the central theme of Islam is the idea of submission to Allah, can you not see how, symbolically, the Pope's praying in a mosque under current world conditions would have looked like submission to, or at very least recognition of Allah? Praying in a place whose very walls are adorned with script proclaiming that there is no God but Allah and Muhammed is his prophet!

Instinctively you know I'm right, you just don't want to admit it.