CAIRO, 4 April 2005 — Muslims around the world yesterday praised the late Pope John Paul’s drive to build bridges with Islam and said his death had cost both faiths a campaigner for peace and justice. The pope led a campaign over the past two decades to help turn conflict between the world’s 1.1 billion Catholics and 1.2 billion Muslims into cooperation. He was the first pope to officially visit a mosque during a trip to Syria in 2001.

Muslims said the pope’s support for the Palestinians and opposition to the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 increased their respect for him and helped contain the idea of a “clash of civilizations” after the Sept. 11 attacks. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas called the Pope “a great religious figure who devoted his life to defending the values of peace, freedom, justice and equality for all races and religions, as well as our people’s right to independence”.

The grand Sheikh of Egypt’s Al-Azhar Mosque, which the pope visited in 2001, said his death was “a big loss for the Catholic Church and the Islamic world.” Grand Sheikh Mohamed Sayed Al-Tantawi said he valued the pope’s “moderate position supporting Arab issues in each of Palestine and Iraq.”

The Arab League lowered the flag over its Cairo headquarters to half-staff. League spokesman Hossam Zaki said the pope had helped avoid “unnecessary misunderstandings” between Christians and Muslims over Western government policies in the region.

Afghanistan’s president commended the pope’s support of his people’s desire for freedom, and clerics in Indonesia, Malaysia and Bangladesh hoped his successor would build on the Pope’s efforts to strengthen ties of understanding with Islam.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai said: “We remember that during the years of Afghanistan’s occupation by the Soviet Union, the pope raised his voice of support to the Afghan people.”

Iranian President Mohammad Khatami said the pope had commanded the three paths of religious learning, philosophical thought and poetic and artistic creativity.

The first non-Italian pope in 455 years, John Paul II threw off many of the formalities of his office, traveling widely, writing five books and putting together a CD of religious music. “This was a good man, a man of peace,” said Theirno Habibou Tall, a Muslim leader who met the pope during his visit to predominantly Muslim Senegal in 1992.

Many Muslims hope the pope’s successor will continue to work for understanding between the two religions. In 1986, the pope invited Muslims and adherents of other faiths to pray together at Assisi for world peace.

In Kuala Lumpur, Azizan Razak, a cleric and senior leader of the opposition Parti Islam-se Malaysia, said: “We hope his successor will follow his footsteps to increase understanding between Muslims and Christians.”

In Bangladesh, home to nearly 140 million Muslims, Maulana Obaidul Haque of the Baitul Mokarram Mosque, said the world had lost a great religious leader. “We hope his successor will also work for world peace,” the cleric said.The pope survived the attempt on his life by a Turkish gunman in May 1981. “We see the pope’s death as a loss in the name of tolerance and peace,” the Turkish Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

In Egypt, which he also visited in 2000 and is home to small community of Coptic Catholics, public television broadcast a special program to pay homage to the pope, highlighting his role as a major supporter of peace in the region. In Lebanon, the first Middle Eastern country John Paul II visited during his papacy, Maronite Christian President Emile Lahoud, said his country had lost a “great friend”.

“With all its different religions, Lebanon always had a special place in the heart and the thoughts of the pontiff who prayed for it and defended its causes before international organizations,” he said.

Leading Shiite Muslim cleric Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah echoed the sentiment. “We hope the course of dialogue charted by the Holy See will lead to all religions converging on faith in God,” he said.

The other stop on the pontiff’s millennium tour was Jordan, where officials and media praised the pope’s “balanced” views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, describing him as a courageous leader. “King Abdallah expressed his deep sorrow over the passing of pope John Paul, who contributed to strengthening tolerance, dialogue, human rights and ties between monotheistic religions,” said a statement from the royal palace in Amman.

United Arab Emirates President Sheikh Khalifa Ibn Zayed Al-Nahayan said: “In his dedicated efforts to promote a spirit of justice, peace and love among mankind, he was the antithesis of those who advocated a closed and dogmatic interpretation of the universal message of Almighty God.”

Kuwait, home to only 200 native Christians and the first Gulf country to establish ties with the Vatican in 1968, expressed much the same view, with Emir Sheikh Jaber Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah deploring the loss of a “great man”.