VARIOUS: Mass prayers on the last Friday of Ramadan while Vatican says Christians and Muslims face test on terrorism

Muslims all over the world celebrated al-Quds day on Friday (October 20) with huge prayer meetings, often followed by large rallies. Shi'ite Muslims in Pakistan took held anti-U.S. and anti-Israel rallies across the country to express solidarity with Palestinian people as part of marking the al-Quds day. Thousands of men, women and children marched through the streets of Pakistan's southern city of Karachi protesting against what they called the 'Israeli occupation in Palestine'. Holding banners, placards and Shi'ite flags, the protesters chanted anti-Israel and anti-US slogans. Groups of men and women dressed up as Palestinian fighters, some draped in shrouds to show symbolic readiness for martyrdom also accompanied the crowd with many little children wore headband with Islamic slogans and held toy guns. In the capital Islamabad hundreds of demonstrators marched through streets and burned U.S and Israeli flags. Rallies were also held in other parts of the country. Muslim worshippers gathered at Jerusalem's shrine to attend Friday prayers following clashes between Israeli security and Palestinians who tried to enter the city for prayers. Violence broke out between Palestinians and troops at West Bank checkpoints as worshippers attempted to cross to Jerusalem to attend the last Friday prayer during the holy Muslim month of Ramadan (October 20). Several hundred worshippers massed at a Bethlehem checkpoint in an attempt to reach Jerusalem's al-Aqsa shrine, the third holiest site for Muslims. Israeli soldiers and border policemen checked identification documents of the Palestinians who arrived at the checkpoint area and at some point began throwing stun grenades to disperse the crowd. Israeli news websites reported that 150,000 worshippers attended the prayers at al-Aqsa. Meanwhile, a top Vatican cardinal said the credibility of both Christianity and Islam are at risk if believers do not make a stand against terrorism. In a message of greetings to Muslims at the end of their annual Ramadan fast, the Vatican's head of inter-religious dialogue said Christians and Muslims "respect and value each other". The Vatican greets Muslims at the end of every Ramadan, but this year's message comes at a particularly sensitive time for relations between the two religions after Pope Benedict made a speech last month which offended many in the Islamic world. "The message refers to the serious problems of our age: injustice, poverty, tensions and conflicts within countries and among different countries, and also the particularly painful scourge of violence and terrorism. For the solution of this serious situation we, Christians and Muslims, are called to offer our specific contributions," said Secretary of the Vatican's Inter-religious department Archbishop Pier Luigi Celata. The head of the inter-religious department Cardinal Paul Poupard presented the text in a news conference -- the first time the Vatican has made such an effort to highlight its annual goodwill message. He said his office drafted the text in August but adapted it after the Pope's controversial speech. The Pope made a speech in September in which he quoted 14th century Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Palaeologus, who said the Prophet Mohammad commanded "to spread by the sword the faith he preached". The Pontiff has many times expressed regret for the reaction to the speech and held an extraordinary meeting with Muslim representatives to assure them of his respect. But the message remained widely unheard. Thousands of Palestinians demonstrated in the al-Yarmouk camp near to the Syrian capital Damascus, where most Palestinians in Syria live. Al-Quds is the Arabic for Jerusalem, the Holy Land. Al-Quds day is marked across Islamic world on the last Friday of Ramadan.

ITN Source | October 21, 2006

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