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Arab TV awash with coverage of Pope John Paul II's death

Faithful pray next to the body of Pope John Paul II in Saint Peter's Basilica in the Vatican on Tuesday. The funeral of the Pope will take place at the Vatican tomorrow. PHOTO: EPA

Arab television stations have launched a media blitz for the death of Pope Paul John II, giving Mideast viewers hours of live broadcasts from the Vatican and programs on the pontiff's life -- coverage rarely seen even for the region's autocrats.

The lavish airtime made the Arab world a participant in the giant outpouring of grief that took place in Rome and was aired heavily on pan-Arab stations like Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya, which have been increasing their coverage of major events outside the Arab world.

But it also generated a backlash. Islamic fundamentalists in particular criticized the parade of Muslim leaders on TV praising the head of a faith that they consider an enemy of Islam.

"How can the death of a non-Muslim be a loss to the Muslim world?" said Gamal Sultan, an Egyptian Islamic activist and editor of Al-Manar, a journal that serves as a mouthpiece of Islamic fundamentalists.

The pope had a mixed legacy among Arabs, particularly the region's Muslim majority. He was widely respected for criticizing the US invasion of Iraq and for calling for a just peace between Palestinians and Israelis, meeting several times with the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

He was also the first pope to visit a mosque -- the revered Omayyad Mosque in Damascus during a 2001 trip to Syria -- and he promoted Muslim-Christian dialogue.

On Arab television stations, numerous Muslim clerics went on the air to praise John Paul.

"His death is a great loss not only to the Catholic church but to the Islamic world," Sheik Mohammed Seyed Tantawi, the leader of Cairo's Al-Azhar, one of the world's top Islamic institutions, said in a statement read over the Egyptian state-run television.

In Web sites known as clearing houses for Islamic militant materials, criticism was even harsher.

"How is it that these [Muslim] clerics of the royal courts heap praise on an infidel and an enemy of Islam," wrote a participant on one of Web forum.
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