In an analysis of Monday’s meeting between Pope Francis and Sheikh Ahmed el-Tayeb, the Grand Imam of the al-Azhar Mosque in Cairo, Vatican expert John L. Allen said that there is no Christian leader in the world today with a more credible claim to the title of a “friend of Islam.”
Lining up the Pope’s credentials for such a claim, Allen notes that Francis opposed the idea of Western strikes on the Assad regime in Syria in September 2013, which won him the enduring gratitude of the Grand Mufti of Syria, Ahmad Badreddin Hassoun. On Holy Thursday, Francis washed the feet of Muslim inmates. He has welcomed Islamic leaders to the Vatican, and has become Europe’s “leading voice of compassion for Muslim refugees,” Allen states, including bringing back three Syrian Muslim refugee families after his recent trip to the Greek island of Lesbos.
http://www.breitbart.com/london/2016/05/23/vatican-expert-pope-francis-friend-islam/