http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/6086374.stm
Australia's most senior Muslim cleric has prompted an uproar by saying that some women are attracting sexual assault by the way they dress.
Sheikh Taj el-Din al-Hilali said women who did not wear a hijab (head dress) were like "uncovered meat".
But he has now apologised for any offence caused by his comments, The Australian newspaper reports.
Leading Muslim women condemned the comments and PM John Howard said the remarks were "appalling".
"The idea that women are to blame for rapes is preposterous," Mr Howard told reporters.
A transcript of the sermon containing the original remarks has been published in The Australian.
"I unreservedly apologise to any woman who is offended by my comments," Sheikh Hilali said in a statement on Thursday.
"I had only intended to protect women's honour, something lost in The Australian presentation of my talk."
A spokesman for Sheikh Hilali earlier said the quote had been taken out of context and referred not to sexual assault, but to sexual infidelity.
The sermon was targeted against men and women who engaged in extra-marital sex and did so through alluring types of clothes, he said.
Sheikh Hilali's critics have previously accused him of praising suicide bombers and claiming the attacks in the United States on 11 September 2001 were "God's work against oppressors".
The cleric's latest comments came in a sermon delivered to some 500 worshippers in Sydney last month.
If she was in her room, in her home, in her hijab, no problem would have occurred
Sheikh Hilali
Controversial Mufti
"If you take out uncovered meat and place it outside... and the cats come and eat it... whose fault is it, the cats' or the uncovered meat?" he asked.
The uncovered meat is the problem, he went on to say.
"If she was in her room, in her home, in her hijab, no problem would have occurred," he added.
Sheikh Hilali also condemned women who swayed suggestively and wore make-up, implying they attracted sexual assault.
"Then you get a judge without mercy... and gives you 65 years," he added.
High-profile case
The BBC's Nick Bryant in Sydney says the comments are seen as particularly insensitive because Sydney was the scene six years ago of a series of gang rapes committed by a group of Lebanese Australians, who received long prison sentences.
Finance Minister Peter Costello called on Muslims to condemn the speech.
"If you have a significant religious leader like this preaching to a flock in a situation where we've had gang rapes, in a way that seems to make it justifiable, then people that listen to that kind of comment can get the wrong idea," he said.
"They can actually think that it's not as bad as it is."
A number of leading Muslim women have already spoken out against the sermon, describing it as repulsive and offensive.
Federal Sex Discrimination Commissioner Pru Goward said the comments could be an incitement to crime.
"Young Muslim men who now rape women can cite this in court, can quote this man... their leader in court," she told Australian media.
She added that the cleric should be deported for inciting rape.
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