A senior Muslim cleric in Australia apologized Thursday after he was widely condemned for recently reported comments he made about women and rape, but said he would not step down from his position.

Sheik Taj Aldin al Hilali denied he was condoning rape in a sermon last month when he compared women who don't wear a headscarf to "uncovered meat," suggesting they invite sexual attack.

Sheik Taj Aldin al Hilali, seen in this photo from July 31, triggered outrage in Australia on Thursday by likening women who dress immodestly to uncovered meat that attracts predators.
(Rick Rycroft/Associated Press)

But Hilali apologized to any women he had offended, saying they were free to dress as they wished.

Hilali was quoted in the Australian newspaper as saying in the sermon: "If you take out uncovered meat and place it outside … without cover, and the cats come to eat it … whose fault is it, the cats' or the uncovered meat's?"

"The uncovered meat is the problem. If she was in her room, in her home, in her hijab, no problem would have occurred," he was quoted as saying, referring to the headdress worn by some Muslim women.

Hilali issued a statement Thursday saying The Australian had selectively quoted from the sermon, and that he was shocked at the reaction.

"I would like to unequivocally confirm that the presentation related to religious teachings on modesty and not to go to extremes in enticements," the statement said.

"This does not condone rape; I condemn rape," he said. "Women in our Australian society have the freedom and right to dress as they choose; the duty of man is to avert his glance or walk away."

Asked if he would quit his senior post, Hilali told Seven Network television news: "No, no, no."

Calls for cleric to step down

In Australia on Thursday, other Muslim leaders, civil libertarians and political leaders joined in condemning the cleric's comments.

Australia's Sex Discrimination Commissioner, Pru Goward, said Hilali's comment was an incitement to rape and that Australia's Muslims should force him to stand down.

"This is inciting young men to a violent crime because it is the woman's fault," Goward told Australian television station Nine Network. "It is time the Islamic community did more than say they were horrified. I think it is time he left."

Australian Prime Minister John Howard also rejected the comments as unacceptable.

"They are appalling and reprehensible comments," Howard said. "The idea that women are to blame for rapes is preposterous."

Similar tensions in U.K., France

The controversy comes at the same time as a heated debate in Britain about religious freedom surrounding the issue of Muslim women wearing veils. Similar passions raged when France banned headscarves and other religious symbols in public schools two years ago.

Hilali is the top cleric at Sydney's largest mosque and is considered the most senior Islamic leader by many Muslims in Australia and New Zealand.

He has served as an adviser to the Australian government on Muslim issues, but triggered a controversy in 2004 for saying in a sermon in Lebanon that the Sept. 11 attacks were "God's work against the oppressors." Hilali said later he did not mean that he supported the attacks or terrorism.

The latest furor comes as relations between Australia's almost 300,000 Muslims and the majority population, which has a Christian background, are tense following riots last December between young men of Anglo-Saxon and Middle Eastern backgrounds.

With files from the Associated Press