On September 12, 2006, Pope Benedict XVI delivered a lecture at the University of Regensburg, Germany during which he indicated that Islam was spread by the sword. He referenced a medieval polemic authored by the Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Palaiologos (1350–1425ce). The Pope also insinuated that the verse in the Quran forbidding compulsion in matters of faith (2:257) applied only when the Holy Prophet^(sa) was in a state of political weakness, but this principle was changed once he attained a position of ...