FACTBOX - Milestones in Roman Catholic-Muslim relations

Nov 6 - Pope Benedict met Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah on Tuesday -- the first meeting between a Pope and a Saudi monarch, custodian of two of Islam's holiest shrines.

Here are some recent milestones in relations between their two faiths:

* THE SECOND VATICAN COUNCIL:

-- The council declaration "Nostra Aetate" (1965) was mainly a positive re-evaluation of Judaism but it also included a section on Islam and noted that Muslims adored God, revered Jesus as a prophet and honoured his mother, the Virgin Mary.

-- "The Church regards with esteem also the Muslims," it said, urging sincere work for mutual understanding.

* POPE JOHN PAUL II:

-- Morocco's King Hassan became the first Muslim head of state to receive a Pope, when John Paul II made a two-day visit in 1985.

-- In 1996 John Paul used a 10-hour visit to Tunisia to call for dialogue and tolerance between Christians and Muslims after centuries of persecution and distrust dating back to the crusades.

-- In 2001 John Paul became the first Pontiff in history to visit and pray in a Muslim place of worship, visiting the ancient Great Umayyad Mosque in Syria's capital, Damascus.

* POPE BENEDICT:

-- In a lecture in Regensburg, Germany, in September 2006, Pope Benedict quoted the 14th-century Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Palaeologus and implied he thought Islam was a violent and irrational faith. Amid a storm of outrage from the Islamic world, the head of the Egyptian-based Muslim Brotherhood called on Islamic countries to threaten to break relations with the Vatican unless he withdrew his remarks.

-- Benedict's trip to Turkey in November 2006, which included prayers with an imam at Istanbul's Blue Mosque, did much to repair relations between the two faiths.

-- Last June, Benedict restored the status of the Vatican's Council for Interreligious Dialogue with the appointment of Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran as its head, to improve relations with the Muslim world. He had downgraded it in 2005, but the uproar after his speech prompted him to reconsider.