By Editor Bob Terry
Editorial cartoons depicting Islam’s founder, Mohammed, in various settings have created a political and economic furor and sent the cartoonists into hiding, fearing for their lives.
The reactions in the Muslim world to this continuing uproar raise grave questions about the nature of the Islamic faith that seems to have sway in the world today.
One of the cartoons showed Islam’s prophet wearing a turban shaped like a bomb with its fuse lit. Another had him with eyes blacked out, carrying a large curved knife and flanked by two women in burqas, covered from head to toe.
Muslim reaction to the cartoons, which were first published in a Danish newspaper and later in several other publications in Europe, has been fierce. Politically the Danish government came under strong pressure to intervene, something the government said it had no authority to do.
Yet The Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), representing 57 Muslim states and territories, accused the government of “indifference” to Islamic concerns. The Arab League, a 22-nation bloc, instructed its secretary general to take up the issue directly with the Danish government. Saudi Arabia and Libya both called their ambassador home in protest of the cartoons. Economically Denmark has taken a beating. Saudi Arabia pulled all Danish products from its stores. A representative of Denmark’s giant Arla Foods company said in just five days, its Middle East market dried up. Forty years of work vanished as the economic boycott spread across the Muslim world.
Under great pressure and after months of refusing to apologize, the editor of the Danish paper apologized to “Muslims who felt humiliated by the drawings but not for the publication of the 12 cartoons because no law was broken.”
The editor was joined by the World Association of Newspapers (WAN) in arguing for freedoms of speech, expression and press. WAN said the cartoons were a test of whether fear of Islamic retribution had begun to limit freedom of expression in Europe. The statement continued, saying Islam or any other religion could be the subject of opinion, particularly when the religion is an essential element of the global political debate.
Muslim leaders charged the cartoons were meant to ridicule and infuriate Muslims because Muslims consider any images of their prophet to be blasphemous. “This cannot be considered as an innocent behavior falling within the scope of freedom of expression,” the OIC concluded.
Muslim reactions included death threats against the cartoonists and several went into hiding. A Muslim religious party in Pakistan offered a reward of 500,000 rupees (about $8,500) to anyone who killed one of the offending cartoonists.
In Saudi Arabia, two Arla Foods employees were beaten by angry customers because they were Danish. Armed Palestinian groups threatened to target French, Norwegian, Danish and German citizens in the Gaza Strip and West Bank because newspapers from those countries published the cartoons.
The Danish government is taking the threats seriously. It warned its citizens about traveling in Pakistan and the Middle East. One official said, “They might want to get to the Danish illustrators, but if they can’t reach them, they could make do with a scapegoat.” In light of recent events, the threats should be taken seriously. In Islamic countries such as Pakistan, Christians frequently are murdered because they are judged to have offended Islam’s prophet. Executing those who offend Mohammed’s name has been a part of Islamic history.
In 850, a Spanish Christian living in Cordoba was asked by Muslim friends what he thought of Mohammed. At first, the Christian, Perfectus, declined to answer, but after being assured his conversation was safe with them, he shared his views. Soon the “friends” shouted in the market place that Perfectus had blasphemed against the prophet. The result was that April 18, a falling blade separated Perfectus’ head from his torso. Perfectus was the first of 48 Christians martyred in Cordoba in a nine-year period for holding unkind views about Mohammed. The last was the bishop of Cordoba, Eulogius, who lost his head March 11, 859.
Against such a history, one can only ask where are the freedoms of speech, of press and of expression? Where is freedom of religion or religious sensitivity? It was not found in Cordoba. It is not found today in places like Pakistan, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, northern Nigeria or any of the other countries where Islam has been welded into government structures.
Muslim clerics are prone to point to the Christian Crusades and the violence committed by Crusaders as a way of deflecting probes about Muslim violence today. It should be remembered that 400 years before the First Crusade, Muslims stormed and took Jerusalem from Christian control. Yet Muslims are quiet about this “crusade.”
According to historians, in 638, Sophronius, the Orthodox patriarch of Jerusalem, watched the Muslim leader Caliph Omar take over the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. He reportedly whispered to other priests, “Surely this is the abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel the Prophet standing in the holy place.”
The leading Christian city of the first thousand years after Christ was not Jerusalem or Rome. It was Constantinople and Muslims made repeated attacks on the walled city. About 20 years after capturing Jerusalem, they laid siege to Constantinople for six years but failed to take the city. Forty years later, a Muslim army of more than 80,000 and a navy numbering about 1,800 boats attacked the city but again failed. There were other efforts but all failed until 1453, when Mehmed the Conqueror led another army, this time estimated by some sources at more than 100,000 against 7,000 Christian defenders of the once mighty Constantinople. After a 53-day siege, the city fell and the violence for which the age had become notorious repeated its familiar pattern.
The past has more than enough for which all can repent. But the question is what about today? Can Muslims live side by side with people of other faiths in a world of diversity where freedom reigns? Can there be freedom of religion where various faiths compete on the merit of their beliefs rather than on the strength of their army or the power of their police? Can Muslims live in a diverse world with freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of expression or must non-Muslims always be intimidated by the blade of Muslim justice? The questions are especially important where Muslims comprise a majority of the population.
These are not hypothetical questions. They are major issues that must be answered satisfactorily, or the violence of the past and the violence of some places in the world today may become the pattern for the future. In our judgment, the reactions in Muslim states to the newspaper cartoons about Mohammed do not bode well for the future.
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