Muslim campaign educates about Muhammad

WASHINGTON — The Washington-based Muslim advocacy group Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) launched a yearlong campaign Feb. 14 called Explore the Life of Muhammad. CAIR will allow visitors to its Web site to order either “Muhammad,” a biography, or “Muhammad: Legacy of a Prophet,” a PBS documentary on DVD. Both are from 2002. CAIR will also help Muslim communities arrange their own events, such as documentary screenings, panel discussions and mosque open houses, and hopes to eventually expand the effort to Europe.

Last May, CAIR started an Explore the Quran campaign after reports alleging that American soldiers desecrated Islam’s holy book sparked deadly riots in parts of the Muslim world. CAIR offered to send copies of Islam’s holy book to anyone who asked and has since received requests for more than 26,000, it said. As the Muhammad campaign was launched, violence fueled by the cartoons (see story, this page) left two people dead in Pakistan. Several European newspapers Feb. 1 republished the controversial cartoons, some depicting Muhammad as a terrorist. They were originally published last September in a Danish newspaper, Jyllands-Posten.