I'm quite troubled over the cartoon controversy in Denmark, not because of the cartoons themselves, which I agree are offensive, but rather, because of the absurd overreaction of Muslims worldwide. We haven't learned from the Rushdie affair - this is yet another instance where we've gone out of our way to make ourselves look stupid.

For anyone living under a rock, here's what happened. Four months ago, on September 30th, 2005, a Danish newspaper called Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten published 12 cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad in ways that many Muslims deemed sacrilegious. The newspaper claimed - quite foolishly, I think - that the cartoons were "part of an ongoing public debate on freedom of expression" in Denmark. There were a few protests by Muslims and meetings with the Prime Minister of Denmark, but things came to a head on January 10th, 2006, when two Norwegian papers published similar cartoons that were then circulated in the Middle East. Since then, the response has been stupendous:

There were street demonstrations and flag-burnings in the Middle East. Libya joined Saudi Arabia in withdrawing its ambassador from Copenhagen. Islamic governments and organisations, including the Muslim Council of Britain, issued denunciations and a boycott of Danish goods took hold across the Muslim world.

The Danish Government warned its citizens about travelling to Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Syria, and withdrew aid workers from the Gaza Strip.

Last night EU foreign ministers issued a statement in support of Denmark, and the European Commission threatened to report any government backing the boycott to the World Trade Organisation.

By yesterday governments across the Arab world were responding to public outrage. Libya closed its embassy in Denmark and the Egyptian parliament demanded that its Government follow suit. The Kuwaiti and Jordanian governments called for explanations from their Danish ambassadors. President Lahoud of Lebanon condemned the cartoons, saying his country "cannot accept any insult to any religion". The Justice Minister of the United Arab Emirates said: "This is cultural terrorism, not freedom of expression." In Gaza, gunmen briefly occupied the EU office in Gaza and warned Danes and Norwegians to stay away. Palestinians in the West Bank burnt Danish flags. The Islamic groups Hamas and Hezbollah and the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood demanded an apology.

Supermarkets in Algeria, Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, Morocco, Qatar, Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen all removed Danish produce from their shelves. Arla Foods, a Danish company with annual sales of about $430 million in the Middle East, said that the boycott was almost total and suspended production in Saudi Arabia.

Those up in arms don't seem to understand that the newspaper is not government owned or produced. It is an independent newspaper, and as such the guarantee of freedom of expression allows it to do what it did. It may be in bad taste and it may be insensitive, but the newspaper has a point: freedom of expression allows individuals to express themselves in ways that may upset or offend others. Yes, that freedom is to be balanced with freedom of religion, but even so, adherents of any faith cannot expect that they will never be offended. That is the price we pay for the freedoms we enjoy. Some may claim this is a good time to bring out those old blasphemy laws, but I disagree. In fact, I would argue there are no justifiable grounds for blasphemy laws in liberal democracies.

In any case, why these Arab countries would see fit to demand that Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen apologize is beyond me. If one wanted to protest the publication of those cartoons, one could always cancel one's subscription to the newspaper. But to boycott products from the country? Burn Danish flags? Remove ambassadors to express one's displeasure? Those sorts of responses are just nonsensical. The government is not to be blamed for the idiocy of a private newspaper.

Why are we so exciteable anyway? Why even care what a newspaper thinks? The cartoons, horrendous though they may be, need not affect a Muslim's impression of the Prophet, for our tradition clearly shows him to be a man imbued with dignity, morality and goodness. The Prophet was ridiculed from the moment he started receiving revelation in Mecca more than 1400 years ago. The mockery - even the threats on his life - are well documented in the Quran and hadith literature. A few cartoons will do little to harm him - or us.

Some might argue that Islam bars any depiction of the Prophet. Even so, we Muslims cannot force other people to appreciate the Prophet the way we do. We live, for the most part, in free societies, and there are countless opportunities to share with others our own vision of the Prophet and to convince others that he is a man to be honoured and dignified. We can do so by living like the Prophet did, by behaving and speaking in the noble manner of the Prophet himself, and by showing ourselves to be the rightful followers of this blessed man.

The over-the-top reaction just shows me how much excess energy and strength the ummah retains worldwide. Frankly I wonder if Muslims are not doing a greater disservice to the Prophet when we close our eyes to the suffering and oppression in the rest of the world. There are bigger problems to tackle than the publication of 12 silly cartoons. Now, if we could only put our efforts to better purposes...

Dr. M, I disagree about the "boycott" part.

Muslims seems to be out of touch with the global reality. Denmark boycott = EU boycott. The $1.4 trillion GDP of all Muslim countries combined is 1/9th of the $12+ trillion European GDP. So it is going to be Muslims who will suffer most.

After the apology from the newspaper and the statement from the Prime Minister of Denmark, Muslims should end the boycott and ease tensions.

Check this out: http://www.di.dk/DI/English/Press+Release/Jyllands-Posten+needs+to+explain+itself.htm?

If I have understood verse 21:41 of the Qur'anic Chapter "The Prophets" correctly, then the mockers will be hemmed by the media itself :)

21:41 Indeed, (O Prophet) even before your time Messengers have been mocked, but in the end, the mockers were overwhelmed by the very thing they ridiculed (the Divine retribution).
http://www.islamawakened.com/quran/21/41/default.htm

Another term we Westerners could learn from you Muslims? DrM, Muslims have already taught us Westerners the meaning of some many other terms:

1) suicide bombing
2) jihad
3) Islamic terrorist incident
4) al-Qaeda
5) Taliban
6) dhimmi
7) jizya
8) hijab
9) Wahabiism
10) Hamas
11) overreaction

Believe it or not, DrM, we already know the word boycott. Somebody in our country who used the boycott very successfully, black civil rights activist Rosa Parks, passed away not long ago. Parks and supporters successfully boycotted the segregated
busing system that existed in the 1960s.
Unlike Muslims today, she knew exactly how to focus her protest, that is, directly at the busing system - not at the local, state or federal government.

Muslims should protest the papers they disagree with by boycotting its advertisers, by writing letters to the editors, and by publicizing their views to the general public on the issue. Instead, they are content to make enemies out of average Europeans who had nothing to do

Also, unlike the Muslim world, where calls to assassinate people are meant with cheers and cries of "Allah Akbar!" Pat Robertson was roundly condemned in the United States for having call for "taking Chavez out" and was forced to retract his statement. Quite something, considering the fact that Chavez is widely (and almost certainly correctly) regarded as a dirtbag demagogue.

Continued on next post - - -

>>So many Christians think that Allah is God the Father. That is not true at all.

AND SO MANY MUSLIMS, TOO! Gee, I never knew I was really worshipping Baal... Timothy, timothy, timothy. what in the world did you think you would get out of writing that here? Blow off some steam, eh? Well, we're the wrong crowd, minus the mentally deranged "Doctor" and "Debater" of course. You will get nowhere with trying to tell us such things about the very fundamentals of our religion. I would never imagine myself making such dishonest statements about your faith. Get with the program.

Thomas, "freedom of speech" is a misnomer. It is "freedom from religion" that has been on display for the past few weeks and months.

Also, please keep in mind that when you write long posts, you run into logical fallacies.

you = generic.

I am so sorry, but the divine retribution??? In all faiths and scriptures there are all kinds of quotes that one can fall back on....'the meek shall inherit the Earth for example'....that will tell us of our great and glorious eventual gain...but in Muslim scripture it seems to be all about debasing women, blowing up innocent humans, terrorising the world, as I said earlier, the British Muslims were protesting outside the Danish Embassy, actually calling for more bombings in the UK!!! And the Uk never published these cartoons!! I mean for God's sake...CARTOONS!!! Do you people have no respect for OUR culture when you live in our Christian lands? Please, do not get me wrong, I totally observe and respect the right for all faiths to follow their religion and worship without prejudice....and the proof is here, right here, in the Uk we do allow it. Whereas on the other hand, we have Catholic school girls in Indonesia being BEHEADED by Muslims...CHILDREN....these innocent souls!! Young men brainwashed by the FANATIC ramblings of extreme fundamentalist LOONIES, who thence forth go out and blow up and maim 100s of innocent civil decent citizens with families and children of their own. Just what are you people trying to say??? I just do not get you at all, all I see is terror, anger, and downright mockery of all the established laws of this United Kingdom. Learn some respect if you are choosing to live in a country of a different majority faith!!! I would never dream of imposing my god's rules in your Muslim faithed lands.

"but in Muslim scripture it seems to be all about...blowing up innocent humans..."

Specific reference please?

Liaquat Ali,

With all due respect, you seem nice enough, but what are you talking about?

The debate, as I understand it, is between the right of Danish and other European newspapers to run insulting cartoons of the prophet Mohammad and conflicting Muslim demands. Muslims seem to want something, though their demands vary, some want the Danish government to apologize, some want blasphemy laws and some want the cartoonists beheaded.

The ability of Muslims to pray, build mosques, produce and distribute religious literature in Europe is not being inhibited.
There freedom of religion is not being curtailed.

If Muslims want to protest against religious oppression, I would refer them to the Saudi, Iranian or Sudanese embassies rather than the Danish or Norwegian embassies.

For the record, I am an American. I don't believe in restrictions on ANY speech aside from direct threats of violence - such as threatening to kill a particular person or people. I believe you should be able to insult other people's religions, make racist comments and deny the Holocaust if you choose. Of course, you may be condemned for doing so, but that is your right in this country. Everything is worked out via a public discourse. Not via absurd blasphemy laws or religious censors.

I keep hearing the cartoons called incitement. Incitement is a very specific thing in English criminal law, I refer you to:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incitement

Clearly, these cartoons do not meet the critera for incitement. Sorry.

As far as your comment about logical fallacies: anybody can run into such fallacies anywhere - regardless of the length of post in my opinion. I don't find that a good reason not to post, however.

"I am so sorry, but the divine retribution???"

Ed, "divine retribution" is not in the Arabic version. It is the interpretation of the particular translator I quoted. I should have taken it out.

oh man, here we go again, you just can't answer the point I am making can you, always the same in this forum, Ok, not in Muslim scripture about blowing up humans, but certainly it seems, many young Muslims are led to believe that after they blow themselves to smithereens along with countless others, who, unlike these terrorists, are actually mostly innocent humans...these young muslims are led to believe that they will be greeted in Heaven by Allah and a thousand virgins (maybe not exactly correct but you get my drift)....So forgive me if I am wrong, but where exactly does this allowance of terrorism in return for these virgins and enlightenment come from? Anyone, including you Liaquat care to explain???? Please do not forget, that we are talking about souls, lives, humans, life forces of this universe, so can we stop talking crap Liaquat, and please try to make a cohesive and decisive point about all of this. Why all the bullshit picking out little quotes...I know and YOU know EXACTLY what I am talking about.
So, please explain. I wait for your informative answer Liaquat, just why is it that it seems that Muhammed condones terrorism in return for all these wondrous blessings of virgins and eternal enlightenment. I await breathlessly your answer....PEACE!

Ed, I don't have any interest in responding to polemical accusations. If you want to learn something then ask specific questions. I will answer your specific questions as soon as we are comparing apples with apples. In order to do that, I will have to ask specific questions.

As I suggested earlier to someone else, if you start with accusations, you will end up in frustration. :)

More relevant point is that I have no interest in defending the prophet. The prophet does not defense. Here is something from an article I am writing about Muhammad -- The Praised One. :)

He is the bearer of noblest moral character (68:4), blessed (33:56), mercy towards the ìworldsî (21:107), etc. Muhammad, according to Ibn Durayd's (837CE-933CE) Kitab al Ishtiqaq, means one who is continuously praised.

Muhammad's other name Ahmed means pretty much the same. And the Qur'an declares that Muhammad will be raised to the station of praise and glory, that is, ìMaqamam Mahmoodî (17:79).

As a post script, right on Thomas....I started out with a molicum of decorum here in this forum.....but in all reality it's like beating your own head with a piece of driftwood, these people seem incapable of holding a constructive argument....we really do live in different worlds...I am happy in mine...it seems that they are not happy in ours.. It's about time that our governments start to implement more stringent law against this kind of incitement of religious hatred that we are seeing here in the UK...it is absolutely outrageous, and it will not be tolerated. Mark my words. It is without doubt the most mindless and ridiculous (re Danish Embassy UK) event that I have witnessed here in the UK in my 36 years, if I had my way, I would deport the lot of them, no regrets. So soon after maiming 100s of innocent Brits on the Tube last July, it is so so outrageous and it has struck a cord with the very backbone of British society. Mark my words, this will serve no good if it is allowed to carry on. Britain will remain a christian country that TOLERATES and ALLOWS freedom of religious practice. She will never allow incitement to religious hatred, mark my words, there will be arrests and deportations. How can any sane person take there child out in the street and allow it to chant slogans of death...it is absolutely mind numbingly insane.

Please Liaquat, enough of the claptrap, I can't listen to it....I do apologise, but does anyone in here actually have the ability to COMMUNICATE. It's a God given ability you know...

A few points DrM:

1) You throw around the word 'racist' like your giving candy to children. Please stop acting infantile. Every viewpoint aside from your own is not automatically 'racist.' Michelle Malkin, for instance, is Asian. Michael Savage is Jewish, I believe. With a cast of characters like that, I suppose I would fit in real well with the KKK. Right? Maybe, I'll be the next Grand Wizard of the Mississippi Ku Klux Klan, right? Finally, you may wish to read what Jihad Watch founder Robert Spencer has to say about his motives, it should be quite clear he is anything but a racist:

http://jihadwatch.org/spencer/

If your so concerned about racism, DrM, you way wish to lodge a complaint at your local Sudanese embassy about the enslavement of black children by Arabs in that country or
issue a complaint about the repression of any of a myriad of ethnic or religious minorities in Muslim lands at another nation's embassy of your choosing.

2) I am not a missionary - I am an agnostic. I have no affiliation with any organized religion nor any desire to convert you to any particular religious belief (except, perhaps, Wahabiism).

3) I am not retreating to 9/11, DrM, it is just that so many of you Muslims have never bothered confronting the reality of 9/11 and what it says about the current state of Islam.

4) I don't care for NASCAR, DrM, it is almost as boring as watching golf on television. Nothing but right turns. I'm more of a football, basketball and hockey fan, actually.
Given your contempt for low-brow culture, I imagine your probably a big fan of such sports as ballet and women's gymnastics and figure skating, right, DrM?

And as for you 'Dr m'...again, absolutely no answer to any questions being raised, just accusations of being a 'missionary' against Thomas, calling him a 'Bushite'...on what evidence exactly. Man, you are really missing a brain aren't you....the absolute drivel that you speak, we are tlaking about serious issues at hand, the lives of people, and all you can do is point a finger and any non existent idea that enters your tiny mind. Please, if you are going to make a point, then make one that resonates with the whole context of this forum, that being the issue of the Muslim reaction to the publication of Cartoons portraying Muhammed. You know Dr M, you just sound like another raving extremist fantical Muslim madman. You seriously need help fellow. I'm going to bed!!!

Ed, stop polemics and start "communicating". :)

one last thought, the really outrageously funny, yet also extremely DISTURBING thing, is that in all of my posts, not one of you who have accused, pointed fingers, made derogatory comments, have actually answered any of them. It is beyond belief.....are all Muslims this insane? Or do we have a forum full of halfwits? Please God, give me grace to have the patience to maybe actually hear a relevant to the topic argument or answer....Now I am really GOING TO BED. Goodnight, I pray for peace on earth, and mass deportation of insane fundamentalist Muslim extremists....England will always be God's England. Night Night!!

Ermm, I have raised my last eyelid Mr Liaquat, I am not the only one on here who sees you as the master of contoversy....this forum is specifically about the Cartoon issue, and many people have raised issue with YOU on this forum about your lack of insight and usefulness on the topic. So thence forth I ask you, who is the polemic in here? Well you know what, Liaquat, take a walk into your bathroom, there is a shiny thing on the wall, you look into it as you brush your nashers....oh look!!! It is you!! And please, do not protest, for I am sure you will hear, as has been heard many times before in this forum, specifically about you, just who the crazed Polemic in here really is.
And on that note, I am going to dream of my heaven, my wife, and our beautiful time together in our Garden of Eden, which by the way, we achieved totally without the need of resorting to evil.
Goodnight, I bid you well!

Ed, if you think that I have any interest in responding to your polemics, then you are wrong. Your wish that I tried to answer the polemics is frustrating you.

I post my messages so that that sane people know how to respond to polemics in cool and calculated fashion with the use of logic (for non-Muslims) and the Qur'an and logic (for Muslims).

Ermm, I have raised my last eyelid Mr Liaquat, I am not the only one on here who sees you as the master of contoversy....this forum is specifically about the Cartoon issue, and many people have raised issue with YOU on this forum about your lack of insight and usefulness on the topic. So thence forth I ask you, who is the polemic in here? Well you know what, Liaquat, take a walk into your bathroom, there is a shiny thing on the wall, you look into it as you brush your nashers....oh look!!! It is you!! And please, do not protest, for I am sure you will hear, as has been heard many times before in this forum, specifically about you, just who the crazed Polemic in here really is.
And on that note, I am going to dream of my heaven, my wife, and our beautiful time together in our Garden of Eden, which by the way, we achieved totally without the need of resorting to evil.
Goodnight, I bid you well!

This is the deal Ed. You ask civil question. I give you a civil response. You throw baseless accusations, I frustrate you.

Since you have been reasonably civil in general, I continue to be reasonably civil with you. So if you start "communicating", then I will start responding.

Good night. Come back with specific questions. :)