Please explain why this is offensive

[Zoe B]

"A 7th grade Arab-looking boy in front of a blackboard. Sticking out his tongue, he points to the Farsi chalkings, which translate into "The editorial team of Jyllands-Posten is a bunch of reactionary provocateurs". The boy is labelled "Mohammed, Valby school, 7.A", implying that this is a second-generation immigrant to Denmark rather than the founder of Islam. On his shirt is written "FREM" and then in a new line "-TIDEN". Fremtiden means the future, but Frem (forward) is also the name of a Valby football team whose uniforms resemble the boy's shirt. Valby is a district of Copenhagen known for having a concentrated population of immigrants."

That is a description of one of the infamous cartoons. I won't reproduce it here, nor even give a URL, for fear of giving offence.

I just fail to see why several very prominent and influential Islamic scholars and Imams have condemned all of the cartoonists to death, and stated that every single one of the cartoons is a mortal offence to Islam.

Sorry, I genuine want to understand what is the problem here.

[BHAI]

the cartoons are offensive
and unnecessary
but the reaction to them has been different from various scholars,schools of thought etc

muslims themselves disagree with how to react
violence and death threats are inappropriate
but images of mobs makes for good tv
whereas patient and spiritual muslims just stay at home and do what weve gotta do according to our school of thought
(look in the mirror and be the change you wish to see in the world)

some may disagree with my reaction
:lailah: :ahb:

[dhakiyya]

It was the ones that depicted the prophet Muhammad :saw: that were deemed offensive. Depicting a prophet in any way is not allowed in Islam, and the cartoons in question were depicting Muhammad :saw: in a derogatory way in addition, and before the cartoons were published the magazine was advised by Chrisitians as well as by Muslims that the cartoons would cause severe offence to Muslims. They also clearly have double standards as the magazine had previously refused to publish cartoons that would have caused offence to Christians. Its not difficult to understand why the published cartoons caused offence.

Giving an example of a cartoon that has nothing to do with Muhammad :saw: and actually sounds more like a cartoon that was drawn during the backlash to the offensive cartoons (the reference to the magazine in question being "reactionary provocateurs" being a humorous reference to the publishing cartoons) suggests that either you are very naive or you are deliberately trying to hide the truth about what was actually published.

That said the behavour of some Muslims in response to them was excessive and unjustified. However, the vast vast majority of Muslims did not react with violence or even threats of violence, we challenged them through intellectual dialogue but as Bhai pointed out, the few that reacted with violence/threats of violence make good TV. As for my local community, the first the Imam at my local mosque heard about it was because one of the sisters was crying because the cartoons upset her so much and he asked her what was wrong, so she explained. The same sister later put up a poster in the mosque urging people to boycott danish products. Thats the way the vast majority of Muslims reacted to it. We got upset, we stopped buying danish things, and I don't think many of us will consider Denmark for our holidays this year.

[pumpkin]

Hi, I am new here. I would like to point out something about what you just said. Firstly, I have seen the cartoons in question, and to be honest, I thought most of them were just boring, one of them was funny, but none of them looked overly offensive to me.
However, you have the right to not like them, but as you rightly pointed out, you dont have the right to kill or threaten to hurt people over them.
Now, here is the thing I want to say: I have heard many times that muslims resent being labelled or portrayed as terrorists because of the actions of a few. Yet, many if not most muslims, even you, who appear to be moderate on this issue, are advocating boycotts against the whole Danish country? This is hypocrasy, I am afraid. You have labelled the whole country at fault because of the actions of a few- sound fair? I don't think so. What would be fair, is if you do not like the cartoons, is to boycott the newspaper, and the company that owns it and any other business that company owns.

[fordfiesta]

.. Depicting a prophet in any way is not allowed in
Islam,
.....and actually sounds more like a cartoon that was drawn during the backlash to the offensive cartoons (the reference to the magazine in question being "reactionary provocateurs" being a humorous reference to the publishing cartoons) suggests that either you are very naive or you are deliberately trying to hide the truth about what was actually published.
..

Well...
I got some groundbreaking new for you; drawing a prophet is legal not only in Scandinavia, but in all civilised countries.

Also...

Who's naive ? You obviously have not seen the drawings !. So how can you comment ??
The drawing mentioned is indeed one of the 12 drawings in the paper september 1995.

[Olabi Olabi]

We got upset, we stopped buying danish things, and I don't think many of us will consider Denmark for our holidays this year.

That is just silly.

A good muslim will move on from these silly cartoons, and forget about them.

That is what Allah wants, not for us to react and do something drastic e.g. causing violence.

[dhakiyya]

Well...
I got some groundbreaking new for you; drawing a prophet is legal not only in Scandinavia, but in all civilised countries.

Also...

Who's naive ? You obviously have not seen the drawings !. So how can you comment ??
The drawing mentioned is indeed one of the 12 drawings in the paper september 1995.

if thats the case then it proves that they were deliberately being provocative!

Blasphemy is illegal in Norway and other civilised countries. Blasphemy means deliberately publishing/broadcasting material that is intended to offend people of a particular religion.

[dhakiyya]

That is just silly.

A good muslim will move on from these silly cartoons, and forget about them.

That is what Allah wants, not for us to react and do something drastic e.g. causing violence.

I'm not going on holiday in a country that considers it okay to commit blasphemy against my religion, or indeed any other religion.

A good Muslim will speak out when people ridicule his religion. So would a good member of any other religion.

As for moving on, in case you hadn't noticed, Zoe asked a question which I attempted to give an answer to. It is necessary for Muslims to explain what is offensive and why something is offensive if we expect people to refrain from offending us.

I do not and have never supported actions of violence in response to this, I am just trying to educate people that its NOT okay to publish things deliberately intended to cause deep offense to someone of a particular religion. Imagine the offence caused by devout catholics if someone did that to the Virgin Mary. (it would also cause offense to Muslims because Jesus (as) is a prophet and the Virgin Mary is one of the four most important women to Muslims) Its the fact that they have caused so much hurt and upset that is the problem. I have never stated that I support the use of violence in response, and the vast vast majority of Muslims feel the same way I do.

[dhakiyya]

Hi, I am new here. I would like to point out something about what you just said. Firstly, I have seen the cartoons in question, and to be honest, I thought most of them were just boring, one of them was funny, but none of them looked overly offensive to me.


Thats because you are not a Muslim, you don't revere the prophet Muhammad :saw: and you don't consider making images of prophets to be wrong. You should have sufficient intelligence and sensitivity to understand that just because you don't find something offensive, it doesn't mean that someone that holds different beliefs to you shoudn't find something offensive just because you don't.

I would not be offended, nor find it particularly funny, if someone ridiculed your mother at her funeral, as I don't know her and she's not my mother. However I have sufficient intelligence and sensitivity to realise that you would find it intolerably offensive and that such an act would be abhorrent.

Now, here is the thing I want to say: I have heard many times that muslims resent being labelled or portrayed as terrorists because of the actions of a few. Yet, many if not most muslims, even you, who appear to be moderate on this issue, are advocating boycotts against the whole Danish country? This is hypocrasy, I am afraid. You have labelled the whole country at fault because of the actions of a few- sound fair? I don't think so. What would be fair, is if you do not like the cartoons, is to boycott the newspaper, and the company that owns it and any other business that company owns.

I understand what you are saying here, however, this is how consumer boycotts work. The Danish government has failed to act on this matter, even though they have laws against blasphemy. Their laws are clearly inadequate however, because they don't include making fun of Islam and what Islam holds sacred to be blasphemy. Norway, by contrast, have amended their legal definition of blasphemy after consulting Muslim scholars as to what Muslims would find blasphemous. When a national government is a problem, a boycott is called on the whole country, with the expectation that those in the country that are opposed to the governments stance will put pressure on them to change. I don't consider a national boycott as saying that all Danes are complicit - for a start I'm well aware of a number of Danish Christians who oppose the cartoons, including the Church leader who warned the newspaper about how offensive Muslims would find the cartoons.

In addition, any Danish company that publically condemns the printing of those cartoons would have my custom.

[Belphegor]

Why is it, then, that Muslims can put cartoons of Jews as Nazis in their newspapers? Hypocritical, no?

[Unregistered203]

Why is it, then, that Muslims can put cartoons of Jews as Nazis in their newspapers? Hypocritical, no?
Dear Mr. Belphegor,

Jews are mere mortals, you know just like you and I.... therefore it is OK to ridicule them, just as it is OK for them to ridicule muslims. I don't think muslims would not have minded had the cartoons were that of say someone from our contemporary world, but the prophet is highly respected and he has nothing to do with any of the crazy things that is happening around here, so why bring him at all into our wordly problems.

Muslims do not ridicule Moses, or Jesus, yes they do make fund of Jews per se, because of all the evils they have done to the Palestinians. You should read a recent paper published by two scholars from Harvard about the Jewish Lobby which has steered US foreign policy against the Arabs so that they could grab more and more land from the poor palestinians.

It is all about land, resources and oil, nothing more.

[dhakiyya]

To second what Unregistered has said...

There are many cartoons all over the place making fun of Muslims, especially Osama Bin Laden, depicting him in particular in the most nasty ways, I've never heard any Muslim complain about this, even those that happen to like Bin Laden. Actually, I'll correct that, I have heard Muslims complain when a joke posted on this forum suggested Bin Laden practiced bestiality - but the complaint was that bestiality was too gross to be joked about, (Islam does not approve of that type of humour though Muslims ignore/avoid it rather than complain about it, and all such jokes are removed from this forum) not because Bin Laden was the subject of the joke.

Making fun of Muhammad :saw: or Moses (as) is NOT the same at all, they are revered prophets.

Bin Laden is not a prophet, nor is Ariel Sharon or any other Jewish oppressor commonly likened to the Nazis or made fun of in other ways by the Muslims (frogs and pigs spring to mind :p)