Charles A. Radin
Cartoons seen feeding rage
The prohibition on making and viewing likenesses of people -- especially Mohammed, other prophets, and great Islamic rulers -- is deeply ingrained in the traditions of the conservative Sunni Muslims who comprise the overwhelming majority of adherents to Islam.
No prohibition on making likenesses of people appears in the Koran -- which Muslims believe to be the word of God. But unequivocal statements of contempt for such drawings are found in the hadith, teachings of Mohammed that were collected and recorded by his followers, and that are considered integral elements of the faith.
Some Muslims say these teachings -- combined with extreme political tensions between the Muslim world and the West -- are the basis for the rage and riots sweeping the Middle East following publication in Europe of editorial cartoons depicting Mohammed.
One hadith, narrated by the Prophet's wife Aisha, records what happened when Mohammed saw a curtain with pictures of animals hanging in the house. ''His face got red with anger, and then he got hold of the curtain and tore it into pieces. The Prophet said, 'Such people as paint these pictures will receive the severest punishment on the Day of Resurrection.' "
Another was recorded by a companion of the Prophet, who said Mohammed told him: ''Angels do not enter a house in which there is a dog or a picture."
In the time of the Prophet, idolatry was pervasive in Mecca and Medina, says Imam Salih Yucel, director of the Boston Dialogue Foundation, ''and one of his objectives was to end this. So he placed very strong obstacles" to prevent the creation of images or statues that people might decide to worship.
Muslim religious figures have been depicted in some Islamic countries throughout the ages. Such images are readily available in Yucel's native Turkey, and in Iran images of Mohammed, his son-in-law Ali, and his grandson Hussain are displayed in mosques and may be purchased at many bazaars.
Museums and libraries in much of the Muslim world contain paintings and books in which the great men of Islamic history are pictured. Mohammed also is depicted on a 1930s-era frieze of famed lawgivers in the chamber of the US Supreme Court. In 1997, the court turned down a request by some Muslim groups to remove the image of Mohammed, prompting protests at the time.
Yucel asserts, ''The main problem is not to make a picture of the Prophet or of other prophets -- this has been done many times before. The problem is to show the Prophet as a terrorist. This is a great insult to all Muslims.
''There have been many pictures of the Prophet in Western cartoons over the last 10 or 15 years, but they never picture him as a terrorist," he said, ''and the reaction was not like this."
But attitudes toward such images rise and fall with changes in the political environment, which in most Muslim countries is inseparable from the religious environment. Depictions of the faces of historical figures that may be accepted in one era may be found offensive in another, as illustrated by the smudged or scratched-out faces sometimes found in books and paintings in the Islamic world.
The movie ''The Ten Commandments," and most Western movies about the life of Jesus were not shown in most of the Muslim world, because Moses and Jesus are recognized as prophets in Islam and therefore having actors play them is unacceptable.
Whether or not a particular image is tolerable, says Jonathan M. Bloom, a professor of Islamic and Asian art at Boston College, has much to do ''with the fundamentalists, or whatever you want to call them. There is a view that has come out of Arabia, out of the Wahhabi movement, that is completely unaccepting of images, particularly any kind of image of the Prophet. This is the Islam that has been exported around the world in recent decades."
Farouk El-Baz is an Egyptian-born Boston University professor whose father was a leading scholar of Islam at Al Azhar, the Muslim world's preeminent university. He believes the cartoons played into the hands of people who are trying to heighten the confrontation between Islam and the West.
''The idea that these wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are part of a war against Islam has been playing in the streets for three years," El-Baz said. ''Then this thing comes along -- sticking a label on all Muslims, not just the few bad apples -- and that allows people who want to say: 'See, we told you this was happening.' "
The political aspect of the current cartoon controversy is illustrated in the location of the most violent protests. Lebanon, Syria, Iran, Afghanistan and the Palestinian territories -- all are places where political friction with the West is high.
The Danish government contributed to this perception of disrespect by refusing even to meet with representatives of Muslim countries until the controversy exploded, says Brandeis University political scientist Jytte Klausen, a Dane who recently wrote a book focusing on Islam in Western Europe.
''Some of these cartoons are funny, some are perfectly appropriate," Klausen said, ''but some are very disturbing and offensive" and should have been the subject of discussion among the concerned parties. But the Danish government ''repeatedly refused to meet with them. There were repeated rejections, and no meeting until last Friday," she said. ''The government has much to answer for."
Published February 8, 2006, Boston
http://www.boston.com/news/world/middleeast/articles/2006/02/08/political_tension_and_religion_prove_a_combustible_mix?mode=PF
