Thursday, February 02, 2006

Images of Muhammad

We repeatedly hear that "Islamic tradition bans depictions of the Prophet Muhammad or Allah."

On the right, you'll find an image of Muhammad riding the Buraq that carried him on his heavenly ascent.

I've borrowed the image from the British Library's Images Online (h/t Big Hominid), which has it from the c. 1782 illuminated manuscript Divan produced by Minnat (Mir Qamar al-Din [Mir Taqi Mir?]) in India, though the language of the script is Persian. According to the official description:
The Prophet (his face shown through a veil) on Buraq guided by Jibra'il and escorted by angels over a plain on the outskirts of a city. A miniature painting from an eighteenth century manuscript of the Divan of Minnat.
Images Online has a larger selection of Islamic images, including other images of Muhammad:

The Prophet riding Buraq: in Yusuf va Zulaykha, by Jami (Nur al-Din 'Abd al-Rahman), with the illuminated manuscript being produced in India in the 16th century and the language of the script being Persia.

The Prophet on Buraq: in Khamsa, by Nizami, with the illuminated manuscript being produced in Herat between 1494 and 1495 and the language of the script being Persian.

Ascent of the Prophet Mohammed: in Khamsa, by Nizami, with the illuminated manuscript being produced in Tabriz between 1539 and 1543 and the language of the script being Persian.

The Prophet on Buraq: in Khamsa, by Nizami, with the illuminated manuscript being produced in Isfahan, Iran, between 1665 and 1667 and the language of the script being Persian.

The Prophet on Buraq: in Khamsa, by Nizami, with the illuminated manuscript being produced in Isfahan, Iran, between 1665 and 1667, the illustrator being Talib Lala and the language of the script being Persian.

Ascension of the Prophet: in Khamsa, by Nizami, with the illuminated manuscript being produced in Iran around 1505 and the language of the script being Persian.

As we see from these images, the Muslim world has itself produced images of Muhammad, so the claim that "Islamic tradition bans depictions of the Prophet Muhammad or Allah" is simply false. Perhaps Islamic tradition has generally banned such depictions, but the ban has certainly not been absolute, or we wouldn't find these images from illuminated manuscripts.

I note this because of the furor over the images of Muhammad published on page three of the Jyllands-Posten's culture section for September 30, 2005. For the fuller story of this controversy, see Wikipedia's entry on the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons. To summarize in brief (paraphrasing Wikipedia's opening paragraph):

The drawings are twelve editorial cartoons satirizing the Muslim prophet Muhammad that the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten published along with an article about self-censorship and freedom of speech. The images were also intended for drawing attention to a claim made by Kåre Bluitgen that he had found no artist willing to illustrate his children's book about Muhammad for fear of being physically attacked by extremist Muslims who oppose depictions of the prophet and maintain that Islam prohibits them.

Muslim organizations in Denmark protested the depictions, and one of them, the Islamic Society in Denmark, toured the Middle East denouncing the images. This organization also added two other pictures of Muhammad, one as a pedophile demon and another as a pig-nosed man. A third included image depicted a praying Muslim being raped by a dog. None of these three additional images was published in the Jyllands-Posten, but they surely must have added to the outrage expressed in the Middle East.

Clearly, the problem here for Muslims is not that someone depicted Muhammad in an illustration, for Muslims have done this as well; rather, the problem is that the depictions that appeared in the Jyllands-Posten treated Muhammad as worthy of satire.

For Muslims, that is taboo.

Thus began the protests, the threats, the boycotts, the official complaints, the demands for apologies, the recall of ambassadors, and the demands for punishment. I expected that all of that pressure being applied would bring the Jyllands-Posten to submit and offer a humble apology for having published the images.

I was wrong.

On January 30, 2006, the paper's Editor-in-Chief, Carsten Juste, did apologize, but only for inadvertently injuring the feelings of Muslims, not for publishing the cartoons:
In our opinion, the 12 drawings were sober. They were not intended to be offensive, nor were they at variance with Danish law, but they have indisputably offended many Muslims for which we apologize.
This didn't satisfy the Muslim critics, who have continued to apply pressure.

Now, something very interesting has happened. Other European newspapers have begun publishing similar images of Muhammad. According to The Jerusalem Post, "Germans print Muhammad caricatures" (February 1, 2006), the German paper Die Welt for Wednesday, February 1, 2006 published on its front page an image, selected from the Danish paper's illustrations, depicting Muhammad with a turban as a bomb, and it posted in an accompanying commentary the following words:
Democracy is the institutionalized form of freedom of expression .... There is no right to protection from satire in the West; there is a right to blasphemy.
The Jerusalem Post then added that France Soir, also on Wednesday, published the entire twelve drawings and stated that religious dogma cannot force its values onto a secular society. According to a BBC report, "France enters Muslim cartoon row" (February 1, 2006), France Soir's article had the headline "Yes, we have the right to caricature God." The BBC report then added that Italy's La Stampa, Spain's El Periodico, and Holland's De Volkskrant have also published some of the drawings.

This is only the beginning of what could become a huge controversy, and the winner is by no means assured of being the Western right to free expression. According to another BBC report, "Muhammad cartoon row intensifies" (February 1, 2006), late on Wednesday France Soir's owner, Raymond Lakah, announced that he had dismissed managing editor Jacques Lefranc "as a powerful sign of respect for the intimate beliefs and convictions of every individual." Well, whatever one might think of such reasoning, Lakah is the owner, and he can do what he wants with his paper, but firing Lefranc at a time like this is not good for freedom of expression.

Regardless of what the mainstream media does with this issue of free expression -- and I hope that they continue to fight for it -- internet media, especially bloggers, will doubtless engage in a heated, free, often offensive debate over this very issue. One netizen has already posted an fascinating and at times highly offensive sequence of illustrations under the heading "Depictions of Mohammed Throughout History," which includes, incidentally, Muslim depictions of Muhammad. Expect that site to generate a lot of heated debate.

So ... whose side do I take? Naturally, I side with the angels. But I give the devils their due right to free speech. After all, they too are angels ... fallen ones, but angels.

34 Comments:

At 1:00 PM, Blogger Jeff said...

"According to another BBC report...late on Wednesday France Soir's owner, Raymond Lakah, announced that he had dismissed managing editor Jacques Lefranc 'as a powerful sign of respect for the intimate beliefs and convictions of every individual.'"

Except for the beliefs and convictions of Monsieur Lefranc, apparently.

 
At 1:09 PM, Blogger Horace Jeffery Hodges said...

Excellent, Jeff! I wish that I had said that.

Jeffery Hodges

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At 1:30 AM, Blogger Chris Weimer said...

What does that last comment mean, that you side with angels?

 
At 5:09 AM, Blogger Horace Jeffery Hodges said...

Chris, I was afraid that someone would ask that.

I wrote the last line to be somewhat witty and also ambiguous enough to throw Islamists off the trail. The angels can refer to either side, or both sides, since both sides are angels. The question is which are the good and which are the bad, but I leave enough ambiguity for the readers to infer what they will. I prefer a bit of ambiguity because I expect to get a number of Islamists Googling this issue and finding my blog. I have already gotten traffic from various Arab countries, and also Iran.

Let me be more clear.

Two convictions of mine come into tension:

1. commitment to free speech for everybody

2. commitment to respect for the religious beliefs of others

Now, while I personally don't wish to offend anyone, I think that Muslims are too easily offended.

Therefore -- to be explicit -- I'm strongly on the side of free speech and willing to see Muslims offended if that's what it takes to affirm and protect freedom of expression.

I guess that my fig leaf of ambiguity has fallen away...

Jeffery Hodges

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At 2:26 PM, Blogger Horace Jeffery Hodges said...

Sperwer, I do hope that you're right about what Western papers will do.

It's certainly true that if more and more papers would reprint these images, then the sheer weight of the numbers circulating publicly, not to mention the opened floodgates on the internet, would overwhelm the Islamists and make open discussion of Islamist intolerance unavoidable.

That would be a loss for the Islamists and a gain for free expression.

But this is only one battle in what will be a long conflict.

Jeffery Hodges

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At 5:23 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Right on, Horace!

But why stop there?

Why not hold a competition to see who can come up with the most offensive, the most utterly blasphemous, the most insulting, debased, depraved, cartoon depictions of the Christ?

You could have categories: debased images of the Christ child; debased images of Christ and his mother; debased images of Christ being crucified or mocked or insulted.

You could invite people to fill in thought or speech balloons with the most evil offensive diatribes against Jesus Christ and Christianity that you could possibly imagine!

Wouldn't that be wonderful?

 
At 5:35 PM, Blogger Horace Jeffery Hodges said...

Anonymous, it's already been done, but thanks for the input.

By the way, I prefer "Jeffery."

Jeffery Hodges

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At 6:34 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Thanks for your comment on my blog Jeffrey. I posted a reply there and edited my post slightly. Hopefully it's clearer now. Let me know if it isn't.

saint
DogfightAtBankstown

 
At 8:56 PM, Blogger Horace Jeffery Hodges said...

Saint, thanks for the thoughtfulness, but you need not have altered anything. Our dialogue was sufficient.

Thanks for dropping by.

Jeffery Hodges

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At 8:57 PM, Blogger Horace Jeffery Hodges said...

Daviv52, agreed. Buy Danish.

Jeffery Hodges

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At 12:06 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

A Canadian Islamic congress recently said that the Muslim reaction was an overreaction that proved the point of the cartoonist. That's the first positive step I've seen on this issue from the Muslim world.

 
At 12:16 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

The ban against images of Muhammad is a hadith from the Middle Ages. Interestingly, the hadith was probably inspired by the Christian iconoclastic movement. Before that time, images of the Prophet were acceptable within Islam.

 
At 1:18 AM, Blogger Baron Bodissey said...

Very scholarly and thorough! Thank you, Mr. Hodges.

BTW, I bought two different kinds of Danish cheese last night. Next: Danish beer!

 
At 4:18 AM, Blogger Horace Jeffery Hodges said...

Nathan, that is a bit of good news. Was it qualified in any way?

Also, what sort of 'congress' was it?

Jeffery Hodges

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At 4:23 AM, Blogger Horace Jeffery Hodges said...

Baron, thanks for the kind words. I wish that I could have made it more thorough and more scholarly.

Ken, that's interesting. I'd heard rumors to this effect, but I've also heard the opposite, that the Christian iconoclastic movement in the Byzantine Empire was in reaction to Islam's strictures about images. Do you have a source that I could check? This would help me achieve a higher, more thorough level of scholarship.

Jeffery Hodges

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At 5:07 AM, Blogger Ben Zimmer said...

You should also note that all of the examples you gave are Persian. Shi'ites have historically had less of a problem with the ban on iconography. One can also find Shi'ite portraits of Ali, even though companions of the Prophet are also not supposed to be depicted. This is one of many hadith-based rulings that have been interpreted differently in Sunni and Shi'ite traditions. But in any country with a Sunni majority, the iconography ban has been taken very seriously in modern times. (In Indonesia, for instance, the maker of a calendar depicting the Prophet was thrown in jail -- this despite the generally moderate nature of Islam in that country.)

 
At 5:41 AM, Blogger Horace Jeffery Hodges said...

Thanks, Mr. Zimmer. I had wondered about this very point. Do you happen to know the hadith in question or other sources that Sunnis cite?

Jeffery Hodges

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At 8:12 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Jeffery wrote:

"Anonymous, it's already been done, but thanks for the input."

Jeffery, that's interesting. I'd heard rumors to this effect, but I've also heard the opposite, that there had never been any competitions organized to depict the Christ in offensive ways. Do you have a source that I could check? This would help me achieve a higher, more thorough level of scholarship.

 
At 9:35 AM, Blogger Horace Jeffery Hodges said...

Anonymous, like you, I've heard only rumors about organized competitions for depicting offensive images of Christ, so this is just another instance of my insufficient scholarship.

However, you might try Googling for such things as Andres Serrano's Piss Christ.

Maybe that will help.

Jeffery Hodges

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At 11:08 AM, Blogger Horace Jeffery Hodges said...

Anonymous, I have just happened across this blog entry at Secular Blasphemy, which notes that the "Artists and provocateurs Gilbert and George have created an anti-Christian art show/exhibition."

Not exactly an organized competition, but perhaps an interesting substitute.

Jeffery Hodges

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At 11:26 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Jeffery, you can see the link to that quote I mentioned at
http://news.yahoo.com/s/cpress/20060202/ca_pr_on_na/cda_prophet_drawings . There were some other quotations with in the article I was no happy with, though.

 
At 11:27 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hmm, let's try that again:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/cpress/20060202/ca_pr_on_na/cda_prophet_drawings

 
At 11:28 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

For some reason Blogger keeps truncating the link. Well, my current post (as of the time of this writing) has the link in question.

 
At 12:16 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Ok, thanks for your tip by email, Jeffery. I'll try again, with this. I had assumed that this would be truncated too, which is why I didn't try it earlier.

 
At 3:13 PM, Blogger Chris Weimer said...

Jeffrey - sorry I didn't respond right away, although I see you've been busy enough with comments on your own. I also agree with you wholeheartedly that freedom of speech comes well before offending someone's religion. I think, as a general rule, we shouldn't aim to offend someone, which is what they did, however, we shouldn't be censored if he happen to offend them either.

And as for the Muslim reaction worldwide, it sickens me.

Chris

 
At 3:35 PM, Blogger Horace Jeffery Hodges said...

Chris, no apology necessary. I imagine that we've all been very busy.

Jeffery Hodges

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At 11:40 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Why not hold a competition to see who can come up with the most offensive, the most utterly blasphemous, the most insulting, debased, depraved, cartoon depictions of the Christ?

You could have categories: debased images of the Christ child; debased images of Christ and his mother; debased images of Christ being crucified or mocked or insulted.

You could invite people to fill in thought or speech balloons with the most evil offensive diatribes against Jesus Christ and Christianity that you could possibly imagine!

Wouldn't that be wonderful?


What are you talking about. The radical left in this country has been doing that for years. Think Maplethorpe, Serrano, the "artist" who created the elephant dung rendition of the Mother Mary, and now the depiction of a crucified Christ as Usama bin Laden! The Christian faith has been hammered by self-righteous, hateful atheists and seculars for decades if not centuries. Hey, its not like the atheist governments of the world have slaughtered 200 million people in less than a century or something. Oh wait, they did. So where are equivalent depictions of Stalin, Lenin, Ho Chi Mihn, etc? Looks like a one-way street here, bash Christians but show deference and respect to often murderous and militant Muslims. If Christianity was allowing the kind of carnage directly in the name of Jesus and his apostles like Islam is doing in the name of Allah and his prophet Mohammed, the global leftists would have immediately sought to outlaw Christianity. Why the double-standard?

 
At 4:50 AM, Blogger Horace Jeffery Hodges said...

Hankmeister, thanks for visiting.

My initial reaction was similar to yours, that what "Anonymous" requested had already been done.

But as he noted, I hadn't shown him that a competition had been held to produce the most offensive image of Christ.

On that narrowly restricted point, perhaps a competition for the most offensive image of Christ has not been held. I simply don't know -- though I wouldn't be surprised to discover that one has been held.

If the issue is more broadly defined, then what you have said is correct. There have been many, many offensive images of Christ.

Jeffery Hodges

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At 10:03 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Ah, nuance. So if its not "a competition", then its no-holds-barred, eh? Seems to me that Muslims have always been militantly opposed to anything critical of their "religion". Rushdie and his "Satanic Verses" comes to mind as well as Van Gogh's work and myriads of others who were murdered by Islamofascists for daring to "mock" their religion of peace (now there's an irony - Militant Muslims being militantly angry about "stereotypes" of them being militantly Muslim).

Mohammed himself used extortion and terror and he used them mercilessly to accrue power. Once he conquered Medina he killed his critics (for example, three poets who rejected him), and expelled and murdered the Jews of Medina, who constituted nearly 30% of the cities' inhabitants. He terrorized passing caravans, and forcing them to pay tribute. He then used the extortion money to build up an army. Mohammed was anything but a "holy man" and a prophet of God as documented here. Also there is little doubt Mohammed was thoroughly unrepentant of pedophilia with a young ten-year old named Aisha. None of this should be above mocking criticism.

The "competition" appears to be more a COMPILATION of free expression concerning the historical personage of Mohammed. Is there little doubt there is always a friendly competition among the counter-cultural left to outdo one another in "artistically" slamming Christianity?

 
At 12:44 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Jeffery wrote:

"On that narrowly restricted point, perhaps a competition for the most offensive image of Christ has not been held. I simply don't know -- though I wouldn't be surprised to discover that one has been held."

I think this is what happens when you use a genuine standard of scholarhip, Jeffery! All you can do is utter the words: "I simply don't know".

And this then might even constitute a genuine learning experience for you! Might, if only you could be led to consider why you always have to add this bizarre refrain to your every profession of ignorance: the one, I mean, about things that haven't happened never surprising you.

 
At 1:23 PM, Blogger Horace Jeffery Hodges said...

Anonymous, thanks for the suggestion.

It didn't surprise me.

Oops ... sorry.

Jeffery Hodges

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At 3:16 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I'll get back to you with a source if you can on the hadith and its origins.

Incidentally... maybe not a competition but if it were entered in one, it would likely win... just google the exhibit "Sensation" that appeared at the Brooklyn Museum of Art. Imagine instead of Jesus or Mary that Mohammad were depicted in the artworks associated with the exhibit...

 
At 5:07 AM, Blogger Horace Jeffery Hodges said...

Cut said:

"Western devils are right to ban anti-Semitism and jail offenders, after all, you have been put in your place by Ultra-Zionists, AIPAC and Bnai Brith."

'Western devils'? Do you mean 'little satans'?

Anyway, I'm for free speech, so I oppose banning opinions that are deemed racist.

Do you support free speech?

Jeffery Hodges

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At 5:17 PM, Blogger Horace Jeffery Hodges said...

Cut, you wrote:

"You do ask difficult questions!"

Not my intention, but I suppose every question can have a difficult aspect.

Anyway, you added:

"But I think you have missed my point entirely. Let me explain:

You do not have freedom of speech in the west. You allow freedom to speak only to those movements and ideologies you support."


The West isn't monolithic. Some Western nations outlaw hate speech. I oppose such laws and think that hate speech should be protected speech. I would agree with you and Voltaire about the freedom to express unpopular opinions.

There are, of course, restrictions on when and where one can speak freely. I'm not free to enter a mosque with a bullhorn and begin drowning out the imam in the name of free speech. And newspapers have no obligation to print every letter that they receive. Similarly, I don't have to allow everyone to post comments here if I don't wish to. For instance, if someone posted obscenities or spammed my comments section with sex ads, I'd delete those posts. Is that censorship? Yes, but so what? The people who want to post such things can set up their own blogs.

You later say:

"What an admirable society you live in. Frankly, its not a hell of a lot better than any backward Muslim society."

Oh come on. South Korea's not so bad. We have free speech here and have had since the demise of the dictatorships about 15 years ago.

You then pose a question, perhaps merely rhetorical:

"Are you asking me whether I support your freedom to speak?"

Actually, I was asking if you suppost free speech for everyone. From your reference to Voltaire, I assume that you do.

And then:

"Listen Bwana, the question is, do you accept the freedom to of your enemies to speak?"

Uh ... 'Bwana'? Me? I'm not a Muslim overlord dominating black Africans.

I'm someone else.

And I support everyone's right to free speech, as I've already stated.

Jeffery Hodges

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