Depiction of Mohammed

YoungCalifornian wrote:

I don't think it is fair to so quickly disregard Western traditions of free speech and press. Before any Muslim can justifiably expect Westerners to understand why it is so offensive to depict Mohammed in any fashion, they must try and understand why reacting as they are would seem so uncalled-for and senseless to most Westerners. It's a two-way street, as the expression goes. The better that Muslims understand why such a cartoon would be printed by the Western media, the better they can utilize effective means of protest and debate. Your comments regarding Christians and Christianity, and possible religious retribution, further illustrate the different perspectives from which people in the West and Middle East approach this issue. Notice that at no point did I make prior mention of Christianity or "Christian countries". The reason is simple: I, and most citizens of Western countries, do not see this as a conflict between religions. This is without a doubt a conflict between secular Western values and religious Middle Eastern ones. Nowhere in the Bible is there the suggestion that the freedoms of speech and press were guaranteed human rights. In stark contrast, organized Christianity has historically shown a very low tolerance for anything determined to be blasphemous or heretical. That values that led to a belief that human beings have a right to speak their minds, no matter how controversial what is said, arose totally separate from religion within the Western world. Most people in the West believe that if a person wants to burn the Koran (or the Bible, or any other revered text) he has the the right to to do... just as people aware of the act have a right to voice their disapproval and make judgments on his actions, their meanings, and his character.

firstly thnx for your care about the matter young californian.

actually i didnt consider the matter as a problem or clash between different religions but i just wanted to show the importance of the matter and what can the problem cause  if such things happen.thats my fault.

but really thnx for your correcting me and sorry for my fault.

as for the flag there are such problems in my country too. and even last year or the year before an artist was prosecuted due to kicking  baloon which has the figure of Turkish flag.nothing has happened to her about that trial she was absolved but it was a long standing debate in Turkey too.

As Muslims, we respect what we believe. We respect to all other religions as well. The only thing we want is respect from you. We are not asking non-muslims to practice our beliefs or anything. What we want is zero interference from non-muslims. Because we're not interfering or making fun of any other religions' beliefs. That's all.

<BLOCKQUOTE><table width="85%"><tr><td class="txt4"><img src="/Themes/default/images/icon-quote.gif">&nbsp;<strong>Anonymous wrote:</strong></td></tr><tr><td class="quoteTable"><table width="100%"><tr><td width="100%" valign="top" class="txt4">Because we're not interfering or making fun of any other religions' beliefs. That's all.</td></tr></table></td></tr></table></BLOCKQUOTE>

<P>I know that is how you feel as an individual, but I must say your fellow muslims might be a bit more discriminatory towards other regions/religions. See: http://www.tomgrossmedia.com/ArabCartoons.htm </P>

<P> JANISSARY, I agree with Anonymous and his/her comparison is relevant to this discussion and your response to him/her did not justify the double standard that exists. </P>

<P> WAITI, I agree that my analogy sucks. However, it shows that the Muslim world can also create controversy. It cannot be up to you or I to determine that U.S. and Mohammed portrayals are "not measurable." I think they are, you do not. You claim a fundamental fact that is foreign to me and a lot of the non-Muslim world and expects us to respect it without question. Well being raised in a secular society, I found myself to question very much the validity of this fundamental fact. You provided a great amount of insight into why images of Mohammed are forbidden(thank you) but to me it sounds like a method to strive for Islam purity by elimindating all detractions from the original religion. I have no problem with that, Islam can declare anything to ensure its surivival and purity. I'll leave to Young Californian to discuss the religious aspect because he seems to be more articulate and concise on this subject. </P>

<P> What I do have a problem with is that Muslims expect the world to respect their fundamental ideals and yet cannot respect the importance of freedom of speech in secular societies. Muslims whom have immigrated to European and American countries have mostly enjoyed freedom to practice their religion. Does anyone else find the Muslim protests in the EU ironic? That is, them utilizing the very fundamental freedom that they are protesting against(if you consider freedom to protest to be equal to freedom of press). </P>

<P> I also hope that ALL OF YOU, regardless of religion, are not condoning the destruction of Danish embassies; it just further promotes the violent Muslim stereotype.</P>

<P>BTW, thank you moderator for fixing my previous post to make it more readable.</P>

Hey, people of good will and/or genuine faith from all around the globe who have contributed to this thread...
Just wanted to point to your attention this interesting link that anonymous Claude provided earlier -see a couple of replies above-.
You'll find a quite informed analysis of the supposed reason why this only became an issue last month, when the original cartoons had been published in september 2005.
In a nutshell it says this Danish cartoon matter was exploited by Saudi officials to distract the muslim's world attention from the tragedy that occured during this year's hajj at Mecca, where several hundred people died as the result of an unexpected and uncontrolled crowd rush. Similar accidents had happened in the past, and this would have been perceived as one time too many...
I have no agenda against Saudis and it may be this isn't the one spark that eventually initiated the fire, but it appears a very plausible course of action that at some point several political forces in the middle east region found a significant interest and value in turning this september non-issue into a january civilization clash.
And because of tensions and fights within the muslim world as to who is going to prevail as the one voice speaking in the name of the whole community ; then obviously once the ball had started rolling everybody claiming this role wanted to be part of ball game...
Just my two cents thoughts... Surely some of you will disagree... in fact I do hope someone will.
Waïti

I agree but in islam you are not supposed to depict any prophet or god himself yet many muslims don't care about this. The prophet muhammad (pbah) is the greatest of the profits but other profits should be treated in the same way. Also I think that the prophet muhammad (pbah) would see the violence in his name as a worst sin than the dipiction of him. When he was leader of madina jews, muslims and christians lived together i peace and muhammads (pbah) veiw was that muslims treat the jews and christians as their own even if they insulted them. FIGHT FIRE WITH WATER thats my veiw.