Monday, February 20, 2006

Iconographication of Muhammad (S.A.W.)

Mohamed: the messenger of Allah
By Paul Vallely
Published: 03 February 2006


Images of the Prophet Mohamed have long been discouraged in Islam. The West has little understanding of why this should be so - nor of the intensity of the feelings aroused by non-believers' attitudes to the founder of Islam.

To historians, Mohamed was a prophet and religious reformer who united the scattered Arabian tribes in the 7th century, founding what went on to become one of the world's five great religions. To Muslims, he was the last in a line of figures which included Abraham, Moses and Jesus, but which found its supreme fulfilment in Mohamed.

They believe that he was visited by the Angel Gabriel who commanded him to memorise and recite the verses sent by God which became the Koran - and that he completed and perfected the teaching of God throughout history.

Because Muslims believe that Mohamed was the messenger of Allah, they extrapolate that all his actions were willed by God. A singular love and veneration thus attaches to the person of Mohamed himself. When speaking or writing, his name is always preceded by the title "Prophet" and followed by the phrase: "Peace be upon him", often abbreviated in English as PBUH.

Attempts to depict him in illustration were therefore an attempt to depict the sublime - and so forbidden.

More than that, to reject and criticise Mohamed is to reject and criticise Allah himself. Criticism of the Prophet is therefore equated with blasphemy, which is punishable by death in some Muslim states. When Salman Rushdie, in his novel The Satanic Verses, depicted Mohamed as a cynical schemer and his wives as prostitutes, the outcome was - to those with any understanding of Islam - predictable.

But understanding of Islam is sorely lacking in the West. The culture gap has its roots in the fact that Christianity - like Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism - is essentially an iconographic religion. In its early years, the Christian world took the statues of the old gods and goddesses of Greece and morphed them into images of the Virgin Mary and the saints, which were worshiped in all the churches. Muslims, like Jews, take a polar opposite view. Islam and Judaism are religions of the word, not the image.

Islam has traditionally prohibited images of humans and animals altogether - which is why much Islamic art is made up of decorative calligraphy or abstract arabesque patterns.Throughout history Muslims have cast out, destroyed or denounced all images, whether carved or painted, as idolatry. Despite that prohibition, hundreds of images of Mohamed have been created over the centuries. Medieval Christian artists created paintings and illuminated manuscripts depicting Mohamed, usually with his face in full view. Muslim artists from the same era depicted Mohamed too, but usually left his face blank or veiled.

Sixteenth-century Persian and Ottoman art frequently represented the Prophet, albeit with his face either veiled, or emanating radiance. One 16th-century Turkish painting, in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, shows Mohamed in very long sleeves so as to avoid showing even his hands.

The ban is not absolute. Today, iconic pictures of Mohamed are sold openly on the street in Iran. The creation, sale or owning of such images is illegal, but the regime turns a blind eye (Muslims in Iran are Shia not Sunni).

Two things are different today. The cartoons published first in Denmark and now more widely across Europe set out not to depict but to ridicule the Prophet. And they do so in a climate in which Muslims across the globe feel alienated, threatened and routinely despised by the world's great powers.

The combination of this with Islam's traditional unhappiness at depictions of any human form, let alone of their most venerated one, was bound to be explosive. The affair is an example of Western ignorance and arrogance combined. We have lit a fire and the wind could take it a long way.

Friday, February 17, 2006

Let's try to get beyond caricatures

Opinion, International Herald Tribune
Friday, February 10, 2006.
Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono

JAKARTA The distasteful cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, first
published in Denmark in September 2005 and subsequently reproduced in
other media, continue to spark a chain of reactions ranging from
peaceful protest to violence in many Muslim communities.

The international community must work together to put out this fire. A
good start would be to stop justifying the cartoons as "freedom of the
press," which only hardens the Muslim community's response. Another
vital step would be to discontinue their reproduction, which only
prolongs the outrage.

To non-Muslims, the image of the Prophet Muhammad may only be of casual
interest. But to Muslim communities worldwide, it is of enormous
spiritual importance. For the last 14 centuries, Muslims have adhered to
a strict code that prohibits any visual portrait of the Prophet. When
this code was violated and their Prophet mocked for the purpose of
humor, Muslims felt a direct assault on their faith.

Reprinting the cartoons in order to make a point about free speech is an
act of senseless brinkmanship. It is also a disservice to democracy. It
sends a conflicting message to the Muslim community: that in a
democracy, it is permissible to offend Islam.

This message damages efforts to prove that democracy and Islam go
together. The average Muslim who prays five times a day needs to be
convinced that the democracy he is embracing, and is expected to defend,
also protects and respects Islam's sacred symbols. Otherwise, democracy
will not be of much interest to him.

The cartoon crisis serves as a reminder that all hell may break loose in
a world of intolerance and ignorance.

The global community needs to cultivate democracies of freedom and
tolerance - not democracies of freedom versus tolerance. It is tolerance
that protects freedom, harnesses diversity, strengthens peace and
delivers progress.

Since the Sept. 11 terror attacks, many in the Western world have shown
increasing interest in the Islamic world. Yet this interest has not been
accompanied by a greater knowledge and understanding of Islam. In
December last year, the summit of th e Organization of the Islamic
Conference in Mecca lamented "the feelings of stigmatization and concern
over the growing phenomenon of Islamophobia around the world as a form
of racism and discrimination."

The West and Islam need not collide in a clash of civilizations. Many
Islamic communities comfortably embrace some Western habits.
Correspondingly, Islam has become the fastest-growing religion in some
Western nations, including the United States. The Western and Islamic
worlds can conscientiously work together to nurture a global culture of
respect and tolerance.

The international community must not come out of the cartoon crisis
broken and divided. We need to build more bridges between religions,
civilizations and cultures. Government leaders, religious figures and
ordinary citizens can go beyond supporting religious freedom - they can
express solidarity with those who are defending the integrity of their
faith.

We also need to intensify interfaith dialogue so that we may further
tear down the walls of misunderstanding and mistrust - an undertaking
that Indonesia has actively promoted.

Muslims around the world also have responsibilities. No one - certainly
not Muslims - will be better off if the current crisis descends into
open conflict and more bloodshed. The best way for Muslims to fight
intolerance and ignorance toward Islam is by tirelessly reaching out to
non-Muslims and projecting Islam as a peaceful religion. We also need to
be forgiving to those who have sincerely apologized for offending Islam.

Indeed, at this difficult moment, Muslims might emulate the Prophet
Muhammad's well-known qualities in dealing with adversity: composure,
sound judgment, magnanimity and benevolence.