The Fire of Islam
In 1095 A.D. Byzantine emperor Alexius I Comnenus sent envoys to the west requesting military assistance against the Seljuk Turks—this fateful plea for help was the seed from which second millennium relations between Islam and the West would develop. Later that year, at the Council of Clermont, the seed was planted when Pope Urban II delivered one of the most famous sermons in the history of Catholicism to an audience so large it could not be accommodated in any building within the city. His speech was punctuated with the cry Deus vult (“God wills it”) and was prologue to 200 years of death, destruction, and the nine religious Crusades launched from Christian Europe—only ending with the fall of the last Christian stronghold in the Middle East (Acre) in 1291. Jews, Christians, and Muslims all suffered, under the banner of Deus vult, and the echoes of their misery and hatred still reverberate today in epilogue.
Flash forward 910 years after Pope Urban II’s speech at the Council of Clermont to Denmark—a society representative of the even greater European struggle between the integration and personal identity of its Muslim citizens. Now focus in on one individual, Kare Bluitgen, an author of children’s books—in this case a children’s book about the life of the Prophet Mohammad (PBUH)—and find there the seed for third millennium relations between Islam and the West. Kare Bluitgen wanted to publish his children’s book with illustrations, and accordingly, he searched, unsuccessfully, for illustrators in Denmark willing to draw the Prophet—an act that is proscribed in Islam—triggering a fateful course of events that have culminated again with cries of Deus vult on all sides.
In an effort to address Bluitgen’s complaints the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten solicited drawings from several cartoonists, asking them to “draw the Prophet as they saw him.” On September 30, 2005, Jyllands-Posten planted the seed formed by Kare Bluitgen when it published twelve cartoons from various cartoonists. The paper chose a cartoon depicting the Prophet among other turban-wearing figures (including Jesus Christ, the far-right Danish politician Pia Kjaersgaard and Kare Bluitgen) in a police line-up with the witness saying: “I don't know which one he is” as the central image with eleven other cartoons—some of which do not even depict the Prophet—arrayed around the edge of the page. (The apparent humor being that since no one knows what the Prophet looked like, it is impossible to draw his true likeness, so it should not matter if someone draws him). Each of the eleven other cartoons holds a different theme—some of the cartoons, like one depicting the Prophet wearing a bomb in his turban, are designed to offend and some, like one depicting the crescent moon and star of Islam blending into the Prophet’s face, are not. All of the cartoons are, however, meant to evoke some kind of reaction—the aim and purpose of all communication—and like the speech by Pope Urban II, they are prologue to a new chapter in the relationship between the world’s Abrahamic religions.
Since the publishing of the cartoons in Denmark, some or all have been reprinted in newspapers and magazines in Egypt (October 17, 2005), Norway (January 10, 2006), France, Germany, Italy, and Spain (all on February 1, 2006), and the French magazine Charlie Hebdo (February 8, 2006). Many of the newspapers and magazines published the cartoons as a show of solidarity with Jyllands-Posten, which they believed was taking a stand against Muslim extremism in favor of free speech and “European values.” Others published the cartoons as acts of overt provocation, seeking to broaden the chasm forming between Muslim countries and their Western counterparts. Regardless of the publisher’s intentions, the result has been violence and a rise in fundamentalist rhetoric.[1] In the midst of this tempest it is imperative for thinkers at the forefront of shaping Islamic, and more importantly, religious philosophy, to question why events have spiraled so far out of control—and more importantly to prevent this third millennium seed from imitation of its second millennium counterpart.
Whether one is Jewish, Christian, Muslim, or of any other religious persuasion, it is antithetical to rational thought to even entertain the notion that one can even attempt to force others to respect any ideal—however right and perfect it may seem. By way of example, Islam proscribes eating pork. Should Muslims in Europe rise up in arms because some Europeans eat pork? Likewise, should Christians burn the embassies of Muslim countries because Islam permits polygamy and divorce? Why didn’t those countries whose populations are comprised primarily of Buddhists attack Muslims and their property after the destruction of the Buddha (PBUH) statues in the Bamiyan valley in Afghanistan by the Taliban?[2] Perhaps it is because they realize that no statue, painting, or any other invention of mankind can ever truly capture the true essence of the Buddha (PBUH), and that the destruction of a statue, although tragic, is merely the reversion of that stone to its more basic form. Likewise, it may behoove Muslims to realize that while Islam proscribes the depiction of the Prophet, the true essence of the Prophet and his teachings cannot be broken by the insignificant and meaningless—the same cannot be said for the hues of intolerance and hate Islam has come to be painted in. To counteract this trend Muslims from all walks of life and all tenets of thought must ask and find answers to some hard questions. A good place to start is by asking why some Muslims take such offense to caricatures of the Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) in secular newspapers, printed in secular countries, with no true understanding of what Islam is or what it means to be Muslim.
One cannot but wonder at the logic and sanity of trying to force anyone to respect anything. Respect is an inherently personal decision that cannot be bludgeoned into someone’s psyche. If Muslims are upset by cartoons portraying the Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) as a violent terrorist or a depraved fool, then perhaps the Ummah Wahida[3] needs to look at itself and recognize that each Muslim individual is a representative of Islam and the Prophet Mohammad’s (PBUH) teachings—we are all windows that purport to open unto Islam, whether we like it or not.
We as Muslims can no longer rest upon the glory of our Islamic heritage any more than Christians or Jews can rest upon the glory of theirs. It is time for all of us to take responsibility for the fact that we have allowed a vocal and unrepresentative minority to hijack our faith and pervert its highest precepts—not only in the eyes of its adherents, but more importantly in the eyes of those that lack the more intimate understanding we do. How can the practitioners of a religion whose very name—Islam—means peace, justify burning embassies, attacking innocents, and perpetrating the very same deplorable acts we condemn? We cannot.
With brilliant thinkers in all fields and an Ummah representing the broadest spectrum of the human experience, the time is ripe for an Islamic Renaissance. The time of fundamentalism and ignorance must be brought to a close and the majority of Muslims—those who pity the ignorant more than they despise them must wrest the mantle of our religion from those that threaten to ruin it. More important than meaningless affronts to a figure whose greatness requires no advocate is the love and dedication required to properly represent Him and His teachings.
In Denmark, Europe, and most of the rest of the world Islam has fallen prey to the misguided antics of a small minority that I believe love Islam, but lack the information necessary to distinguish Islam from the lower ideals of those seeking to use it for political and pecuniary gain. It is the responsibility of the tolerant and peaceful majority to direct these people to those who are wise enough to reveal the true paradise that is Islam. In the Islam I hope to know—and which I believe is what the Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) taught—there is no hatred, no fear, no bigotry, and most importantly no ignorance. In the Islam I know, Deus vult can only mean peace, happiness, and harmony.
If someone seeks to offend Islam, the Prophet, or Muslims, I, as someone that considers myself a Muslim, have to look first to see why this person would do such a thing and second at the type of example I am setting for that person. If that person’s reason is their own ignorance then I must teach them. Conversely, if that person’s reason is my ignorance or worse yet my hypocrisy, then I must first correct the issues innate within myself and then seek to educate them. It has become too convenient to blame external factors—foreign policy, economic gain, racism, propaganda, etc.—for the misrepresentation of Islam throughout the world. Part of the solution has to be to take responsibility for our failure to protect the truth of Islam from those that have exploited it for their own advantage. This is a process that must begin with each individual, only then can the third millennium finally yield the peace and harmony preached by all the world’s religions and all of God’s Prophets.
To my brothers and sisters of all religions I leave this prayer:
In 1095 A.D. Byzantine emperor Alexius I Comnenus sent envoys to the west requesting military assistance against the Seljuk Turks—this fateful plea for help was the seed from which second millennium relations between Islam and the West would develop. Later that year, at the Council of Clermont, the seed was planted when Pope Urban II delivered one of the most famous sermons in the history of Catholicism to an audience so large it could not be accommodated in any building within the city. His speech was punctuated with the cry Deus vult (“God wills it”) and was prologue to 200 years of death, destruction, and the nine religious Crusades launched from Christian Europe—only ending with the fall of the last Christian stronghold in the Middle East (Acre) in 1291. Jews, Christians, and Muslims all suffered, under the banner of Deus vult, and the echoes of their misery and hatred still reverberate today in epilogue.
Flash forward 910 years after Pope Urban II’s speech at the Council of Clermont to Denmark—a society representative of the even greater European struggle between the integration and personal identity of its Muslim citizens. Now focus in on one individual, Kare Bluitgen, an author of children’s books—in this case a children’s book about the life of the Prophet Mohammad (PBUH)—and find there the seed for third millennium relations between Islam and the West. Kare Bluitgen wanted to publish his children’s book with illustrations, and accordingly, he searched, unsuccessfully, for illustrators in Denmark willing to draw the Prophet—an act that is proscribed in Islam—triggering a fateful course of events that have culminated again with cries of Deus vult on all sides.
In an effort to address Bluitgen’s complaints the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten solicited drawings from several cartoonists, asking them to “draw the Prophet as they saw him.” On September 30, 2005, Jyllands-Posten planted the seed formed by Kare Bluitgen when it published twelve cartoons from various cartoonists. The paper chose a cartoon depicting the Prophet among other turban-wearing figures (including Jesus Christ, the far-right Danish politician Pia Kjaersgaard and Kare Bluitgen) in a police line-up with the witness saying: “I don't know which one he is” as the central image with eleven other cartoons—some of which do not even depict the Prophet—arrayed around the edge of the page. (The apparent humor being that since no one knows what the Prophet looked like, it is impossible to draw his true likeness, so it should not matter if someone draws him). Each of the eleven other cartoons holds a different theme—some of the cartoons, like one depicting the Prophet wearing a bomb in his turban, are designed to offend and some, like one depicting the crescent moon and star of Islam blending into the Prophet’s face, are not. All of the cartoons are, however, meant to evoke some kind of reaction—the aim and purpose of all communication—and like the speech by Pope Urban II, they are prologue to a new chapter in the relationship between the world’s Abrahamic religions.
Since the publishing of the cartoons in Denmark, some or all have been reprinted in newspapers and magazines in Egypt (October 17, 2005), Norway (January 10, 2006), France, Germany, Italy, and Spain (all on February 1, 2006), and the French magazine Charlie Hebdo (February 8, 2006). Many of the newspapers and magazines published the cartoons as a show of solidarity with Jyllands-Posten, which they believed was taking a stand against Muslim extremism in favor of free speech and “European values.” Others published the cartoons as acts of overt provocation, seeking to broaden the chasm forming between Muslim countries and their Western counterparts. Regardless of the publisher’s intentions, the result has been violence and a rise in fundamentalist rhetoric.[1] In the midst of this tempest it is imperative for thinkers at the forefront of shaping Islamic, and more importantly, religious philosophy, to question why events have spiraled so far out of control—and more importantly to prevent this third millennium seed from imitation of its second millennium counterpart.
Whether one is Jewish, Christian, Muslim, or of any other religious persuasion, it is antithetical to rational thought to even entertain the notion that one can even attempt to force others to respect any ideal—however right and perfect it may seem. By way of example, Islam proscribes eating pork. Should Muslims in Europe rise up in arms because some Europeans eat pork? Likewise, should Christians burn the embassies of Muslim countries because Islam permits polygamy and divorce? Why didn’t those countries whose populations are comprised primarily of Buddhists attack Muslims and their property after the destruction of the Buddha (PBUH) statues in the Bamiyan valley in Afghanistan by the Taliban?[2] Perhaps it is because they realize that no statue, painting, or any other invention of mankind can ever truly capture the true essence of the Buddha (PBUH), and that the destruction of a statue, although tragic, is merely the reversion of that stone to its more basic form. Likewise, it may behoove Muslims to realize that while Islam proscribes the depiction of the Prophet, the true essence of the Prophet and his teachings cannot be broken by the insignificant and meaningless—the same cannot be said for the hues of intolerance and hate Islam has come to be painted in. To counteract this trend Muslims from all walks of life and all tenets of thought must ask and find answers to some hard questions. A good place to start is by asking why some Muslims take such offense to caricatures of the Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) in secular newspapers, printed in secular countries, with no true understanding of what Islam is or what it means to be Muslim.
One cannot but wonder at the logic and sanity of trying to force anyone to respect anything. Respect is an inherently personal decision that cannot be bludgeoned into someone’s psyche. If Muslims are upset by cartoons portraying the Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) as a violent terrorist or a depraved fool, then perhaps the Ummah Wahida[3] needs to look at itself and recognize that each Muslim individual is a representative of Islam and the Prophet Mohammad’s (PBUH) teachings—we are all windows that purport to open unto Islam, whether we like it or not.
We as Muslims can no longer rest upon the glory of our Islamic heritage any more than Christians or Jews can rest upon the glory of theirs. It is time for all of us to take responsibility for the fact that we have allowed a vocal and unrepresentative minority to hijack our faith and pervert its highest precepts—not only in the eyes of its adherents, but more importantly in the eyes of those that lack the more intimate understanding we do. How can the practitioners of a religion whose very name—Islam—means peace, justify burning embassies, attacking innocents, and perpetrating the very same deplorable acts we condemn? We cannot.
With brilliant thinkers in all fields and an Ummah representing the broadest spectrum of the human experience, the time is ripe for an Islamic Renaissance. The time of fundamentalism and ignorance must be brought to a close and the majority of Muslims—those who pity the ignorant more than they despise them must wrest the mantle of our religion from those that threaten to ruin it. More important than meaningless affronts to a figure whose greatness requires no advocate is the love and dedication required to properly represent Him and His teachings.
In Denmark, Europe, and most of the rest of the world Islam has fallen prey to the misguided antics of a small minority that I believe love Islam, but lack the information necessary to distinguish Islam from the lower ideals of those seeking to use it for political and pecuniary gain. It is the responsibility of the tolerant and peaceful majority to direct these people to those who are wise enough to reveal the true paradise that is Islam. In the Islam I hope to know—and which I believe is what the Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) taught—there is no hatred, no fear, no bigotry, and most importantly no ignorance. In the Islam I know, Deus vult can only mean peace, happiness, and harmony.
If someone seeks to offend Islam, the Prophet, or Muslims, I, as someone that considers myself a Muslim, have to look first to see why this person would do such a thing and second at the type of example I am setting for that person. If that person’s reason is their own ignorance then I must teach them. Conversely, if that person’s reason is my ignorance or worse yet my hypocrisy, then I must first correct the issues innate within myself and then seek to educate them. It has become too convenient to blame external factors—foreign policy, economic gain, racism, propaganda, etc.—for the misrepresentation of Islam throughout the world. Part of the solution has to be to take responsibility for our failure to protect the truth of Islam from those that have exploited it for their own advantage. This is a process that must begin with each individual, only then can the third millennium finally yield the peace and harmony preached by all the world’s religions and all of God’s Prophets.
To my brothers and sisters of all religions I leave this prayer:
May God’s light guide me to the knowledge to find the wisdom to know the truth.
May God grant me the strength to live within the truth.
May God forgive those that do not know the truth and provide me with the Fire of Islam to light their way out of the darkness to the truth.
May God grant me the strength to live within the truth.
May God forgive those that do not know the truth and provide me with the Fire of Islam to light their way out of the darkness to the truth.
[1] It is important to note that some of the cartoons being used to stoke the anger of protesters in Muslim communities worldwide were not ever printed by any reputable publication in Europe. Instead some, like one depicting the Prophet as a pig, may be propaganda that is being used by extremists to further their own agenda in Muslim communities.
[2] The examples cited are not meant to correlate to the cartoons, rather they are meant to illustrate the point that “forced” respect is dangerous and impossible.
[2] The examples cited are not meant to correlate to the cartoons, rather they are meant to illustrate the point that “forced” respect is dangerous and impossible.
[3] The phrase Ummah Wahida (the “One Community”) in the Quran refers to the entire Islamic world as a unified community.
posted by RezB @ 7:25 PM
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