My opinion….
In 1980s it was difficult for Western people to
really understand and comprehend the violent
Muslim reaction to Salman Rushdies fictional
portrait of Muhammad in his insensitive book The
Satanic Verses. Inevitably, the murderous hatred
and vigorous reaction from the Muslim world stood
as a proof of the incurable intolerance in Islam.
This issue has resulted a disturbing atmosphere
among the Britains have they failed to appreciate
how Muslims value their beloved prophet. This
clash between religions and cultures proceeded
with a death penalty from a fatwa given by
Khomeini which was very much been condemned by
most of other Muslims leaders saying that this is
not Islamic.
Related to the above, recently we were shocked by
another portrayal of Muhammad; now in a visual
form. This caricature issue was first initiated by
a newspaper in Denmark that publishes a cartoon of
our beloved Muhammad in such a disgraceful way.
Personally I dont want to touch further on how
the images were presented as I believe that it has
been published and forwarded to almost everyone. I
appreciate those people who had sent me the
cartoon but no offence, there is a question in my
head saying, how would I be different to those
newspapers that intentionally publish the image
again and again in other places as information to
the public?. Why are we angry to them while many
other Muslims who want to share their concerns
over this issue keep on forwarding the
caricature? What is the difference?
Providing history as a point of thought, in 850,
there was a monk called Perfectus in Cordova,
al-Andalus. He was asked by a group of Arabs
whether Jesus or Muhammad was the greater prophet.
He knew that it was something beyond that simple
but tricky question. He understood that it would
be a major offence to insult or degrade
Muhammad.Even so, he suddenly labeled the prophet
as a sexual pervert and antichrist. since that the
Muslims were very much a solid civilization, they
didnt do anything to him as he was not a threat
to Islam. If we read the history of Andalusia,
this event was extremely unusual when Muslim and
Christian and Jews had a content life together and
enjoyed the religious liberty. After the
Perfectuss case above, it has inspired several
more insensitive groups to do the same until the
Qadi in charge was forced to sentence them all to
be executed.
Surprisingly the caricature of Muhammad started
1000 years ago when he was portrayed in various
forms. The latest one has repeated the history
itself. Have they not learned even after a
millennia? I cant say that they are not aware of
the rapid outcome that might occur from the Muslim
Block nor help myself from not being prejudice for
such irresponsible act. There are however many
questions that need to be answered before we can
proceed arguing this very case.
How would our reaction being justified? Is it
culturally relative in how we should act and take
action? Are we being fair to those people? Or one
would ask, should we show love and mercy instead
of warning? I have once read that some people said
that, we have no right to forgive them just like
Rasulullah did during his time when people treat
him so bad simply because we are not Muhammad SAW.
to recall he didnt react to the Thaif people that
threw stones and other things even after being
offered by Jibrail to collapse the mountain on
them. Instead he pray to Allah and show mercy to
them Offering another point of view, base on
history, our prophet even blocked Hamzah from
resolving matters with violence. Above all, the
people who commit this fault need to be informed
and told "islamically" that what they are doing is
wrong and must not be done again in the future.
Apart from that, this event has the potential to
bridge the muslim and non-muslim world to the next
level of understanding.
TO BE CONTINUED…
jazlan
