I am sure you have heard about the furor over depictions of Muhammad, the last Prophet of Islam, in a series of cartoons in the Danish newspaper, Meninger Jyllands-Posten. If not, you can click here for a rundown of the event; curious readers can click here to see what the fuss is about; irate readers can click here to see the non-apology from Meninger Jyllands-Posten.

Medieval Europe's fascination with Mahound, Mahomet and Mohamad can be seen from Dante's description of the Divine Comedy - Mohammad is in the 9th 8th circle, Bolgia 9 of hell [thx Jim!], condemned for sowing"scandal and schism" - to Voltaire's Mahomet: tragédie where he is the seditious imposter. A cursory look at the archives of 13th-18th century reveals frequent and vehement portrayls of Muhammad as wicked, 'with a desparate stomach', delighted with rapes and plunder, seducer of women, of mongrel birth, and whose name tallyied up to 666. For example, the first English translation, via French, of the Qur'an, in 1649, stated,"Good reader, the great Arabian imposter, now at last after a thousand years, is by the way of France arrived in England, and his Alcoran, or gallimaufry of errors (a brat as deformed as the parent, and as full of heresies, as his scald head was of scurf) hath learned to speak English". Arberry, in his translation of the Qur'an, has more snippets from that introduction.

So, while on the one hand, the call for 'artistic interpretations of Muhammad' falls into a long tradition of 'Muhammad the Other', the hue and cry raised by Muslims also needs some correctives. The claim is that Islam bans all representations - while also banning drinking alcohol and playing games of chance in much more unequivocal tones which doesn't get as impassioned a defense anywhere. I don't have the time or energy to go into it here but the iconoclasm of medieval Muslims had more factors than simply the abhorration of any rendition of the human form. From the Deccan to Shiraz to Baghdad, painters and miniaturists found ample motivation to portray humans. However the depiction of the Prophet's facial features, by and large, remained taboo. The vast majority of portraits would have him in a veil or occluded. Which does not mean that we don't have some surviving miniatures that do portray the Prophet in a classical indo-persianate tradition and many more mentions of such in the literature. See, for example, this 17th c. miniature of Muhammad with many diginitaries.The Shi'a hagiographical tradition has been a bit more tolerant of such depictions, like this Jesus-y one from Iran. In short, if 'any' depiction of the Prophet is an assault on the sensibilities of the global Muslim, than we have more to worry about than bad Danish cartoonists.

The Danish editorial board wants to express their 'freedom of speech' to cast Muhammad as a terrorists. Fair enough, it is their right. Just as the literal and figurative depictions of Muhammad in medieval and early modern Europe served a political and cultural purpose, these cartoons do the same. The debate, of course, is about Danish or French society and their efforts at dealing with that perennial invasion from the East [via immigration, now]. On the other hand, if Saudi Arabians want to ban Danish products and recall their Ambassadors, it is their right as well. I'd say there are way more offensive things for Muslims out there. Lack of democracy in their respective countries, being one obvious one. But, they will only get around to protesting that when they are done burning Danish flags or condemning bad postcolonial authors. A fact that has not escaped the notice of the Kings of Saudi or the Generals of Pakistan. [xposted at CM]

Jim Williams - 2/2/2006

Just a minor correction; Mahomet is in Dante's 8th circle, Bolgia 9 (a bolgia, ditch, is a subdivision of circle 8 - Malebolge), not the 9th circle (the lowest circle) - Canto 28, lines 22-63.

On the other hand, Saladin is in Limbo with Averroes (Ibn Rushd) and Avicenna (Ibn Sina) along with the great scholars and warriors of the pagan past.

Manan Ahmed - 2/1/2006

I didn't say that Voltaire wasn't speaking to a critique of religion in general. But, Voltaire did use the imagery found in the usual sources like Prideaux's The True Nature of Imposture Fully Display'd in the Life of Mahomet.
see this.

My point is simply that Voltaire was one response among a continuum.

Ralph E. Luker - 2/1/2006

Jason's point seems well-taken to me, Manan. In other words, we probably ought to distinguish between anti-Mohammad/Islam/Muslim statements, which you clearly point out are plentiful enough in western literature, and secularist or anti-religious statements, which may be "disguised" in order to avoid censorship.

Jason T. Kuznicki - 2/1/2006

"Voltaire's Mahomet [a] tragédie where he is the seditious imposter..."

This is not entirely fair. Voltaire would happily have written a play where Christ, not Mohammed,was the seditious impostor, but he could never have gotten this through the censorship. To say that this is a product of anti-Muslim bias misses the point of Voltaire's much more pronounced anti-Christian tendencies.