Muhammad Cartoon Hoax: Difference between revisions

The Jyllands-Posten Muhammad Cartoons, which resulted in more than 200 deaths and hundreds of injuries since their initial publication in September 2005,^[2] is one of the most well-known examples of Muslim intolerance. However, this article discusses the lesser-known Muhammad Cartoon Hoax and its role in making the cartoons a world-wide issue.

Background

Initially following the publication of the twelve Jyllands-Posten images, the reaction from Muslims was comparably negligible. Palestinian-born Danish Muslim leader, Ahmad Abu Laban (who was expelled from Egypt and Kuwait for his involvement in the Muslim Brotherhood,^[1] and has links with Egyptian terrorist group Gama'a Islamiya),^[3][4][5] took it upon himself to spearhead a campaign demanding an apology from Jyllands-Posten.

Abu Laban created the Committee for the Defense of the Honor of the Prophet, which primarily consisted of extremist Imams^[1] and issued a press release which was nothing more than a veiled threat towards Jyllands-Posten, "We are not threatening anybody, but when you see what happened in Holland and then still print the cartoons, that's quite stupid."^[6] Unfortunately for Abu Laban, his actions seemed to be having little effect.

Undeterred, in December 2006, a delegation of Danish Muslim leaders, headed by Ahmad Abu Laban and Ahmed Akkari (a Lebanese-born theological student), travelled to the Middle East to publicise and garner opposition to the offending cartoons. Ahmad Abu Laban, who was also the head of The Islamic Society of Denmark, called upon the Muslim world to "internationalize this issue so that the Danish government would realize that the cartoons were not only insulting to Muslims in Denmark but also to Muslims worldwide."^[7] However, the number of images taken to the Middle East had risen considerably.

The Additional Images

Commentary

The first thing you'll notice about these poor quality images is that they are a lot more offensive than any of the original twelve.

The first image is allegedly a depiction of the Islamic prophet Muhammad as a pig. This is highly offensive to Muslims due to pigs, along with urine, faeces and non-Muslims, being considered "najis" (impure).^[8][9][10] It was only discovered later that it was not Danish, nor was it a cartoon at all, but a fax copy of a photo, and this photo was in fact not a depiction of the Islamic prophet, but of Jacques Barrot, a pig squealing contestant at the annual French Pig-Squealing Championships in Trie-sur-Baise.^[11] The original image can be viewed here.

The second image allegedly depicts Muhammad having sex with a dog. Again, dogs are considered najis,^[8][10] and although admittedly Muhammad had raped women and committed pedophila, there is no hadith that suggest he partook in bestiality.

The third image depicts Muhammad as a pedophile demon. Interestingly, the name "Baphomet" (which is associated with the devil) is a bastardisation of his name,^[12][13][14] he was also a pedophile who allowed Aisha (his child bride) to play with dolls,^[15] his wet-nurse believed he was possessed by a demon,^[16] and at one time even he himself believed he was possessed by a demon.^[17]

The Aftermath

The extra images were accepted by several major News outlets (including the Australian network SBS and the British BBC, who later admitted their mistake)^[18] as being part of the original twelve Jyllands-Posten images. It is quite shocking that these huge news organisations could fail to do some simple fact-checking before broadcasting factually incorrect information about such sensitive issues.

According to the BBC, the source of these images (through their own admission) has been traced back to the delegation of Danish Muslim leaders themselves.^[19] The delegation claimed they were sent to Danish Muslims, but failed to verify where and to whom they were sent.

Many suspect that it was in fact the Muslim leaders who produced these images in an attempt to heighten Muslim aggression towards the original Danish publication. This would not be surprising, considering lying is permitted in Islam, and other Muslim leaders such as Omar Bakri Mohammed and Noor Ramjanally have no qualms about doing such things. Whatever the case may be, the actions of the delegation (by promoting the relatively unknown images to Muslim countries) and these additional and infinitely more offensive images, have no doubt contributed greatly to the massive and senseless world-wide death-toll.

See Also

• Lying - A hub page that leads to other articles related to lying
• Cartoons - A hub page that leads to other articles related to Cartoons

External Links

• The Cartoon Hoax - The Brussels Journal
• After the Danish Cartoon Controversy - Middle East Quarterly

References