From Silvers

Back to The Danish Cartoon Fiasco

Back to Timely News Items on Islam

Danish Cartoons

Suggested Readings on the Danish Cartoon Issue

• Bernard Lewis, Jews of Islam
• Usama b. Munqidh's memoirs from the Crusader period.
• Norman Daniel, Islam and the West: The Making of an Image
• Jane McAuliffe, Qur'anic Christians
• Richard Ettinghausen, "Persian Ascension Miniatures of the Fourteenth Century," Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, Convegno Volta, Atti 12 (1957): 360-83.
• Priscilla Soucek, "The Life of the Prophet: Illustrated Versions," in idem, ed., Content and Context of Visual Artsin the Islamic World (University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1988): 193-209 with 9 illustrations;
• also see Soucek's, "An Illustrated Manuscript of al-Biruni's Chronology of Ancient Nations.” In The Scholar and the Saint. Ed. Peter Chelkowski (New York: New York University Press, 1975): 103-168.

Ideas for Approaching the Topic in Class

• One professor is teaching "Religion and Violence" this semester. During a reading of Rene Girard's article, "Generative Scapegoating" this professor introduced the cartoon saga (both European and Muslim perspectives). This reading complemented Girard with selections from Regina Schwartz' "Curse of Cain" to discuss the rhetoric of "othering" and "victimization" that can lead to the justification and perpetuation of violent acts.

• Another suggests "reviewing some of the main theoretical struggles to understand the Rushdie affair and how those might illuminate the current debates--what is the same--what may have changed--what are the locations of the various theorists? Maybe also frame it within phenomenological approaches, functional approaches, etc to the study of religion--(at least in a methods class). In addition to the explanation based on Protestant sensibilities, I would add that the overriding ethos of the modern West is post-Freudian in the sense that the cultural "common sense" is that taboos (including respect for the sacred) are considered unhealthy complexes to be brought out in the open and defied--thereby liberating the individual (ego). Therefore 'freedom of expression' becomes more than a civic principle and in itself become a technique of 'self-transformation'"

• Another comments, "Maybe juxtapose this 'type' of cartooning to the 'acceptable' imagery that festoons the pages of catalogues like those of Astrolabe and Sound/Vision, including tons of children's cartoon heroes (and even 3-D human images like Razanne, the Muslim Girl antidote to Barbie). At least something like this could counteract the prevalent stereotype (even articulated by lots of Muslims) that 'Muslims don't do images -- period.'"

• In informal discussions with students and colleagues over this issue, one professor tried to re-frame the present-mindedness in two ways. First, the professor reminded the students of the iconoclast controversies in the Greek Church (4th to 9th centuries) and the ambivalence in Judaism toward representation stemming from the biblical injunctions against "graven images." Second, this professor discussed the reactions to anti-semitic and anti-black cartoons and charicatures no longer generally tolerated in our society. The goal was to contextualize Islamic reactions both historically and across cultures.

• Another professor suggests reframing the situation in the following ways:

1) the "crisis" of secular liberalism is being felt in europe and is actively contstructed against its muslim minorities and the muslim world more generally. this is what allows words like "testing muslims" to be used. it permits those who want to argue for a clash of civilization, to do so. my focus is on the limits of secular liberal democracy and "european values," since so much is focused already on muslims and the muslim world.

2) the ethical dimensions of (unnecessary) provocation - the right to offend in the abstract versus in practice. who wants those rights and what are their interests in having them, and how/when are they applied? in framing things this way, we unfold the constructed and contigent as well as partial nature of "freedom of speech" and the varying notions of "freedom." what kind of society are we building if we offend and hate, just because we have the "right" to do so?

3) in a media class, I am asking students to think how the visual and visual images globalize islam, and the contextual nature of meaning/signification

• One professor is teaching a course on "Muslims in the Modern World" and says, "We are reading Following Muhammad as an introduction. Tomorrow I will talk about the life and significance of Muhammad and I have decided to tie it directly to the 'cartoon saga.' An interesting angle is to discuss how sensitivities about 'offending' religious figures and followers are different in Europe and America and how much of this is about religious or rather racial and ethnic issues when as some have argued Muslims are increasingly perceived as "ethnically" Muslim which take Western issues with Muslims and Islam out of the realm of religions and frames them as a cultural and political clash. I did share Varisco's blog and the website with images of Muhammad with my students, so that brings some background in as well. Our students don't remember the Rushdie Affair and while I think the parallels are striking, all the way down to the different 'issues' this has brought up in various European countries about Muslim European idenities, I think I will have to explain that in the first place. Lastly, its a great opportunity to talk about global connections, flows of information, the ummah, 'Muslim rage,' and the role of the media in shaping our perceptions, and fanning the flames."

• Another says, "I am teaching an Islam intro class and the next 2 weeks happen to be reserved for Muhammad. We haven't talked in class about the cartoons yet, but I think about how to bring it up next session. I will of course talk about the tension between artistic freedom/freedom of press and respect for religious symbols. But I think that's just the surface, and what we really have to do is connecting the growing belligerence to the sense of vulnerability on all sides. Debates are becoming more and more irrational just like in the case of an embittered old couple where it doesn't matter any more what the other says, for everybody is so fixed on getting their prejudices validated. I don't want to say yet that Huntington won, but it creeps me that we might be witnessing something like the self-fulfilling prophecy of the "clash of civilizations". In the end it's always easier to essentialize conflicts than trying to understand/explain/change something about it. I think the cartoon issue has to be addressed through a multitude of perspectives: Muslim respect for the prophet, feelings of vulnerability and increasing threat on all sides involved, 9/11 and post 9/11 politics, globalization and so forth *. Pretty challenging."

• In an Intro to Islam class one professor prepared a PowerPoint presentation with background on the cartoon controversy, a timeline of events, etc., and with the actual cartoons. This professor talked about the significance of each image. Then this professor split the class into groups of four and had them discuss three questions: whether freedom of expression should override respect for people's faith, whether the controversy is likely to increase Islamophobia in Europe, and whether some of the Muslim reactions (boycotts, death threats, flag burning, etc.) were justified. The groups then reported back to the class. This professor says, "This activity allowed the quieter students a chance to speak. Few of my students were familiar with the Rushdie affair, or even the murder of Theo Van Gogh. So for most, this was their first Islamic controversy of the sort. My one observant Muslim student kept her eyes down when the cartoons were on the screen, but appreciated the opportunity to then discuss the matter."

• In an Intro to Islam class, one professor will introduce the cartoons in the context of a broader discussion focused on traditional Islamic understandings of Muhammad. This professor hasn't added any readings to the syllabus but has asked students to look at a website containing a range of pictures of the Prophet. In addition to the context provided by Islamic "images" of Muhammad, this professor plans to refer back to the portrayal of Muhammad found in Dante's Inferno, used as a trigger in the first session of this class (which is being taught at a liberal Christian seminary). None of this will contextualize the violent nature of some responses to these cartoons, but the hope is that it will help students understand where these cartoons fit within the broader Western image of Muhammad and why Muslims are so upset.

• One professor says, "I remember that perhaps a year (?) ago, when news got out that copies of the Qur'an may have been desecrated at Guantanamo Bay during interrogations of Muslim prisoners, there was some outrage in the Islamic world and some protests, but not (I seem to remember) on the scale generated by these cartoons. In my class I pointed this out, and asked students to think about why this might be, having just covered sections on the Prophet Muhammad and the Qur'an, respectively, in my intro to Islam class.

"We talked about the Rushdie affair, and discussed why it was that insults to the Prophet, moreso (it seemed) than insults to the Qur'an or the religion as such, drew such emotional reactions. We had also just viewed part of "The Message", and we noted that throughout that film, the early Muslims are always trying to "protect the Prophet!" This is a cry, e.g., that goes out when Muhammad and the early Muslims receive the mandate to go public with Muhammad's message. One, of course, also thinks about the story of the poet's slander against Muhammad during his lifetime, or the way the Muslims reportedly gathered around Muhammad when he was wounded at Uhud. I suggested that perhaps since Muhammad was "human" and not divine (as the Qur'an of course is in Muslim belief), that there was more of a sense that the community had a duty to "protect" Muhammad; whereas the Qur'an is, in a sense, divinely protected. One could think of Qur'an 7:180: "To God belong the most beautiful names. Invoke Him by them. And leave those who blaspheme His names. They will be recompensed for what they do." In other words, Muslims should respond to blasphemous insults to God's names by simply ignoring and avoiding those who do so, leave God himself to compensate them for their actions.

"Of course, the most important issue is the way in which Muhammad is portrayed, rather than the fact that he is portrayed (the latter idea being recycled and stressed in every news story I read about this). He is portrayed in connection with violence and negative treatment of women. I think when one reads Muslim accounts of Muhammad's life and personality, Muslims seem to remember him primarily as gentle, forbearing, moderate in manner and temperament. And so such negative depictions of Muhammad, like medieval caricatures (as I think Carl Ernst suggests in Following Muhammad) are deeply hurtful and distressing to Muslims in a personal and emotional way that, perhaps, other "blasphemies" are not.

One of my Muslim students, one the other hand, suggested that since Muslims could actually "see" the caricatures of Muhammad (although I am not sure how many have actually "seen" them), whereas they only heard differing reports and rumors about the handling of the Qur'an at Guantanamo, this accounts for the different reaction."

• Another professor says, "I would add one other teaching angle that I will be using this morning. I will suggest that the Protestant ethos of the West, which dismisses the idea that any human being, or any material object, can be “holy,” desensitizes us to the ways that holiness is framed in other cultures. We do not print pictures of Black Sambo or cartoons of the holocaust for political reasons, not for religious reasons. Images of Jesus abound, and many of them are schlock (is that a real word?) and some, like Serrano’s “Piss Christ,” are serious art and some are meant to offend, but most of us brush these off, because in the Protestant ethos, that which is holy is transcendent and thus out of the reach of cartoonists and art. All of this raises the question of whether most of us can even understand the concept of a holy object which must not be profaned, or a holy human being which must not be defamed. The BVM (Blessed Virgin Mary) in Catholicism would be our closest analogy to the position of Muhammed."

• In response to the last comment about the Protestant ethos, another scholar writes, "I would be careful with opening up a new dichotomy between Western protestant and Islamic ethos in regards of holiness. For one, I think that viewing the West through its protestant ethos captures only part of the picture: the West is also Catholic, and there is fascination and admiration for religious figures that made inroads into Protestant culture (think about the death-of-the-pope spectacle, Mel Gibson's passion, charismatic Christians, the Guru subculture).

"Secondly, if we look into American culture, I think there are ample examples of holiness attached to people, places, events - just think about everything attached to American patriotism, which has by some been described as civil religion. Of course one could say the sacredness of the symbols of the American Dream are "secular" - but how can we draw clear lines between secular and religious holiness/sacredness? I think, as has been pointed out by various others, there are clear taboo topics in different cultures of "the West" as well, taboos in terms of things that can't be made fun of. May be the Western delusion is that "we" don't judge/perceive "non-religious" taboos the same ways we judge/perceive "religious" taboos. The Western "protestant" non-understanding of the Muslim outcry could then be read as the Western othering of its own inability to practically establish its ideals, effectively projecting its own failure to stick to its enlightened ideals on 'the Muslim'."