Mohammed Mo Problems

Mohammed praying at the Ka'aba in Mecca. Turkish miniature from the Ottoman Empire; date unknown. [Scholars indicate the faces was scratched out rather than left unpainted]

Thank you to Tish Noël for the tip to the most important link yet. It is The Mohammed Image Archive. (Note: it takes a long time to load, but is worth it) It traces depictions of Mohammed (confused on spelling, there seem to be several ways out there) throughout history. Depictions are from both Western and Muslim countries, beginning with miniatures from the medieval era through to today. The archive is factual and professional, presenting an unbiased look at the historical evidence. Most notable are the parodies and caricatures throughout the years that have NOT caused uproars. Again begging the question, why now? Why over these cartoons?


The Angel Gabriel is leading Mohammed to heaven and some amazing beef stock in this German ad that did not insight mass rioting 1928.

One possible answer is discussed in The Mohammed Image Archive. The original Jyllands-Posten page only had 12 cartoons...

‘Yet when a delegation of Danish imams went to the Middle East to "discuss" the issue of the cartoons with senior officials and prominent Islamic scholars [link to: counter terrorism blog], the imams openly distributed a booklet that showed 15 images -- not only the original 12 cartoons, but three fraudulent anti-Mohammed depictions that were much more offensive than the ones published in Denmark. [link to: biblenin blog] it is now thought that these three bonus images are what ignited the outrage in the Muslim world. The newspaper Ekstra Bladet obtained a copy of the booklet and presented the three offensive images on its Web site (though not in an easy-to-find place). All look like low-quality photocopies. [link to: Ekstra Bladet, scroll down for booklet]

They are so obviously fake fake fake! And way more offensive. And funnier! They are so stupid and funny. Here is the best one:


The caption reads: "The real reason Muslims pray"

It is totally ridiculous, absurd and funny. I'm sorry, but I find the whole idea of this being passed off as a real editorial cartoon is funny. And the image is so stupid, and that is funny. And it looks like something a redneck racist would do and think was really clever. And that is funny too. Not to mention, this isn't even a depiction of Mohammed.

They are basically the stereotypical mean cartoon from jr. high. Akin to drawing the teacher with stink lines and warts, or the principal fucking a dog. And the best part of it is that whoever made these is/are totally fucked. Is it not a worse crime, at least karmically, to be the imam that draws a cartoon of Mohammed as a pedophile (one of the fake ones shows that) in order to deceive other Muslims and whip them up into a fit of rage? Because you are still defiling him, and then on top of that you are a liar.

When things like this come to light, it is harder to defend the riotous reactions. And as the riots have quickly grown to involve things that have NOTHING to do with the cartoons or Denmark, it becomes apparent that those acting out in violence are using it as an excuse.

The Biblen blog, which might be a little anti-Islam, presents a compelling timeline of events and brings up a story never to reach our soil about Saudi Arabia being at fault for the deaths of 350 Pilgrims. Here we have the Saudi government pulling a maneuver like those done by American presidents, both past and present.

“September: Twelve innocent cartoons are published in a far-away country. [Very good point. These images were not published in a Muslim country, nor the Middle East. They were not published as an affront to Islam and were not published as a whole sale attack on Arabs.]
October: The drawings are printed in an Egypt newspaper - no riots ensue.
November: Nothing
December: Nothing
January: Nothing
January 12th: 350 people are killed in Saudi Arabia because of poor planning. Much of the Muslim world hurl criticism at Saudi Arabia.
January: All the state controlled newspapers suddenly decide not to write about the 350 dead pilgrims anymore, and start writing about twelve cartoons published four months ago in a small far-away country.
January: Boycott of Danish good starts in Saudi Arabia - other countries are to follow
February: Violent protests at Danish embassies - protesters are often waving Saudi Arabian flags.”

So the plot thickens.

Cartoon response from Fillibustercartoons.com

• All the images in this post were found on The Mohammed Image Archive •