Download REVIEW ARTICLES The Danish Caricatures Seen from the Arab

Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions,
Vol. 7, No. 3, 363–369, September 2006
REVIEW ARTICLES
The Danish Caricatures Seen from the Arab World
ANA BELEN SOAGE
University of Granada
Taylor
TudorGeorgescu
Totalitarian
1469-0764
Review
7302006
[email protected]
000002006
&
Articles
Francis
(print)/1743-9647
Movements
(online)Religions
10.1080/14690760600819523
GTMP_A_181893.sgm
and
Francis
Ltd and Political
The publication of a dozen caricatures portraying the prophet Muhammad in the
Danish daily newspaper Jyllands-Posten, and thereafter in other European media,
sparked a wave of Muslim resentment against the West. The crisis is not unprecedented: in 1989, Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses led to Ayatollah Khomeini’s
notorious fatwa, followed by violent demonstrations in many countries, and a
series of assassinations and bombings. The parallels are clear: as well as comparable levels of violence, there have been calls for a fatwa against those involved in
the publication of the caricatures, and Hizbullâh leader Hasan Nasr Allah
declared that ‘if a Muslim had carried out imam Khomeini’s fatwa against the
apostate Salman Rushdie, those despicable people would not have dared to insult
the prophet of God’.1
This article will try to ascertain why the reaction to the publication of the
caricatures has been so acrimonious. The sources considered here are the opinion
pages of the international Arab press; the websites, sermons and television
appearances of influential religious figures; and the satellite channel Al-Jazeera.
Three possible explanations will be explored: genuine religious piety, the tense
international situation, and an instrumentalisation of the affair by political and
religious leaders. This latter point, in particular, is crucial to understanding how
what started as a diplomatic incident has turned into an international crisis.
The Centrality of Muhammad
The prophet Muhammad has a very special status in Islam: not only is he the
messenger of God (rasûl al-allâh), but also the seal – that is, the last – of His prophets (khâtim al-anbiyâ’). The collection of his words and acts – the Sunna – is a source
of authority second only to the Koran itself. He has been portrayed as the embodiment of all virtues, and although he insisted – and the Koran reiterated – that he
was just a man, he is considered infallible (ma‘sûm). In the Day of Judgement,
Muhammad will intercede for every Muslim before God. There is no doubt that
Correspondence address: University of Granada, Faculty of Humanities, Granada, 18071. Email:
[email protected].
ISSN 1469-0764 Print/ISSN 1743-9647 Online/06/030363-07 © 2006 Taylor & Francis
DOI: 10.1080/14690760600819523
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A. B. Soage
the very real affection felt towards the prophet is behind much of the emotion in
the believers’ reactions; many sermons and articles concentrated on the prophet’s
qualities, as if trying to make up for the insult of which he had been the target.
In fact, well-intentioned Muslims assumed that the affront could only be the
result of ignorance.2 Egyptian preacher and TV star ‘Amr Khâlid urged his
young followers to take action to remedy it: ‘It is our duty to the prophet of God
to make his message known … Do not say that this is the task of the ulema
(religious scholars) – it is the task of all of us’; he also invited them to send him
messages about the prophet, which he pledged to deliver ‘to the whole world’,
and proposed an internationally-televised encounter with young people in
Copenhagen.3 Other practical measures were suggested: a reader of al-Ahrâm
demanded that the Danish government introduce a lesson about Muhammad in
its schools’ curriculum.4
There is a widespread perception that western education programmes present a
distorted picture of Islam: ‘Alî Jum‘a, Egypt’s mufti, wrote that they engendered
hatred, and cited a study carried out by professor ‘Abd al-Jawwâd Flâtûrî of Cologne
University which he thinks could be used to demand the correction of that picture
in western syllabi.5 This idea was reiterated in the course of a press conference to
present a manifesto signed by 42 well-known Muslim clerics, thinkers and preachers; figures like the muftis of Egypt and Jerusalem and the spiritual leader of Hizbullah, as well as TV personalities like ‘Amr Khâlid and the Saudi Salmân al-Awda
(host of MBC’s Al-hayât kalima and coordinator of the website Islam Today).6 The
manifesto itself contained an appeal to the Organisation of the Islamic Conference
and its members to work for a UN resolution banning affronts against all prophets.7
In the Islamic world, blasphemy – in most cases, against all monotheisms – is
already an offence; in Egypt, for instance, it can lead to five years in jail. The
Islamic sharî‘a has traditionally considered blasphemy punishable by death,
although modern Muslim thinkers like Mohammad Hashim Kamali maintain
that, given that the Koran does not prescribe a punishment, determining a
penalty is left to the judicial authorities of the day. In the Koran, God often
instructs Muhammad to be patient to those who insult him and, according to
historical records, no action was taken against them during his years in Mecca.
The only recorded instances of prosecution occurred when the prophet had
become the head of the community in Medina. Kamali concludes:
The death penalty was designed not for blasphemy as a crime against
religion alone but primarily as a crime against the community and the
state … Blasphemy presented a major threat to the existence and continuity of Islam at a time when neither the new faith nor the nascent Islamic
state were secure against rampant hostility and challenge.8
Blasphemy is yet another example of how the political and the religious have
been intricately linked in Islam since its very inception.9 In fact, as will be shown
in the next section, the current political situation goes a long way towards
explaining the reaction to the publication of the caricatures.
A ‘Clash of Civilisations’?
For many in the Arab world, the caricatures represent yet another instance of
western animosity towards Islam. At the beginning of the crisis, Zayn al-‘Âbidîn
Danish Caricatures and the Arab World 365
al-Rukâbî argued that the silence of the European churches could only be
attributed to ‘agreement and collusion’, and attacked those who had been too
willing to stand up for an ‘Other’ who had proved to be ‘hating, careless, distant
and adversarial’.10 His words were echoed by Asmâ al-Husayn: ‘Do we know the
truth now? Do we know who ‘the Other’ is? He whom we – or, at least, some of us
– used to consider the epitome of civilisation and progress is nothing but a foe,
and clearly does not like you nor your Islam’.11 Salmân al-‘Awda stated that ‘the
West is heading towards a kind of civilisational isolation … In theory, it recognises the Other … but I do not think that it effectively recognises the Other’s
culture, civilisation or religion’.12 Liberals like Nobel Prize Winner Naguib
Mahfouz lamented that the first victims of what happened were ‘the moderates
who for years have been insisting on the need to open to the Other’.13
Always eager to reflect the feelings of ‘the Arab street’, Al-Jazeera dedicated
much attention to the issue. The view of its audience is clear: in an Al-Jazeera net
poll asking ‘Do you think that the world is heading towards a clash of civilisations?’, over 83 per cent of respondents answered positively.14 Many vented their
fury against the West in the phone-in show Manbar al-Jazeera. A viewer from
Qatar said that ‘the enmity of the Crusaders, the Jews and the Christians is old …
from the raids against the Romans – Tâbûk, Yarmûk and others – to the crusades,
to modern colonialism, to the raid on Iraq. It is all a continuous series’. Another
viewer, this time from Saudi Arabia claimed that when the Iranian president cast
doubts on the Holocaust ‘the world raised [in outrage] and would not sit down’,
while insulting the prophet was defended as ‘freedom of opinion’. A Palestinian
talked of ‘a campaign against Islam under the banner of freedom of expression’
which had revealed ‘the true face of the West’, and continued: ‘The reason is that
this umma [the Islamic community] lacks a strong leadership … If we had in this
era an ‘Umar, a Mu‘tasim or a Saladdin, they would not dare do that.’15
The need to make a stand was a constant theme: The first point of the ulema’s
manifesto mentioned above states: ‘We clasp the hand of the umma, which set in
motion to support the prophet of God (pbuh16), proving that this umma is alive’.17
The head of the International Association of Muslim Scholars, sheikh Yûsuf alQaradâwî, responded to [imaginary?] Danish claims that Muslims would not be
able to go without its products because they do not produce anything by asserting
that ‘we can do without you, with alternatives from the East … And we will do
without you with what we have, and with thrift and abstinence… And if we have
no other choice and we have to fast and protect our prophet (pbuh), we will fast
and go hungry’.18 Badriyya al-‘Abd al-Rahmân wrote in Islam Today: ‘I know
that my boycott and your boycott will not harm or reduce the significance of
Denmark’s butter, reputation and silly cows. But we will do it for ourselves, so we
do not lose the simple “No” that we have now and fills our mouths. To say: we
are here, we exist in this world’.19
However, the condemnation of violence was pervasive. The 42 ulema warned
against ‘deplorable actions that may distort the justness of our demands’ and
urged ‘not to target non-Muslims in our countries or outside them on account of
those who offended the prophet (pbub).’20 Al-Qaradâwî stated that although he
had called for ‘a day of rage for God, his prophet and all the prophets of God, and
the sacrosanct things in Islam and in all religions’, he ‘condemned the outcome of
that rage in the countries where it exceeded its proper bounds’.21 However, some
sought to justify it: Egyptian Islamist Fahmî Huwaydî maintained that ‘the
attitude of the Danish government bears a great part of the responsibility for what
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happened to its embassies’, for after four months of vain efforts, ‘it was not
strange that the feelings of some exploded’.22
Religious leaders avoided the issue of terrorism; any depiction of the prophet is
deemed blasphemous, and the mere fact of bringing up the subject could be interpreted as an implicit justification of the caricatures. However, some commentators did point to the obvious link between Islamic terrorism and western
perceptions of Islam. For example, ‘Alî al-Sa‘adî wrote that the ‘umma has the
right to show its disapproval and condemnation to all those who try to distort the
image of its prophet and present it falsely, but it also has the obligation to say to
terrorism and its partisans: “You are responsible, because you contributed to
that”’.23 Qadrî Hifnî explored western and Muslim attitudes to terrorism, and
wondered regarding the latter:
To what extent does our Arab and Islamic culture bear the responsibility
for what happened? … Should we condemn those terrorist acts and
completely wash our hands of their perpetrators, judging them to have
abandoned true Islam? Should we just say that they are mistaken, considering them fighters whose struggle has lost its way? Or should we excuse
them, on the grounds that what they do is the result of the oppression
suffered by Muslims?24
Manipulation by Political and Religious Leaders
In a recent paper published in Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions,
Renato Moro indicated something that is often overlooked by those who continue
to believe that history is linear; that progress and secularisation go hand in hand:
In the age of secularisation, phenomena surrounding the politicisation of
religion continue … There is, on the one hand, a political use of religion
by lay power; on the other, an internal process of transformation toward
politics.25
Although Moro was referring to Catholicism, his statement might be most
pertinently applied to the Muslim world – and this crisis has offered us a good
example of the two processes he identifies. In the Middle East, even nominally
secular regimes have resorted to religion to legitimise their policies: Nasser set up
the Supreme Council of Islamic Affairs in order to prove that Islam and socialism
were fully compatible, and the 1980s Iran-Iraq War was dubbed by the Iraqi
propaganda machine ‘the Qadisiyya of Saddam’, in reference to a seventeenthcentury battle in which the Muslim (Arab) armies defeated the Persians. On the
other hand, Muslim ulema and preachers have often seized the opportunities
provided by crises to try to reclaim their influence in society.
This factor was analysed by Saudi intellectual Mashârî al-Dhâidî. After warning that the crisis risked getting out of the control of those who have been leading it, he mentioned al-Qaradâwî, as he attacked some politicians ‘of whom it is
difficult to believe that they really have strong feelings about Islam’ but have
sought to instrumentalise their people’s outrage, like ‘the author of the Green
Book’ (Muammar al-Gaddafi), and ‘the symbol of the Ba‘ath party’ (Bashar alAsad). But he harshly judged the manipulation of the case by Islamists, like the
Saudi protester who, after a Friday prayer, took to the floor to lament that
Danish Caricatures and the Arab World 367
insulting Islam, not strange coming from ‘our spiteful Jewish and Crusader
enemies’, was also to be found among ‘our fellow citizens, who speak our
language – and some of which, unfortunately, write in newspapers published in
our country’. Or again, the ‘renowned preacher’ who argued that ‘an apology –
even official and complete – will not be enough if it is the result of the economic
boycott. It must be the result of genuine feelings of guilt … although Muslims
will not be truly content with anything but the obliteration of the hostile
criminal [the caricaturist].’26
The most remarkable feature of this crisis has been precisely its instrumentalisation by religious figures. Most Muslim governments have been doing a balancing
act, trying to avoid damaging their relations with the West or alienating their own
population: King Abdullah condemned the caricatures while sitting next to George
W. Bush, who uttered conciliatory comments. Musharraf uneasily combined a
strong condemnation with a (largely ignored) ban on rallies of protest. And many
criticised the mild reaction of the sheikh of al-Azhar, Muhammad al-Tantâwî, an
appointee of president Mubarak.27 The leaders of the campaign have been people
like Salmân al-Awda, who has repeatedly refused to accept the Danish apology –
or, rather, denied that it was an apology at all28 – and al-Qaradâwî, who accepted
the apology handed to him by a Norwegian delegation but called for the boycott
to continue until Norway issues a blasphemy law.29 There also seems to be an
element of rivalry. Al-Qaradawi – who did not sign the ulema’s manifesto30 – criticised Amr Khâlid’s idea of a meeting in Denmark as ‘a departure from the ulema’s
consensus’,31 perhaps upset that upstarts like Khâlid were stealing the limelight
from ‘real’ scholars.
However, some chose to concentrate on the manipulation of the crisis by
outside forces. Whilst acknowledging that ‘some Arab regimes have an interest in
stirring up Arab and Muslim popular feeling against Europe’, Muhammad Sa‘îd
maintained that the main culprit was the European far right – including the
Jyllands-Posten – which ‘has plunged into a battle against the moderate governments by provoking Muslims and Arabs’. However, the first beneficiaries are the
US and Israel: ‘The Bush administration has re-won Europe by intensifying the
feelings against Arabs, using the Arabs’ own reactions … And Israel has obtained
a significant transformation in the European stance towards the Palestinians and
the Arab-Israeli struggle.’32 He is not alone. In a region of the world where censorship and government control of the media has led people to question everything,
and to interpret any event ‘backwards’ (that is, identifying first who its main
beneficiary is), not a few have been pointing their fingers at the American and
‘Zionist’ enemies of Islam.
Conclusion
The three factors identified above have played a role in the uproar unleashed by
the Danish caricatures. First, there is a strength of religious feeling in the Muslim
world – due to historical, social and educational factors which are outside the
scope of this study – that may be difficult to gauge from inside western secular
societies. In addition, the targeting of a religious symbol like Muhammad, the
only prophet that Muslims do not share with Jews and Christians, was perceived
as the last in a long list of humiliations and assaults: it is probably not a coincidence that the more violent demonstrations were held in countries like Syria, Iran
and Libya, whose relations with the West are tense. Finally, the crisis provided an
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opportunity for some political leaders to show their religious credentials and
divert their populations’ frustration towards an external target, and for the ulema
to reassert their influence as political leaders.
Notes
1. ‘Kalimat al-amîn al-‘âmm li-hizb allâh fî-l-layla al-thânya min layâlî al-‘âshûra 1/2/2006’.
Al-muqâwa al-islâmiyya fî Lubnân (Hizbullah’s official website), available at: http://
www.moqawama.org/_amkhitab.php?filename=2006020210473813 (accessed 11 March 2006).
2. Less well-intentioned Muslims thought the same, but they were rather less understanding; an
example is Asmâ’ al-Husayn’s article ‘You insolent squanderers, if you knew Muhammad, you
would submit to him voluntarily!!’; see Asmâ’ al-Husayn, ‘Ayyuhâ al-mutatâwilûn al-musrifûn..
Law ‘araftum Muhammadan la-aslamtum la-hu tâ’i‘ûn!!’, Islam Today, 11 February 2006, available
at: http://www.islamtoday.net/articles/show_articles_content.cfm?id=37&catid=188&artid=6839
(last accessed 11 March 2006).
3. ‘Amr Khâlid, ‘Al-wâjib al-‘amalî tujâh azmat al-Dinmârk’; Amr Khaled Net, undated, available at:
http://www.amrkhaled.net/articles/articles1252.html (accessed 11 March 2006).
4. Osâma Al-Tantâwî, ‘Tashîh al-afkâr’. Al-Ahram. 13 February 2006, 11.
5. ‘Alî Jum‘a, ‘Azmat al-Dânmârk’, Al-Ahram, 13 February, 13.
6. Sa‘îd Hilwâ, ‘Muftî al-jumhûriyya wa-‘Amr Khâlid ya‘lunân bayânan waqqa‘a-hu 42 ‘âliman’, AlAhram, 19 February 2006, 15.
7. ‘Bayân du‘ât al-muslimîn’, Amr Khaled Net, 14 February 2006, available at: http://
www.amrkhaled.net/articles/articlessa137.html (accessed 11 March 2006). Islam being a continuation of Judaism and Christianity, revealed to correct their alleged distortions, recognises all
Jewish prophets in addition to Jesus Christ as messengers of God.
8. Mohammad Hashim Kamali, Freedom of Expression in Islam, Cambridge: The Islamic Texts Society,
1997, 247, 248.
9. Two of the most notorious cases of execution for blasphemy in the Muslim world, Sufi mystic alHallaj in tenth-century Baghdad, and Muhammad Taha in Sudan in 1985, are good illustrations of
the link between that charge and the threat the offender is perceived to pose to the legitimacy of
the established order. See Bernard Botiveau, ‘Tolerance and Law: From Islamic Culture to Islamist
Ideology’, Ratio Juris 10/1 (1997), 61-74, 65-7.
10. Zayn al-‘Âbidîn al-Rukâbî, ‘Rad ‘al-tatâwul ‘alâ al-nabî. Asbaqiyya ‘uqdiyya wa-diblûmâsiyya
wa-i‘lâmiyya’. Al-Sharq al-Awsat, 14 January 2006, available at: http://www.asharqalawsat.com/
leader.asp?section=3&article=343175&issue=9909 (accessed 11 March 2006).
11. Asmâ’al-Husayn.
12. Al-Sharî‘a wa-l-Hayât, ‘Azmat al-rusûm al-musî’a li-l-rasûl al-karîm’, Al-Jazeera, 19 February 2006.
13. Muhammad Salmâwî, ‘Hiwârât ma’ Najîb Mahfûz’, Al-Ahram, 9 February 2006, 10.
14. ‘Hal tarâ an al-‘âlam yattajih nahw sirâ’ hadârât?’, Al-Jazeera. The poll was open 18–23 February
2006. 4,522 people took part: 3,760 voted Yes and 762, No.
15. Manbar al-Jazeera, ‘Rusûm al-sahîfa al-dânmârkiyya al-musî’a li-l-rasûl al-karîm’. Al-Jazeera, 12
February 2006. Tâbûk and Yarmûk are famous battles in which Muslims defeated the army of the
Byzantine Army (the ‘Romans’ of the comment). As for the historical figures mentioned, ‘Umar b.
al-Khattâb was the second caliph, under whom the Muslims conquered Mesopotamia, the Levant,
Egypt and most of North Africa; al-Mu‘tasim bi-l-lâh was an Abbasid caliph who famously
invaded a country where a Muslim woman who had been publicly harassed appealed for his help;
and Saladdin reconquered Jerusalem from the crusaders.
16. ‘Peace be upon him’ is the formula regularly used by Muslims after mentioning the prophet’s
name.
17. ‘Bayân du‘ât al-muslimîn’.
18. ‘Al-Qaradâwî: Lam ad‘û li-l-‘unf wa-nushaddid ‘ala ‘al-ghadb al-‘âqil’’, Al-Qaradawi Net, 11 February 2006, available at: http://www.qaradawi.net/site/topics/article.asp?cu_no=2&item_no=4161
&version=1&template_id=104&parent_id=15 (accessed 11 March 2006).
19. Badriyya Al-‘Abd al-Rahman, ‘Wa li-l-abqâr… akhtâ’u-ha’, Islam Today, 1 February 2006, available
at: http://www.islamtoday.net/articles/show_articles_content.cfm?id=37&catid=188&artid=6795
(accessed 11 March 2006).
20. ‘Bayân du‘ât al-muslimîn’.
21. ‘Al-Qaradâwî: Lam ad‘û li-l-‘unf wa-nushaddid ‘ala ‘al-ghadb al-‘âqil’’.
Danish Caricatures and the Arab World 369
22. Fahmî Huwaydî, ‘Min durûs al-hamla al-ûrûbiyya ‘ala nabî al-islâm’, Al-Sharq al-Awsat, 08
February 2006, available at: http://www.asharqalawsat.com/leader.asp?section=3&issue=
9934&article=347267 (accessed 11 March 2006).
23. ‘Alî Al-Sa‘adî, ‘Al-isâ’a wa-l-radd.. wa-izdiwâjiyyat al-ma‘âyîr’, Al-Hayat, 17 February 2006, available at: http://www.daralhayat.com/opinion/02-2006/Item-20060216-74906653-c0a8-10ed-0118a77024c77f97/story.html (accessed 11 March 2006).
24. Qadrî Hifnî, ‘Al-kârîkâtîr al-dinmârkî wa-radd al-fi‘l al-islâmî’, Al-Ahram, 12 February 2006, 12.
25. Renato Moro, ‘Religion and politics in the time of secularisation: The sacralisation of politics and
politicisation of religion’, Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions 6, no. 1 (2005), 71-86;
quoted 82.
26. Al-Dhâydî does not mention it, but the article in question is Nâsir b. Sulaymân al-‘Umar’s ‘Hab
a‘tadharû. Fa-mâdhâ ba‘d?’, Al-Mukhtâr al-Islâmî, 30 January 2006, available at: http://
www.islamselect.com/index.php?pg=mat&ref=17939&ln=1 (accessed 11 March 2006).
27. For instance, Fahmî Huwaydî judged al-Tantâwî’s response ‘extremely below par’, see Fahmî
Huwaydî, ‘Min durûs al-hamla al-ûrûbiyya ‘ala nabî al-islâm’.
28. See, for instance, ‘Al-Awda ya‘tabir inna-hu lam ya‘tadhir.. wa muslim dinmârkî yu’akkid:
Qabalna al-i‘tidhâr’, Al-Arabiyya Net, 3 February 2006, available at: http://www.alarabiya.net/
Articles/2006/02/03/20801.htm (accessed 11 March 2006), or Al-Sharî‘a wa-l-Hayât, ‘Azmat alrusûm al-musî’a li-l-rasûl al-karîm‘.
29. ‘Al-Qaradâwî: Naqbal i‘tidhâran mashrûtan bi-sudûr qânûn yuharrim al-isâ’ li-l-anbiyâ’’, AlQaradawi Net, 16 February 2006, available at: http://www.qaradawi.net/site/topics/article.asp?cu_no=2&item_no=4168&version=1&template_id=116&parent_id=114
(accessed
11
March 2006).
30. The International Association of Ulema had issued its own communiqué on 21 January 2006: see
‘Bayân al-ittihâd li-‘ulamâ’ al-muslimîn hawla nashr suwar li-l-rasûl’, Al-Qaradawi Net, 23 January
2006, available at: http://www.alqaradawi.net/site/topics/article.asp?cu_no=2&item_no=4144&
version=1&template_id=116&parent_id=114 (accessed 11 March 2006).
31. Al-Sharî‘a wa-l-Hayât. ‘Hurriyyat al-ta‘bîr wa-l-thawâbit al-dîniyya’, Al-Jazeera, 26 February 2006.
Al-Qaradâwî used the word ijmâ‘ or ‘consensus of the scholars’, which is, after the Koran and the
Sunna, the third source of legislation in Sunnite Islamic law.
32. Muhammad al-Sayyid Sa‘îd, ‘Man yukhattit li-darb al-‘ilâqât ma’ Ûrûbbâ?’, Al-Ahram, 13
February 2006, 10.