What the Book says...

BBC has put up a Question and Answer-page concerning the problem with the cartoons. There they inform that there does not exist any explicit ban on depicting Muhammed or God. What the Qu'ran says is this in chapter 42, verse 11:

"[Allah is] the originator of the heavens and the earth... [there is] nothing like a likeness of Him."

Furthermore, in chapter 21, verses 52-54 it says: "[Abraham] said to his father and his people: 'What are these images to whose worship you cleave?' They said: 'We found our fathers worshipping them.' He said: 'Certainly you have been, you and your fathers, in manifest error.'"

Anyone would say that those words leave plenty of room open for interpretation. How come then that Islam prohibits images? It is because of Hadith, which is the tradition of the words and actions of Muhammed and his disciples.

I don't know how the Qu'ran and Hadith weigh against each other, but I would believe that one should pay more attention to the Qu'ran.

Now, if the Islamic societies did the wise thing, they would look again at the Qu'ran and study it with open minds, inviting to discussions upon the interpretations and also the Hadith.
If they choose the path of rigid dogma, it can only lead towards decay and ruin of the culture. A culture is an organic, live thing and as such it cannot be frozen into one preferred state.

That said, Islam is of course not the only culture making this mistake. If we look at the United States, we see how they have done the same thing with what once was a radical, new approach towards democracy and turned it into a set of dogmas that shall not be touched, only venerated if not worshipped. Thus, the American version of democracy is lagging behind the rest of the democratic world, no matter how much they boast of being the Beacon of Democracy and Freedom.

Fanatics hitting at themselves...

It seems that the Muslim fanatics are losing the Battle of Caricatures. Their outcry and uproar about a few drawings depicting the Prophet in disrespectful ways is obviously bouncing back and slapping them in their pride. Aside from being printed in more and more newspapers throughout Europe, the last is that a Jordanian newspaper has printed a few of the caricatures, asking their readers what will hurt Islam the most; these caricatures or fanatics cutting the throats of hostages or suicide bombers? They might as well add crowds rioting against poor sense of judgment and humour.

A good question which we can only hope that more and more muslims will ask themselves. Personally, I am against insulting peoples religious beliefs, although I gladly would attack fanatics abusing religion to serve their ends, whatever those may be. But what do these people hope to gain by terrorizing women and children, by killing and maiming and by acting in ways that can only be perceived as weird and evil? They are certainly not building up any respect for their culture and their religion that way and one can only hope that they will begin to realise it, themselves. Bullying the world doesn't give you respect. You may scare a few for a while but people has a tendency to get used to fear and then they start to act subversively, undermining whatever was gained by the bullies.

Islam deserves better than this.