Over the last few days I’ve had the whole boycott facebook thing turn up everywhere I see over a dozen times. Because of this whole draw Muhammad thing, some countries even blocked access to the social networking site for a few days. I’ve seen some rather interesting discussions about why people shouldn’t boycott facebook and why the Danish or Swedish or who ever the hell started this rubbish should or should not draw facebook. Whilst I will be the first one to concede that in none of these discussions any of my pro Islamic friends was able to explain WHY people shouldn’t draw Prophet Muhammad, I found one remark from a pro drawing person to be quite interesting. He stated that “the appearance of Muhammad as they draw it is a matter of historic fact and should not be ommitted from history.” The absolute incompetence of this statement, along with the failure of those who vehemently oppose the idea to explain why the prophet should not be drawn, have resulted in this article.
Let’s get some history right. The last time European artists decided to draw religious history, they drew Christ. Somehow, whether this is sheer incompetence or the shame that would be bestowed upon the then ‘white’ europeans, Christ turned up really white with blue eyes and blond hair. To this day, the entire Christian world deludes itself with this appearance of Christ, with few of them knowing where he was actually born. In case you’re wondering: Christ was born in what is now Palestine – yes, those middle eastern terrorists. So these artists who plan on drawing Muhammad this time around certainly have no authority when it comes to drawing a religious figure. If European drawings of the 21st century were to depict history the way it truly were, then they today would be drawing and painting Christ (and I hope I’m forgiven for saying this) of the same colour, skin tone and features as terrorists that they today show on TV as suicide bombers. That’s an accurate depiction, one that would bring shame to any decent Christian.
Now that we’ve clarified the skill and drawing abilities of these artists, let’s have a chat about why Muslims in general oppose the idea of drawing Prophet Muhammad. You see, human beings in general have the tendency to idolize things. It was because of idolatory (of the pharaonic form) that Judaism was revealed. It was for the same reason that Christianity and the Islam were brought to the people. Trouble is, when Muslims try to explain this, they refer to ‘Shirk’ – and none of our non-arabic speaking reason loving friends in the west understand that term. Put simply, the reason why you shouldn’t have any illustrations of Prophet Muhammad is because people may actually start to worship him instead of God – something that many Muslims believe the Christian world is guilty of in the case of Christ. Perhaps if Christ was never painted (no matter how inaccurately), there wouldn’t be the concept of a son of God – we certainly wouldn’t know what face to associate with him. The entire premise of Islam sits on the Oneness of God and worshipping or idolizing any other human being (including Prophets Muhammad and Christ) is a sin. The fact that you create an illustration of Muhammad increases the chances of him being idolized. Therefore, it was decided (perhaps by early caliphs – and this is history I’m not really familiar with) that no physical images or portraits of the prophet would be kept. All these Muslims are asking is that you respect this and don’t promote the potential idolizaton.
The modern intellectual would argue with that – they do with everything. Argument, after all, is a sign of intelligence in the 21st century. Perhaps that’s why the world is on the verge of destruction – the intellectual deficiencies of western leaders and philosophers is only taking the west towards the dark ages again as Arab nations are picking up speed. I’ll bet that got your intellectual temper flowing – see if I care.
Continue Reading
