Muhammad’s
Cartoons Isn’t the Sin, It is the Ignorance
about Muhammad That Is
By Zaheer Jan
New Jersey
A shame on the person who made cartoons of Prophet
Muhammad and it is a shame on the paper that published
the cartoons. A greater shame on the people who
went on a rampage destroying property and killing
people to protest the calumny of the cartoons
and the papers which published them. Both actions
resulted from an abysmal lack of knowledge about
the personality, life and actions of the person
whom Michael H. Hart, in his book The 100, A RANKING
OF THE MOST INFLUENTIAL PERSONS IN HISTORY, has
called “the world’s most influential
person”. He goes on to say, “....
Muhammad (unlike Jesus) was a secular as well
as a religious leader. In fact as a driving force
behind the Arab conquests, he may well rank as
the most influential leader of all time”.
How sad that the creator of the caricature and
the caricature’s purveyors are ignorant
of Muhammad’s message and his accomplishments.
Neither has any knowledge of him or of Islam except
what they have culled from the TV, the wire services
or from the teachings of some misguided preachers.
Little do they know that Europe is where it is
today because of the civilization, the sciences,
the medicine, the arts, the culture, the freedom,
or as the Jews call it ‘The Golden Age’,
that came about and was sustained for about a
millennium by the followers of Muhammad in Spain,
Turkey, Iraq, Persia, India and elsewhere.
Sadder still that today’s followers of Muhammad
have such little knowledge of him, his actions
and his deeds: Muhammad was the epitome of mercy
and forgiveness. He forgave his enemies. He inculcated
in his followers the respect of Jews, Christians,
even the Polytheists. He taught his followers
to respect women even as he did so himself. During
his early life his countrymen and some of his
own family members had caricatured him. At the
height of his power, he could have avenged himself
on them. Instead, he forgave them.
By burning embassy buildings, by burning flags,
by killing people; by abusing women and putting
family honor above the teachings of Mohammad and
not following in his footsteps, are his followers,
the Muslims, setting a good example? No! These
actions are actions of the ignorant and ignorance
is sin.
Equally, the actions of non-Muslims stem from
ignorance too. If they must caricature, they may
caricature the followers of Muhammad. To caricature
Muhammad however, is to caricature themselves
and their abysmal lack of knowledge of Muhammad
and of Islam. Let us not forget the endless caricaturization
and persecution of the Jews from the dawn of Christianity
until its culmination in the holocaust; the endless
European wars; the ethnic cleansing and killings
of innocents in the name of a superior or a Master
race; the extermination of the inhabitants and
old civilizations of the continents of North and
South America; the denigration of the people of
China and of India at the apogee of British rule;
the enslavement of the Africans for economic gain;
World War I and World War II; the reviling of
non-white people across the globe, specifically
on the continent of Africa; the word apartheid
all are hallmarks of the Europeans and their vaunted
civilization.
“He that is without sin among you, let him
cast the first stone...”. Jesus had said
when the Pharisees had brought a woman charged
with adultery before him. The Pharisees had all
gone away without one lifting a hand. In the same
spirit let both Muslims and non-Muslims, across
the globe, stop and reflect. Get rid of their
ignorance because ignorance is a sin. Perhaps
by cleansing ourselves of the sin of ignorance
we might obtain peace in the world yet.
(Zaheer Jan,an independent energy consultant,
served as Manager of Pipeline Engineering on the
$24.0 billion Alaska Natural Gas Transportation
System and as Consultant to PEMEX of Mexico)
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