Cartoons and Chaos

In 2005 a Danish newspaper published a series of cartoons by various caricaturists depicting the Prophet Mohamed as a figure of fun. Several cartoons were deeply insulting, all were irreverent and, in any case, the act of visually representing the Prophet Mohamed in any form, even with reverence, is forbidden within Islam. Muslims in Denmark were understandably offended and staged protests to suppress the hurtful images. These protests were met with indifference and resistance. The publication of the cartoons was seen as an inalienable right to freedom of expression in Denmark’s democratic society and reflected the underlying post-9/11 perception of Islam as an alien and subversive force in European society.

Outraged, members from the Danish Muslim community took the issue on the road to Islamic countries to gather support for their protest, a tour which ignited a firestorm of controversy. Religious leaders in the Islamic world publicly denounced the anti-Islamic cartoons. Columnists editorialized against the religious bigotry of Denmark. A general boycott of Danish products was launched across the Islamic world. Riots, embassy burnings and flag desecrations hit the headlines around the world and one hundred people died in the melee. The Danish prime minister characterized the controversy as the worst international crisis in Denmark’s history since World War II. What had started as a low-key localized protest supposedly aimed at suppressing what were seen as blasphemous images had escalated into an international confrontation that ensured the offending cartoons were published around the world for millions and millions who otherwise would have never even known about them to see.

In the midst of this latest convulsion of anti-Western violence erupting in the Muslim world, the Grand Mufti of Egypt, Dr. Ali Gomaa, who is one of the most respected and influential Islamic scholars in the world today, delivered a landmark fatwa (which is an authoritative religious opinion) published on the pages of Al Ahram, Egypt’s leading daily mass circulation newspaper, calling on Muslims to desist from protest and reaction, and supporting his opinion with, among others, the following Quranic verse:

So overlook with gracious forgiveness…. For We are sufficient unto you against the mockers. [Even] against those who adopt with God another god; but soon will they come to know. We do indeed know how your heart is distressed at what they say. But glorify your Lord with His praise, and be of those who prostrate. And worship your Lord until what is certain comes to you [the Judgment, or death] (15:85-99).

Did this remarkable fatwa have any impact? It had absolutely none at all. It was entirely overlooked by the media and the general public. Why? It was overlooked by the public because the opinion was delivered, in traditional fatwa form, after 8 long, expository paragraphs on the pages of a newspaper. In journalistic terms, the Grand Mufti “buried the lead”. It was overlooked by the press because there is not a single journalist in the Islamic world or anywhere else qualified to cover Islam or recognize a truly important Islamic news development. People lost their lives over this stupid and embarrassing protest. Images of angry, ignorant Muslim demonstrators calling for “Behead Those Who Insult Islam” on the streets of London were broadcast around the world, once again reinforcing the impression that Muslims are fanatical barbarians. And all these hysterical reactions were in violation of the Qur’an.

This pathetic interlude was a replay of the Salman Rushdie/Satanic Verses affair of the late 1980s. The Satanic Verses, which was a follow up to Rushdie’s Booker Prize nominated Midnight’s Children, featured a series of lurid and highly offensive dream sequences, depicting a character clearly modelled after Prophet Mohamed as a sleazy debauched drunkard, with the Prophet’s historical wives, who are considered to be saints in Islam, represented as whores living in a brothel. The Satanic Verses incited a violent pan-Islamic protest, culminating in Imam Khomeini’s notorious 1989 death sentence, which sent Rushdie into hiding and turned his book into a cause célèbre and phenomenal worldwide bestseller.

The liberal literary establishment turned Rushdie into an iconic hero but there were a number of influential writers, including John Le Carré and Roald Dahl, who came to the defence of the Muslim position and attacked Rushdie. Dahl dismissed Rushdie’s claims to artistic integrity as cynical self-promotion, writing that the author knew exactly what he was doing. Dahl said, ‘This kind of sensationalism does indeed get an indifferent book to the top of the bestseller list, but in my mind, it is a cheap way of doing it.’ The Satanic Verses was, indeed, an ‘indifferent book’ and would very likely have disappeared into literary oblivion had it not been for the spectacular public relations campaign it received from Muslim mobs, terrorists and Imam Khomeini. And I suspect Dahl was right about Rushdie. He thought he’d write something controversial to boost sales but badly miscalculated. It was an almost Faustian drama that unfolded. He became the most famous author on earth, celebrated and wealthy, but couldn’t enjoy any of it.

At that time there was no Islamic scholar of authority like Dr. Gomaa with the courage to counter the demagogues, mob rule and mass hysteria that made The Satanic Verses the international sensation it was. It was only when I read the Grand Mufti’s fatwa that I began to take hope and it was in the aftermath of the Danish Cartoon Crisis that I began advising him on how to communicate more effectively through the media.