I'm glad you posted this. I was thinking about posting something too but had not quite gotten around to it yet.
There are a couple of things- first of all (speaking as an art historian with a minor in Islamic art), yes, Islam does have a prohibition on depicting human figures, but Muslims have been depicting humans in art for as along as Islam has been around- even the Prophet, though that is rarer. Of course there is a very specific way of depicting the Prophet, usually with a flame or a halo on his head. I would not have recognized Mohammed in any of those cartoons if someone hadn't specifically said, "this is meant to represent Mohammed"
Secondly, the protests are not really about the depictions of the Prophet, they are about a group of people feeling like the rest of the world disrespects them, and yes, fear them, and realizing that they have the numbers and the power to make a statement.
And the last thing, which I didn't realize until I started talking with my nice, liberal, cousins last night, is that racism and anti-semitism (and I use the word to include Arabs, who are, after all, Semites) are alive and well in Europe. and it is getting ugly. I cringed to hear the things me cousin's husband was saying last night.
hmm... maybe I will have to write my own post about this at some point :)
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There are a couple of things-
first of all (speaking as an art historian with a minor in Islamic art), yes, Islam does have a prohibition on depicting human figures, but Muslims have been depicting humans in art for as along as Islam has been around- even the Prophet, though that is rarer. Of course there is a very specific way of depicting the Prophet, usually with a flame or a halo on his head. I would not have recognized Mohammed in any of those cartoons if someone hadn't specifically said, "this is meant to represent Mohammed"
Secondly, the protests are not really about the depictions of the Prophet, they are about a group of people feeling like the rest of the world disrespects them, and yes, fear them, and realizing that they have the numbers and the power to make a statement.
And the last thing, which I didn't realize until I started talking with my nice, liberal, cousins last night, is that racism and anti-semitism (and I use the word to include Arabs, who are, after all, Semites) are alive and well in Europe. and it is getting ugly. I cringed to hear the things me cousin's husband was saying last night.
hmm... maybe I will have to write my own post about this at some point :)