UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has called for calm in a row over cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad that has seen protests erupt across the Muslim world.
Mr Annan said he shared the distress of Muslims upset by the cartoons but urged them to accept an apology from the Danish paper that first published them.
The paper's editor has told the BBC his intention was to show Muslims they were not exempt from satire.
Islamic tradition regards any depiction of the Prophet Muhammad as blasphemous.
'Great damage'
Kofi Annan said he was "distressed and concerned at the whole affair" and appealed for no-one to "inflame an already difficult situation".
CARTOON ROW
30 Sept: Danish paper publishes cartoons
20 Oct: Muslim ambassadors complain to Danish PM
10 Jan: Norwegian publication reprints cartoons
26 Jan: Saudi Arabia recalls its ambassador
30 Jan: Gunmen raid EU's Gaza office demanding apology
31 Jan: Danish paper apologises
1 Feb: Papers in France, Germany, Italy and Spain reprint cartoons
"I share the distress of the Muslim friends who feel that the cartoon offends their religion," he said.
"I also respect the right of freedom of speech. But of course freedom of speech is never absolute. It entails responsibility and judgment."
Fleming Rose, editor of the newspaper that first published the pictures, and the Muslim cleric who has led protests in Scandinavia, Ahmed Abu Laban, met on BBC News 24's Hardtalk programme.
Mr Rose, of Jyllands-Posten, told the programme Denmark had a "tradition of satire and humour" which included satirising anyone from the royal family to Jesus Christ.
"By publishing these cartoons, we are saying to the Muslim community in Denmark 'we treat you as we treat everybody else'."
Ahmed Abu Laban admitted violent protests would cause "great damage" to Islam.
He added: "I swear in the name of God, I will use everything in my capacity that no violence should come and spread to Scandinavia."
'Distress'
Fresh Muslim protests flared on Friday 3 February 2006 in a number of countries over the cartoons, one of which shows the Prophet wearing a headdress shaped like a bomb with a burning fuse. Another shows him saying that paradise is running short of virgins for suicide bombers.
Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen told diplomats from Muslim countries at a meeting in Copenhagen he was "distressed" at the offence caused, but could not apologise over the actions of a newspaper.
There have been protests in countries including Indonesia, Iraq, Turkey and Egypt.
However, other European newspapers have now printed the cartoons.
French daily Liberation and Belgian paper De Standaard published them, along with the Irish Daily Star.
Cartoon row highlights deep divisions
By Magdi Abdelhadi
BBC Arab Affairs analyst
The publication of cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad has caused deep divisions across the world.
For some, they are a transient form of entertaiment, for others, an attack on Islam.
No-one knows what the Prophet Muhammad looked like.
Images of him that can be found today were produced within a few hundred years of his death in the 7th Century.
These tend to be exalted representations of a human figure, and nobody can say to what extent they are a realistic portrayal of a historical figure.
A great deal of the Islamic literature about Muhammad is hagiographic - that is, unstinting in its praise.
It elevates the founder of Islam to a unique level of perfection and infallibility.
"His life was the reflection of Allah's Words. He became the Qur'an in person," a cleric wrote recently, in response to a question about the "noble character of the Prophet" sent to the "Fatwa Bank" section in the popular website, IslamOnline.
Although other scholars might not agree with this description, it broadly reflects the popular perception of Muhammad.
Two traditions
Such close identification between the Prophet and the Koran itself explains the adulation many Muslims express towards their prophet.
But at the same time it stands in sharp contrast to another Islamic tradition, based on the following Koranic verse: "Say: 'I am but a man like yourselves'."
Despite the Koranic emphasis on the fundamentally human nature of Mohammed, the hagiographic tradition continues to dominate perceptions of the Prophet.
That explains the veneration and high esteem in which he is held by Muslims.
There seems to be a confusion between two issues: the Islamic ban on any pictorial representation and respect for the character of Muhammad.
But that does not explain why the cartoons in themselves were so offensive, since no-one could seriously claim that he or she recognised the features of the Prophet in any of the images drawn by the Danish cartoonists.
There seems to be a confusion between two issues: the Islamic ban on any pictorial representation and respect for the character of Muhammad.
It is the satirical intent of the cartoonists, and the association of the Prophet with terrorism, that is so offensive to the vast majority of Muslims.
Islam bans pictorial representations of humans or animals to discourage idolatory.
It goes without saying that this ban covers the Prophet, his companions, and major figures of the two other Abrahamite religions considered sacred by Muslims as well.
The ban seems to have been based on the perception that cultures which consider animals or their statues to be sacred literally worship these animals, rather than a complex set of meanings and values that these creatures symbolise.
Causes
The row over the Danish cartoons would probably have remained a local dispute between some Muslims and a Danish newspaper had it not been for three factors:
+ the rise of violent political Islam
+ America's war on terror
+ modern transnational media.
America's war on terror is still largely perceived in the Arab world as a war on Islam - a perception reinforced by the fact that it is happening exclusively in Muslim countries, namely Iraq and Afghanistan.
Parts of the Arab media describes it as a modern crusade. Many Arab columnists often speak of a campaign to distort and discredit Islam.
For them, the row over the Danish cartoons is yet another confirmation of this perception.
But long before the 11 September attacks and America's war on al-Qaeda, Islamists were aggressively promoting their world view and attacking liberal secular values, not only in the West but across the Arab and Muslim world as well.
The best-known example in the West is the row caused by Salman Rushdie's novel, The Satanic Verses, which culminated in the notorious death fatwa against its author by the late Iranian leader, Ayatollah Khomeyni.
In Egypt, the Nobel Prize winner, Naguib Mahfouz, survived a knife attack in 1994 for allegedly insulting Islam in one of his novels.
Another prominent writer, Farag Fouda, was gunned down in Cairo for alleged apostasy.
The internet and satellite broadcasting are being diligently used by Islamist activists across the world to drum up support for the doctrine of a universal Muslim nation up against an aggressive and imperialist West.
A local Danish dispute is thus quickly elevated to the level of a global conflict.
Culture clash
The row over the Danish cartoons is yet another dramatic illustration of the huge gap between secular liberal values in the West and the predominantly religious outlook of Middle Eastern societies.
But for Muslims living in Europe it poses anew the same old dilemma about integration and cultural identity.
There is a consensus in the West as to what constitutes offensive material, for example, child pornography, or dead soldiers.
Some of these issues are even regulated by law.
But part of the Western consensus is that poking fun at religious figures is acceptable.
It seems that some Muslim activists living in Europe are determined to redefine the boundaries of that consensus.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/middle_east/4678220.stm
Published: 2006/02/04 01:45:46 GMT
BBC MMVI
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