Folks, amid all the news of the destruction of unsuspecting (and surprised) Scandinavians’ consulates and threats of mayhem to be unleashed upon the kuffar (the non-Muslim rest of us) I offer the opinion that the notion that Muhammad’s likeness can not be made is baloney.
To the left you may observe a Persian (therefore Shia) painting dated 1550 AD (CE if you prefer) which depicts the Prophet himself mounted on Burak (magical beast) en route to Paradise for a one night visit. This visit is reputed to have begun in Jerusalem at the site of the Dome of the Rock. This is the same rock on which various other events took place in the Old Testament and from which Gabriel will sound his trumpet at THE END, or at least that is what Cole Porter wrote.
Outrage is a sometimes thing.
Pat Lang
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060206/ap_on_re_mi_ea/prophet_drawings
Thank you very much for your continuing emphasis on the cultural and religious aspects of your materials. Your earlier comment about Catholic and LDS upbringings giving insight into jihadist thinking seems very much on point.
As a matter of interest, are any details (eyes, nose, mouth) visible in the image of Mohammed you present?
charles
So far as I know it is a Shia convention not to show his features on the theory that no one knows what he looked like. pl
“Outrage is a sometimes thing”
That the attitude to images of Mohammed varies with time and location is of course nothing new. The persians are often a bit more relaxed, and outrage didn’t spread quite as rapidly in pre-Internet times 😉
However, if you want to understand the current outrage, you probably have to look at domestic policies in Denmark.
And Syria.
Observer
Policies? Like what? pl
For Denmark, it’s related to the government’s dependence on the openly racist Danish People’s Party (15% of the voters).
For Syria, it’s most likely the usual intra-government power games we’re seeing here.