Additional
Reporting By El-Sayed M. Amin, IOL Staff
CAIRO/JAKARTA,
February 8, 2006 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – Muslim
scholars urged Wednesday, February 8, Muslims protesting against
Danish cartoons mocking Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon
him) to stop violent rallies and display restraint.
“Violent
protests will really get us where our enemies want us to be so that we
are looking to the world as a bunch of emotional, uncontrollable, and
violent people,” Maher Hathout, director of the Islamic Center of
Southern California and senior advisor of the Muslim Public Affairs
Council, told IslamOnline.net on the sidelines of the Cairo-hosted 9th
Conference of the Islamic Organization for Medical Sciences (IOMS).
“The
Prophet is too noble and too great to have his image affected by such
an impolite projection. However, setting fire to the foreign
embassies is not the course of action that should be followed by
Muslims.”
Muslims
protesting against the cartoons set fire to the Danish consulate in
Beirut on Sunday and Syrian protesters did the same with the Danish
and Norwegian embassies in Damascus a day earlier. The violence spread
to Afghanistan and Indonesia.
“I
see that a well-studied, and well-produced paper about the greatness
of the Prophet and how he transformed life to the betterment of
humanity is very much needed at this critical stage,” Hathout said.
Denmark
has been the focus of Muslim rage since images -- one showing the
Prophet with a turban resembling a bomb -- first appeared in a local
newspaper and were subsequently published elsewhere in Europe.
Newspapers
in Bulgaria, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, Hungary, New
Zealand, Poland, the United States, Japan, Norway, Malaysia,
Australia, Jordan, Yemen, Ukraine and Fiji have so far reprinted some
of the dozen cartoons.
The
satirical French weekly Charlie Hebdo Wednesday printed all 12
of the controversial cartoons as well as a new front-page caricature
of its own.
“Sufficient”
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“The reaction has been sufficient...in getting the message across,” said Syamsuddin. (Reuters)
|
Farhat
Moazam, Professor and Chairman of the Center of Biomedical Ethics and
Culture, Pakistan, said violent protests only play well into the hands
of the “irresponsible people who printed the cartoons in the first
place.”
“Violence
is not the action, and we should not give the enemies of Islam the
ammunition to criticize our religion” she said.
Din
Syamsuddin, who leads the 30-million strong Muhammadiyah, Indonesia's
second largest Muslim group, said the Muslim reaction “has been
sufficient...in getting the message across.”
“But
do not go overboard and get trapped into a situation that can be used
by elements bent on painting an image of Indonesia's Islam as an
intolerant, rigid and anarchic society,” he told reporters in
statements carried Wednesday by Reuters.
Indonesian
protesters have vandalized a Jakarta tower housing the Danish embassy
and its consulate in another city, prompting Copenhagen Tuesday,
February 7, to urge its citizens to leave the world's most populous
Muslim country.
Denmark's
flag has also been burned in numerous cities.
Syamsuddin
said the Danish envoy to Indonesia had called him to express regret
over the situation and had urged Indonesia's Muslims to accept such
apologies.
But
Syamsuddin warned that continued negative portrayals of Islam could
stoke tensions that might prove there was a clash of civilizations
between Islam and the West.
“If
this happens again and the West still doesn't understand Islam, I
think this will spark Islamic radicalism,” he said.
Afghanistan's
supreme court, the top religious body in the country, and a council of
top clerics called also Wednesday for an end to the violent and deadly
protests.
“The
Supreme Court and the religious council ask people to calm down and
end the demonstrations as we see there are hands trying to infiltrate
protests and use them for other purposes," Supreme Court
spokesman Wakeel Omari said.
“Deplorable
Attacks”
 |
|
“We also believe the recent violent acts surpass the limits of peaceful protest,” said Ihasanoglu.
|
On
Tuesday, leaders of three major international organizations deplored
violent cartoon protests and urged governments to guard embassies and
foreigners from attacks.
“We
believe freedom of the press entails responsibility and discretion,
and should respect the beliefs and tenets of all religions. But we
also believe the recent violent acts surpass the limits of peaceful
protest,” UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, Organization of the
Islamic Conference head Ekmelettin Ihsanoglu and European Union
foreign policy chief Javier Solana said in a joint statement.
The
Muslim world's anguish over the cartoons was shared by all “who
recognize the sensitivity of deeply held religious belief,” they
said in a joint statement.
But
the three “strongly condemn the deplorable attacks” on diplomatic
missions in Damascus, Beirut and elsewhere, they said.
“Aggression
against life and property can only damage the image of a peaceful
Islam.”
Their
statement was issued in New York as tens of thousands of Muslims
demonstrated in the Middle East, Asia and Africa over the drawings.
Four
people were killed Wednesday during new protests in Afghanistan
against the cartoons, taking the death toll from five days of
demonstrations to 11, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).
Hundreds
of Palestinians threw stones at the headquarters of international
observers in the occupied West Bank on Wednesday in similar violent
protests.
Palestinian
police fired in the air to try to disperse the crowd, which smashed
the windows of two buildings in a complex used by the observers in the
city of Al-Khalil (Hebron).
Sheikh
Yusuf Qaradawi denounced Sunday, February 5, sabotage and violent
protests by Muslims over the publication of the cartoons, saying
Muslims should vent anger prudently.
He
said boycotting the products of European countries whose dailies had
published the blasphemous cartoons is the Muslims’ sharpest weapon.
Ongoing
Boycott
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Afghan protesters burn a Danish flag in Kabul. (Reuters)
|
Meanwhile,
a lawmaker from Turkey's governing party announced Wednesday he had
ordered a boycott of Danish and Norwegian goods in his chain of
supermarkets to protest the cartoons of Prophet Muhammad.
“As
of yesterday (Tuesday), Danish and Norwegian goods have been taken
off the shelves in the 110 stores” of the Kiler chain across the
country, Vahit Kiler of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) told
reporters.
Kiler,
who said he sent a copy of the Qur’an to Danish Prime Minister
Anders Fogh Rasmussen by post, also appealed on "all
Muslims" to boycott goods from the two Scandinavian countries,
reported AFP.
Another
AKP lawmaker urged the health ministry to review contracts with a
Danish pharmaceutical company, NOVA Nordisk, for the purchase of
insulin, condemning the cartoons as the product of the "racist
mentality in Denmark".
Turhan
Comez, a doctor by profession, told the parliament in an address late
Tuesday that NOVA Nordisk controlled 60 percent of the insulin market
in Turkey, which amounted to some 50 million euros (about 60 million
dollars).
At
the weekend, an influential Islamic business group -- the Independent
Industrialists and Businessmen Association (MUSIAD) -- also said it
had decided to sever economic ties with Denmark.
Turkish
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has condemned the drawings, but
also appealed on Muslims to show restraint in their protest and avoid
violence.
