Muslims are urged to let reason triumph over passion, writes Rasha Saad That the publication of the cartoons of the Prophet Mohamed in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten has been described as a victory for freedom of the press is "a black lie". So wrote Jihad Al-Khazen, renowned columnist of the London-based Al-Hayat. Outlining the double standards in dealing with the cartoon issue, Al-Khazen said, "those who drew the cartoons would have inevitably ended up in courts had they instead drawn a Jewish character like Shylock, with black clothes and a big crooked nose, carrying explosives, on a suicide mission. Such anti- Semitism should be rejected, just as insulting a prophet, his religion or its followers on the pretext of freedom of speech." Al-Khazen said Muslims and the West had committed mistakes in dealing with the crisis. Muslims made many mistakes when they promised Europeans a real Holocaust, or promised them a fate like that of 11 September 2001. "This gave the Muslims' enemies ammunition, so that they could say the slogans prove Muslims are terrorists and their religion is terrorism." The US erred, said Al-Khazen, by accusing Iran and Syria of fomenting the demonstrations, since they don't have the power to stir up the Arab street in every country even if they desired to. The controversy, which started in September, soon snowballed into a full blown crisis and governments are no longer able to manage and contain it, laments Mshari Al-Zaydi in the London- based Asharq Al-Awsat. For Al-Zaydi the reason behind the escalation is that religious sentiments have been exploited by some quarters. He warns against two groups of people: opportunists inside the Arab and Islamic worlds "who do not want the crisis to end because they gain politically by its prolongation and escalation." The other group, says Al-Zaydi, "seek to deepen the conflict and destroy every effort to increase participation and contact whether in the Muslim world or in the West," and "feel pleased with this clash of civilisations." Many voices among Arab writers have called on Muslims to practice restraint and let reason prevail. In "Do not tar all with the same brush", Abdel-Rahman Hussein wrote in Al-Hayat, "if we [Muslims] expect Westerners to not tar all Muslims with the 'terrorist' moniker, we should do the same." He urged that Denmark and the Danish people should not be held accountable for the decision of one newspaper. Danish embassies and consulates in the Middle East should not be torched to the ground; Danish people in the Middle East should not feel afraid. He called on Muslims to refrain from double standards they themselves have been suffering from the West. "This is exactly the sort of reaction we fear when an attack occurs on Western soil. How will they view Muslims living in that particular country? Will they be safe in the wake of such attacks? If we do not want to be accused of double standards we often feel is rampant in the West, then we should take stock of how we react." Hussein said violence was not an appropriate response, no matter how high feelings might run, especially because the violence is directed towards people who were not involved, and may have even been as offended as Muslims in the matter. "It is easy to generalise for the sake of simplicity but care must be taken if people's safety is at risk. You do not lash out at one man for the folly of another." Hussein suggested other ways of getting a point across which does not include wanton destruction. Numerous (non- violent) campaigns can be initiated to make clear that this sort of thing is extremely offensive to Muslims and to non- Muslims who believe in respecting the dignity of other people, or taking the issue to Danish law if need be, "which will judge fairly and impartially on the matter", Hussein wrote. Sayed Weld Abah concludes that Muslims should not generalise or jump to the conclusion that all Western writers and intellectuals are hostile towards the prophet and Islam. Weld Abah wrote in Asharq Al-Awsat that Muslims should strive to strengthen and revive the positive image which the Western philosophers of the enlightenment, who saw aspects of tolerance, freedom and reason in our religion and saw liberation, mercy and justice in our prophet, related. "To defend the prophet by setting afire churches and attacking tourists and diplomats is completely against the prophet's guidance." Weld Abah gave examples of Western intellectuals who praised and glorified Prophet Mohamed such as the prominent German poet Goethe and Thomas Carlyle, who regarded the prophet as the greatest of the great in human history, plus specialised institutions of Orientalist studies which also held a positive picture of the prophet.
