Bangladesh's Cartoon Controversy: The Prophet and His Honor

A few weeks ago I had quoted Simon DeDeo (a Chicago based astrophysicist and literary critic who blogs at Slashdot) in response to a pertinent article at Desicritics by Aditi Nadkarni on freedom of speech on the Internet. The quote was: “your right to free speech ends where it steps on someone else's right. Just like my right to swing my arm ends before it connects with your nose."

Freedom of speech, like freedom of anything else, and like freedom as a phenomenon in ittself, is rarely an autonomous entity. It’s always relative to other things. Freedom of speech in particular is frequently juxtaposed with several kinds of established norms, cultural, social, political and more then ever before, religious.

The outrage pouring out of Bangladesh over a joke about the name of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) is hence not entirely surprising. It’s disturbing yes, but not surprising. Such tactics, as the blog Foreign Policy notes, are a “familiar pattern in Muslim countries ruled by authoritarian governments."

"Religious conservatives,” Blake Hounshell notes, “use religion cynically to embarrass the regime and whip up populist sentiment." Populist sentiment driven by misplaced notions of religious ideology and blind adherence to the religious sanctimony, has far bigger ulterior motives then guarding the honor and respect of the Prophet, let alone Islam as a whole. For if it truly did, people would know better then to entice and provoke an ignorant and easily misinformed public on such petty issues.

And it really was petty. The cartoon in question was published in Alpin, a satirical cartoon supplement of the Daily Prothom Alo, one of Bangladesh’s most popular dailies. Rezwan from Global Voices gives us more background information:

"In the 6th page of its 431th issue a cartoon titled ‘name' was published (on Monday, September 17, 2007) which created much controversy in Bangladesh. So what was in that cartoon? The controversy is not in the picture, rather in the text. The Bangla blogosphere took on this issue right from the beginning. The text of the cartoon is a conversation between a boy and an aged person. Blogger Sudharam Sadhu posts the texts [bn] in his blog:

* Boy, what is your name?
- My name is Babu.
* It is customary to mention Muhammed before the name.
* What is your father's name?
- Muhammed Abu
* What's this in your lap?
- Muhammed cat"

Needless to say the cartoonist has already been fired. In fact he’s arrested. But right wing fundamentalist groups in Bangladesh are still not happy. They’re demanding the ban of the newspaper and the arrest of its editor, the well renowned free speech activist and winner of the Magsaysay Award, Matiur Rahman. This mind you, is after the sub-editor of that humor section has already been “terminated for carelessness” and two front page apologies have been issued by the publication. Still we see people (or rather political activists and mobs disguised as normal people) on the streets in Bangladesh protesting, chanting slogans and burning copies of the publication - all in defense of the stature of Holy Prophet, they’d have us believe.

I shudder to think what our beloved Prophet would have made of our efforts to protect his reputation if he were alive. We’re clearly not following any of the examples he set for us during his lifetime. As a Muslim who’s grown up listening to stories of the Prophet’s forbearance and tolerance, such self-serving so-called defense of religious sensibilities comes across as quite alien to me.

As early as third grade we were narrated the story of a man who lent the Prophet some money. An agreement had been made with regards to when his money would be returned, and the due date was still a while away when the man (an Arab pagan polytheist) came storming into the Prophet’s residence demanding his lent money, hurling abuse at him and calling names to his family. The Prophet remained silent, but as the man proceeded to manhandle him with increasing severity, one of the Prophet’s companions, who was standing nearby couldn’t take it any longer and stepped in to try and distance the unruly man from the Prophet.

And what does the beloved Prophet do? Ask the companion to stop and, instructs him instead to go and return the amount he owed to the man. He doesn’t have him arrested, and put in jail. He doesn’t issue a “death fatwa” against him. No. In fact, he stops a companion trying nothing but to protect his physical well-being and instead asks him to fulfill that man’s right. And the companion obeyed the Prophet, immediately doing as he was told to do.

This is just one example in isolation. A deeper investigation of the Prophet’s life shows how there was never any shortage of abuse hurled at him and how he never responded to any such provocation. The question of whether the text in question was or wasn’t intended to cause offense is therefore categorically irrelevant. The point is that the manner in which we have responded belies the teachings of the Prophet whose very honor we are so eager to defend.

In The Sealed Nectar, a biography of the Prophet by Safiur-Rehman Al-Mubarakpuri, the scope of the Prophet’s patience and stamina is described as being inversely proportional to the level of crudeness he was approached with:

“His stamina, endurance and forgiveness, while he was in a commanding position; his patience and firmness in unfavorable conditions, were all his talents, attributes and qualities… […] unlike everyone, the more he was hurt or injured, the more gentle and patient he became. The more rudeness and ignorance anybody exercised against him, the more enduring he became. Aishah, may Allah be pleased with her, (one of the Prophet’s most beloved wives) said: …“He never took revenge for him self: but when the sanctity of Allah was violated, he would avenge it. That would be for Allah’s sake not for himself.” He was the last one to get angry and the first to be satisfied.”

Clearly, we have let down the Prophet’s honor. And that is nothing to do with any cartoons, but with how little we know and understood the man whose honor we are so eager to defend at every available opportunity. In an age already replete with Islamophobia, Bangladesh is not only shooting itself in the foot by creating such a mountain out of a mole hill, it is also doing a great disservice to Islam’s reputation. Our overboard and often violent reactions to such paltry issues, particularly in this case, when the offense was clearly not intended, represent Islam in a bad light, feeding the stereotypes that drive Western society into xenophobia of Muslims.

The acts of fascist rulers are not new, nor are they likely to change anytime soon, but the ordinary Muslim on a Dhaka street should know better then to fall for their hidden agendas, for this is a time of great responsibility for moderate Muslims. They must stand up and make themselves counted. They must stand up and remind the rest of their hoodwinked ummah of the legacy of tolerance, broadmindedness and peaceful coexistence that Islam and its Prophet has given us. For the sake of the greater good of Islam and for upholding the Prophet’s honor in its true sense, it is about time Muslims learned: live and let live.