Issues of civil law and Islamic religious law abound in the continuing controversy over caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad which have now been published in papers throughout Europe, and elsewhere.
Yesterday, Deutsche Welle published an overview of the laws on blasphemy and incitation to religious hatred in eleven European countries. The controversial Muhammad cartoons might run afoul of some of these laws. In France, five Muslim organizations filed suit to prevent a French paper, Charlie-Hebdo, from publishing the caricatures. Scotsman.com reported yesterday that the court dismissed the case on the technical ground that the public prosecutor's office, which is always represented in French courts, was not properly notified of the case. The paper apparently plans to publish the illustrations today.
Townhall.com yesterday carried an excellent report from CNSNews analyzing whether or not Islamic law prohibits all pictures and drawings of the Prophet Muhammad. Reporter Patrick Goodenough concludes that opinions of Muslim scholars on the issue vary. Images of Muhammad have in fact appeared in Islamic art and literature over the centuries. And the same prohibition in Islamic law applies to pictures of any person, or even of animals. However, many news stories in European and American media have claimed that a prohibition on any picture of Muhammad was behind the intense reaction of Muslims around the world to the cartoons originally published in Denmark. An extensive selection of pictures of the Prophet Muhammad in Islamic artwork over the centuries, as well as depictions in non-Islamic sources, are reproduced in an Archive at zombietime.com. And at Get Religion blog, we are reminded (with photo) that Muhammad is among the nine lawgivers depicted in the frieze on the north wall of the U.S. Supreme Court.
