I recently received an email that asked me if I could sign a petition that asks for removal of Prophet Muhammad’s (P.B.U.H) illustration from Wikipedia.
Here is the link to the illustration that is making quite a few people angry.
Keep in mind, the author, the illustrator of this manuscript is a Muslim himself. The first time I saw this illustration was in my humanities class which was about Cultural Images of Islam. A course directed towards mostly non-Muslims.
I see why some people would have an issue with this illustration because to Muslims it is blasphemous to depict Prophet Muhammad in any way shape or form. That is why we had the craziness over Danish cartoons.
Apparently, there is a petition going around, goal was to collect 10,000 signatures but currently it has over 90,000. That is not a big deal considering there are 1.2 Billion Muslims in the world. Here is the link to the petition, Remove the Illustrations of Muhammad from Wikipedia.
Even though I get the point of this petition, I don’t agree with the premise so I am not going to sign it. On the petition page, they say:
In Islam picture of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) and other Humans are not allowed. But Wikipedia editors are showing illustrations with face illustrated and face is veiled or white washed. But still they are offensive to Muslims. I request all brothers and sisters to sign this petitions so we can tell Wikipedia to respect the religion and remove the illustrations.
I don’t know what they mean when they say offensive? It is for educational purposes primarily for non-Muslims, don’t make a big deal about it. Wikipedia editors are, I am sure, not Muslims and neither do they do things to appease religions. Wikipedia is like an online fact book created and maintained by experts, PhDs, intellectuals etc. Wikipedia editors are only showing what a Muslim author illustrated in 15th century and nothing else.
Wikipedia has already said that they’re aware of the petition and it won’t change their decision at all – the picture stays.
I wasn’t aware of that but it does make sense. Petitions rarely work specially in cases like these… thanks for your input B.
I totally agree with you. We muslims have become trigger happy about getting upset over the slightest imagined insult while we fail to point a finger at the real enemies of Islam…the muslims themselves; the extremists who carry out abominable acts in the name of Islam. They are the ones who should have fatwas declared against, they should become the focus of our anger. How dare they raid and rape our religion? How dare the Wahabis project and impose their rigid interpretation of Islam as the only version? We should transfer our anger towards the Saudi Arabia for using its petrodollar to insidously infiltrate every muslim community all over the world and preach its wahabism under the guise of ISLAM while it is only but one of the many interpretation of this religion. All the while it keeps alive its unholy alliance with USA, double crossing all involved.
Salam alaikom
I believe that freedom and tolerance anywhere and anytime should have some red lines otherwise we will see each other involved in a spiral chaos which is not quiet appropriate at all Let the Religion be the best way to bring the people together.
From the point of view of Islam, it’s unacceptable and completely forbidden to offend other’s religion and their way of thinking: the Koran is clear in this issue.
so don’t be upset please if we only ask for some respect to our belief and religion that so many will never get to understand and try with all the means find some new excuses to blame us for whatsoever
Thank you for your interest
all over all no1 is not like our prophet… he is UNIQUE.
there is no world which can define him completely. Allah will penalized them and destory their country… AFFRAID from ALLAH…