Thoughts on ‘Everybody Draw Mohammed Day’

Comics Alliance informs me that today is ‘Everybody Draw Mohammed Day.’ Hmmm, I guess I am gonna get in trouble today.  As a comic book fan, a Muslim, and subject immersed in western ideology, I find it incredibly difficult to exhume my own thoughts on this complicated matter.

First of all, I would like to state my disdain for the framework which sets to understand this matter as offensive. The author writes:

There have certainly been plenty of recent examples of other faiths being mocked in cartoons in our culture; there have been many, many images and cartoons during the ongoing child abuse scandal in Catholic Church that would doubtless profoundly offend devout Catholics, but as a country that values free speech that is part of the deal that we all make.

To say that Muslim’s find depictions of the prophet offensively is gross missrepresentation of what is at stake for them. Framing it in terms of offense reduces this to a matter of taste when Muslim percieve this as an attack on the central tenant of Islam: Tawhid, Islam uncompromising conception of God as one and unique. In Islam, unlike other Abrahamic religions,  God has absolutely no human qualities. God  stands independently outside his creation. Thus, portraying God is haram (prohibited) not only because it is a pointless enterprise but because any portrayal posits him as a being that can be reconciled with his creation. It posits god as immanent while tawhid is quite clear that god is completely transcendent.

Depictions of the prophet are a little more complicated. Although the prophet has been exalted amongst men he is still a man.  However, because of his central place within Islam Muslim thought find depictions of him very troublesome as they fear it encourages a particularly heinous form of Shirk (idolatray) which is a distortion of tawhid.

In the comics alliance article the author writes

I have great respect for the Muslim faith and those who believe in it, and while I think it would be childish and cruel to offend for the sake of offending, I believe that what is at stake here is more important than being polite or striving not to offend.

“Daily Show” commentator Aasif Mandvi — a self-described liberal Muslim — recently commented on the controversy, admitting that while depictions of Mohammed might give him offense, “here’s what’s more upsetting. Someone, in the name of a faith that I believe in, threatening another person for doing it.”

First of all what the hell does liberal Islam mean? Religions don’t come a la carte. This is the tolerance at its worse or, as Philosopher Slavoj Zizek would say, it is intolerance to difference itself. I will tolerate you as long as you don’t get to close. I will respect your beliefs only the condition that you don’t take your beliefs to seriously, that you do not indentify directly with them. By stating “I believe that what is at stake here is more important than being polite or striving not to offend,” a decision to devalue Islams core teaching in favor of human rights has already occured. Which is the writers prerogative but do not pretend that it is any more inclusive than Islam. It inclusivity always comes with precondition that we leave our difference at the door.

My point is that events like this make it easier for Islamist to believe that the West is really out to destroy their faith, and they’re right. There is no compromise between westerm human rights and religious commandments.

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