While the debate rages, an important point has been overlooked: despite the Islamic prohibition against depicting Mohammed under any circumstances, hundreds of paintings, drawings and other images of Mohammed have been created over the centuries, with nary a word of complaint from the Muslim world. The recent cartoons in Jyllands-Posten are nothing new; it's just that no other images of Mohammed have ever been so widely publicized.
This page is an archive of numerous depictions of Mohammed, to serve as a reminder that such imagery has been part of Western and Islamic culture since the Middle Ages -- and to serve as a resource for those interested in freedom of
expression.
The images in the archive below have been divided into the
following categories:
- Islamic Paintings and Miniatures Showing Mohammed in Full
- Islamic Depictions of Mohammed with Face Hidden
- European Medieval and Renaissance Images
- Book Illustrations
- Dante's Inferno
- French Book Covers
- Various Eras
- Contemporary Christian Drawings
- Animated TV Parodies
- Satirical Modern Cartoons
- The Jyllands-Posten Cartoons
- Recent Responses to the Controversy
- Links
The Jyllands-Posten Cartoons The Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten created the furor over depictions of Mohammed by publishing a series of 12 drawingsafter a local author said he was unable to find any artist willing to depict Mohammed for his upcoming illustrated book. The publication of the images in Jyllands-Posten has been condemned around the Islamic world, and has led to
calls for a boycott of Denmark by Muslim nations. Here are the Jyllands-Posten drawings, for the record:
Imams Showed Pedophile Mohamed
2006-01-14
Danish Drawings of the Prophet Mohammed Blog
The Danish newspaper, EkstraBladet, has obtained a copy of the secret case file, which Islamisk Trossamfund (Danish Islamic Community) has distributed on their "road show" in the Middle East: (Viste pædofil Muhamed - the text is in Danish but the article links to all 43 images).
It turns out that the 12 drawings in JyllandsPosten weren't sufficiently bad - at least not to justify a trip to the Middle East - so the imams have inserted a few extra images to make sure their trip wasn't a waste of money.
Danish Islamic Community claim they have received these images in mail, but they refuse to tell Danish newspapers, who has received them - and they won't allow the newspapers to interview these people. Danish Islamic Community has also failed to explain, why an entire country must be denigrated all over the Middle East because of 3 drawings mailed by a single person.
As long as Danish Islamic Community have failed to properly explain, where they have obtained these images, why these images were distributed in the entire Middle East - and exactly what the Danish Islamic Community were hoping to achieve - we must assume the images belong to Danish Islamic Community.
The irony is that in doing so the Muslims have done exactly what they accuse the non-Muslims of doing: They have broken Muslim law by reproducing, publishing and distributing drawings of the prophet. And they have managed to out-blaspheme the infidel Danes by reproducing 3 blasphemous pictures that are far worse than anything ever published in JyllandsPosten.
The imams have not yet explained on their homepage, http://www.wakf.com/, why they distributed these disgusting images - and what they were hoping to achieve.
