Some Muslims get it

IslamOnline - Views Section

In the interests of fairness, it should be noted that many Islamic commentators understand the harm that the violent demonstrations about cartoons are causing the reputation of their religion. See the link above for one.

Now that my previous post established that more cartoons might encourage democracy in the Arab world, I should point people towards the following "style guide" to drawing Mohammed:

"The hairstyle of the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) is mentioned in a number of ahaadeeth, such as the following:

1 – His hair was neither curly nor straight....

It was narrated that Anas ibn Maalik said, describing the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him), he was of average height, neither very tall nor very short. He had a ruddy complexion, neither very white nor very dark, and his hair was neither curly nor straight. The revelation came to him when he was forty years old.

2 – His hair came down to his earlobes...

3 – His hair sometimes came down to his shoulders ...

4 – The Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) used to dye his hair sometimes...

5 – He used to part his hair....

6 – The Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) did his Farewell Pilgrimage when his hair was stuck together.

(This means) making some parts of the hair stick to others using gum or something similar, so that the hair is held together and avoids getting dirty and does not need to be washed....

7 – The Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) sometimes used to braid his hair, especially when travelling, to keep it from getting dusty. "

Actually, the web site I got that from is full of interesting facts about the Messenger (as he is called). For example, if you ever wondered what the name of his camel was, well, that's a bit controversial:

"Of camels he had al-Qaswaa’, and it was said that she was the camel on which he made his Hijrah; and al-‘Adbaa’ and al-Jad’aa’. Were al-‘Adbaa’ and al-Jad’aa’ one and the same, or two different camels? There is some difference of opinion concerning this."

And I am sure you are wondering, how did he ride his camel:

"The Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) rode horses, camels, mules and donkeys. He rode horses both saddled and bareback, and he used to make them gallop them on occasion. He used to ride alone, which was most of the time, but sometimes he would put someone behind him on the camel, or he would put one person behind him and one in front, so there would be three men on one camel. So he would sometimes let some men ride on his camel with him, and on some occasions he let his wives ride with him."

Surely you have to laugh at such a ridiculously detailed answer to a question that seems incredibly irrelevant to anything to do with religion.

Maybe someone is thinking I shouldn't poke fun at Islam this way; after all Christian monks used to argue about how many angels could dance on the head of a pin. But the point is that Christians don't worry about that any more, and we can recognise that medieval Christianity had many obsessions we now consider quite bizarre and therefore wryly amusing (the trade in relics, for example.) Anyway, I would hope that some Muslims agree that this sort of interest in the tiniest detail of their Prophet's life is sort of funny, and rather beside the main point of their religion.