hi
interview about the caricatures of mohamed
Q: is it forbidden do draw pictures of mohamed?
A : no, it's not. it's just not common to show the socalled " holy family", that means the prophet himself but also his closest relatives.
Q: so there are contemporary pictures?
A: yes, that's absolutely no problem, there are even posters where you can see mohamed. [ now he shows some of them] they are not only shiite - actually, the shiites don't have any problem with the reproduction of wholy figures, while the sunnites are a little bit more cautious. the real problem is not the picture itself but that in this case, it is a caricature. well, you can find caricatures in the islamic world, but it's NEVER the prophet who is caricatured.
Q: so that hurts their religious feelings if thex see such a caricature?!
A: yes, that's right, but.. it also hurts religious feelings if a calvinist visits a catholic church.. well and i don't believe that he takes a sledge-hammer to crush jesus and so on..
Q: so on one side, we have the religious feeling, on the other side we in the western world have those principles like " the freedom to have his own opinion" or the freedom of the press. so who must show consideration?
A: following the real islamic opinion, the muslims who live here have to show consideration for the society. so there are two possibilitys: either you are a strict islamist who find the western world reprehensible and fight against it - those are the socalled " islamists" here or you can think about it and say ' we live in a kind of relation with this state, we heave to obey the rules of this country because they are also valid for muslims.'
Q: the people who are the most vehemently annoyed because of the caricatures, is it because of their religious feelings or rather a political reason?
A: at first, there are religious feelings, you must be aware that their prophet has been offended. that is a real bad business, it reminds me of what happened to salman rushdie .. and on the other side, it's strange to imagine that a whole group who has not even seen the caricatures, go mad about them. i guess, the more away people are, the better they can annoy about those things, because their own society - police etc.- doesn't allow them to give vent to their indignation. so in saudi arabia, you can go mad about things which happen in denmark because you have only to do without some denish cookies, it's not dangerous.
i hope i could help you at least a little bit, my translation is not word-by-word but it shows you the sense^^