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Los Angeles Times – February 16, 2006
Muslims launch teaching effort
to counter furor over cartoons
By Dave McKibben
In response to the controversy surrounding cartoons lampooning the prophet Muhammad, Muslim officials from Anaheim to Washington launched a nationwide campaign Tuesday aimed at educating the public about the religious leader.
Caricatures of Muhammad appeared in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten last fall and have been reprinted in recent weeks elsewhere in Europe.
Their appearance has triggered often-violent protests by Muslims.
"The only way we can end this vicious cycle of violence is by understanding each other," said Hussam Ayloush, executive director of the Southern California chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Anaheim.
By holding a dozen news conferences throughout the United States and Canada on Tuesday, the council said it hoped to turn a negative incident into a learning opportunity. Islamic leaders said many of the Southland's 70 mosques would hold open houses this month focusing on the life of Islam's prophet. The council also urged non-Muslims to visit its website, http://www.cair.com , to obtain a free DVD or book on Muhammad's teachings….
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/california/la-me-cartoons15feb15,0,3009288.story
Associated Press – February 14, 2006
U.S. Islamic group begins educational
program on prophet Muhammad
WASHINGTON - A U.S. Islamic advocacy group has begun a year-long educational program aimed at providing information about the Prophet Muhammad as a response to drawings of the religion's founder that have sparked worldwide protests.
The Washington-based Council on American Islamic Relations said Tuesday it would offer people of all faiths a free book about the Prophet Muhammad or a DVD of the Public Broadcasting System's documentary "Muhammad: Legacy of the Prophet."
The group is also showing an excerpt from the DVD on its Web site http://www.cair.com/Muhammad
"By declaring 2006 a year of learning about the Prophet Muhammad, we send a message to Muslims worldwide that there are positive and pro-active ways to challenge Islamophobia and anti-Muslim stereotypes," said the council's executive director, Nihad Awad, at the National Press Club. The council's sister organization in Canada made a similar announcement.
The group said the program is designed to expand to Europe through cooperation with local Muslim communities.
In the campaign, the council will offer materials to help local Muslim communities hold public screenings of the DVD, mosque open houses, panel discussions, essay contests, inter-faith activities and other grass roots activities focused Prophet Muhammad.
Protests swept the Muslim world after the publication of the caricatures, first in a Danish newspaper last September and then in various European and other papers this month. Depicting the Prophet Muhammad is forbidden under Islamic law. The drawings included one showing Muhammad wearing a turban shaped like a bomb.
The crisis has strained relations between Europe and many of the world's more than 1 billion Muslims.
Newsday - February 13, 2006
Assimilation, tolerance mark
U.S. Muslims' reaction to cartoons
By WAYNE PARRY
NEWARK, N.J. -- While satirical cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed as a terrorist have drawn violent responses overseas leading to rioting and deaths, American Muslims say the more muted response in this country is due to a combination of factors, including greater assimilation and familiarity with western concepts of free speech, even when it offends.
The drawings, first published in a Danish newspaper in September, included one that depicts the Prophet wearing a turban shaped like a bomb. Islamic tradition widely holds that representations of the prophet are banned for fear they could lead to idolatry, and disparagement of Mohammed is considered one of the most grave offenses under Islam.
But while many American Muslims share their overseas brethren's outrage over the drawings, they have not responded with violence.
"After 9/11, we learned in this country that you can't respond to an insult with an insult," said Sohail Mohammed, a Clifton immigration lawyer who represented scores of detainees caught up in the government's dragnet after the attacks. "The best way to combat this is through greater understanding and tolerance."
He said the fact that few U.S. media outlets have published the cartoons, coupled with condemnations by the Bush administration of the cartoons as needlessly provocative, creates quite a different scenario in this country. The cartoons met with violent protests in countries including Pakistan and Iran.
"What you're seeing people here say is that we understand this is hurtful, but look at the response of the American administration and media, which has been supportive of Muslims," Mohammed said. "When's the last time that happened?"
Osama Siblani, publisher of the Arab-American News in Dearborn, Mich., said U.S. Muslims feel they are being listened to and their feelings taken into consideration by government and the media, at least regarding the Prophet cartoons.
"The feelings are the same, here or anywhere else: Muslims believe these cartoons are an insult to their religion," he said. "But in the U.S., the president has issued a statement criticizing the cartoons, and that speaks volumes to American Muslims. It gives Muslims here a feeling that their fellow Americans understand their feelings and respect their religion. Therefore, they don't feel a need to go to the streets and protest."
Sayyid Syeed, secretary general of the Indiana-based Islamic Society of North America, said American Muslims are more secure here than elsewhere about their place in society.
"The day I stepped foot in this country and put my citizenship here, my rights are the same as your rights," he said. "There's no difference based on who came from where and when. That's not true in Europe. Marginalization of Muslims in France, Belgium, Denmark and other countries is very pronounced.
"As Americans, we should congratulate ourselves that it was not just an accident that American media did not publish these caricatures," he said. "The American media has come to terms with pluralism, and doesn't publish something that is offensive to a large group of people just because they can."
Aref Assaf, president of the Paterson-based American Arab Forum, agreed that the cultural landscape for American Muslims is much different from those in other countries.
"Unlike their U.S. counterparts, who entered a gigantic country built on immigration, most Muslim newcomers to western Europe started arriving only after World War II, crowding into small, culturally homogenous nations," he said. "Unlike the jumble of nationalities that make up the American Latino community, the Muslims of western Europe are likely to be distinct, cohesive and bitter." ……
http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/newjersey/ny-bc-nj--prophetdrawings-n0213feb13,0,5448808.story?coll=ny-region-apnewjersey
Chicago Tribune – February 14, 2006
Paper apologizes after cartoon flap
The editorial staff of the independent daily newspaper at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign said Monday that its members were embarrassed by how the decision was made to run controversial Danish cartoons of the prophet Muhammad last week.
"We want to make it clear that while we do not necessarily disagree with the decision to print these cartoons, we disagree with how they were run," read the unsigned editorial in Tuesday's Daily Illini.
The decision to run six of the 12 Danish cartoons in the paper's Feb. 9 edition was made by only two editors--a decision not supported by the full editorial staff, according to the editorial.
"This newspaper prides itself on being a member of the professional journalistic community. We value freedom of the press, speech and expression. But we acknowledge that in certain instances, such as the publishing of these offensive cartoons, there are issues that must be considered," it continued.
On Tuesday, a discussion titled "Making Sense of the Cartoon Controversy" is scheduled at the campus.
It has been organized by the Muslim Students Association and the Council on American Islamic Relations-UIUC.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chicago/chi-0602140244feb14,1,3643477.story
New York Times – February 13, 2006
U.S. Muslims try to ease Europe's discord
Laurie Goodstein
As the crisis over the Danish cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad flared over the last two weeks, leaders of several American Muslim groups began working quietly to try to mediate between European Muslims and the West.
The leaders - representing three national organizations and two mosques - say they share the outrage over the cartoons felt by Muslims in countries where riots have turned bloody and Danish embassies have been burned. Yet in phone calls to Muslim leaders in Europe and in interviews with media outlets in the Middle East like Al Jazeera, they have offered a consistent message to Muslims: you must stop the violence because the Prophet Muhammad would never have approved, and you are playing into the stereotype of Muslims as barbarians.
At the same time, in meetings at the Washington embassies of European nations, the American Muslim leaders have presented their concerns to foreign diplomats: we, too, value free speech, but your governments should condemn the cartoons as hateful and bigoted and work at better integrating your alienated Muslim minorities.
"The reason that Muslims in America have not responded the way they have in Europe is that we have come to know that so many people here speak out against such bigotries, and so many newspapers have not published the cartoons," said Mohamed Magid, the imam and executive director of a large mosque in Virginia, the All Dulles Area Muslim Society, who was among a group of Muslim leaders who met with the ambassador of Denmark, Friis Arne Petersen, last week in Washington.
The American Muslim leaders are holding up their approach to living in a Western nation as a model. They told the Danish ambassador that they had lived in the United States longer than Muslims have lived in most European countries, and despite obstacles had managed to build effective organizations and achieve greater integration, acceptance and economic success than their brethren in Europe have. They portray the cartoons as part of a wave of global Islamophobia and have encouraged Muslim groups in Europe to use the same term. . .
Nihad Awad, national executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, based in Washington, said American Muslim leaders had been invited by Danish Muslim groups to help ease relations with the Danish government. Mr. Awad said the Danish Muslims were looking to the American Muslims for advice because they were aware that when anti-Muslim statements were made in the past by American religious leaders or talk show hosts, the American Muslim groups had persuaded the Bush administration to issue denunciations….
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/13/international/americas/13muslim.html
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