No he wasn’t. Or to be factually correct, they weren’t. Now, a little background. ‘The Nation’, a Pakistani newspaper published a news item quoting a Saudi newspaper that the editor of Danish newspaper ‘Jyllands Posten’ was burnt to death.
The editor of the Danish newspaper ‘Jyllands Posten’ was burnt to death when a fire mysteriously broke out in his bedroom, a Saudi newspaper claims.
According to the newspaper, the editor was sleeping in his bedroom when the fire ravaged his bedroom. He and his newspaper became controversial when it had published blasphemous caricatures of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH).
Through Yahoo messenger offlines and SMS text messages, the editor soon became THE cartoonist (so what if there were 12 of them) and the rumour spread all over the Muslim world. So much for the background. Now, I am yet to see the name of the Saudi newspaper. Even ‘The Nation’ does not name the source and that tells us something about the journalistic standards of our times. The news editor of ‘The Nation’ actually thought that such a big news would be blanked by the world media and would find outlet in an obscure (and unknown, till now) newspaper (of all places) in Saudi Arabia. Obviously, he believed that the Danish government was trying to cover up the news of the death, as the news item further states. Conspiracy theories such as these are not uncommon and have become quite popular these days with internet and email contributing their bit. So, why am I writing about this?
Because I got the following message. Third time in three days.
the artist who drew the pictures of the Prophet Muhammed (S.A.W)has died in a fire. He was burnt alive. Denmark government is hiding the news from the public and everyone has got to know. Plz spread this…. (its the price one must pay 4 the insult of Allahs Prophet(S.A.W) plz copy and paste this as many ppl ignore forwaded mails… thank you for your co operation subhan ALLAH ghgustakhay RASOOL ka hashar akheratt mai tu bura hoga he liken ALLAH pak nay RASOOL (S.A.W) kay ghustakk ka hasharr dunya mai he dekha deya ……….gustakh RASOOL aur bughsia RASOOL rakhnay waloon ka ye hashar hooga ………….ALLAH hum sab ke bukhsish farmai (ameen)
The first part of the message is obviously a lie and a dangerous one at that. Anyone with a keyboard, sinister mind and bad vocabulary could compose it. The real surprise were the people it came from. These are educated people, graduates and involved in research activities. If they wouldn’t verify the authenticity of such a message before passing it on to others, then who will?
The second part of the message is more worrisome. Here is a rough translation:
People disrespecting the Prophet have to pay for their acts in the after-life but Allah has shown the fate of such people in this life as well. People disprecting and maligning the Prophet would have this fate. May Allah forgive all our sins. Amen.
It is sickening to see some Muslims revelling in the death of others. It is as un-Islamic as it gets and as distant from the path of the Prophet Muhammad as it goes. There is that oft-quoted and quite inspiring story of a lady in Mecca throwing rubbish on Prophet whenever he passed her house because she did not like the his message of Islam. The Prophet never said anything to her. One day she wasn’t there to throw the rubbish and so the Prophet went to her house to enquire about her well-being. She was so impressed by his behavior that she accepted his message.
I wonder what the Prophet old lady would have thought of this message.
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13/07/07
Mohib
This is a very good piece and I fully support the views expressed therein. Did you notice that none of your readers has come forward to endorse them? Why?
I also fully agree.I am a muslim,I also go out clubbing,I also pray but it is UNmuslim to be happy at the grief of others,Islam teaches us to live in harmony and tolerance of other relegions
Sidrat Amin worte:
I also fully agree.I am a muslim,I also go out clubbing,I also pray but it is UNmuslim to be happy at the grief of others,Islam teaches us to live in harmony and tolerance of other relegions
>> U go out clubbing thats very fine. But what do u want to prove by conveying such information? R u sure, clubbing (eg drinking alchohol, dance and Music, gossiping with ladies) is permitted in Islam? My knowledge says otherwise.
If u read the SMS message carefully, u’ll notice that nobody is expressing happiness in the message. Rather, its intention is to discuss the danger of insulting our beloved Prophet (SAW) and its aftermath.
Insulting our beloved Prophet (SAW) was the worst act by which people of most of the western countris have shown hatred towards the Muslims in the name of freedom of speech.
Well try practicing freedom of speech in the discussion of Holaucust and see what happens.
Muslims also support freedom of speech. But we disregard ourselves from freedom of hatred and insult.
Salam,
We muslims , we should not believe in things that people publish without true evidence.
Because if we do believe in things without proof , this action may cause ”fitna” between Muslims and you all know that ”fitna” is worse and stronger than killing. So, please make sure of the authenticity of the news sources before posting anything.
Subhan Allah … what a fool we are making of ourself. I live in Europe and I certainly would be very surprised if news of these dimensions could really be suppressed out here. This is of course something that you can expect in the Indo Pak sub-continent and even then within a few hours news of this improtance cannot be suppressed even by army generals. Please check back with people who live in Denmark to see if there is any truth in this before spreading it.
Making/publishing of cartoons of the Messenger of Allah (S.A.A.W.) was surely less heinous than slaying of his grandson. However Yazid and his descendents continued to rule a large empire for many more centuries- first from Damascus then from North Africa/Spain. Retribution from Allah can come in many forms and at any time. Also Allah`s views on life and death are very different from those of humans. The cartoons were indeed provocative, intending to insult Muslims/Islam- nothing more or less. But Muslims are advised to get on with their lives and leave the incidence behind.
Thank you for the clarification. I endorse the view that the veracity of such info be confirmed b4 it is circulated. Otherwise it confirms the stereotype of muslims as backward, superstitious and followers of mob mentality.
Razia
South Africa
its not good to put the name of our prophet mohammad s.a.w in vain………..if we are good muslim we must be good with each other…..we must help one another and we must help spread the word of allah………..if we practice good islam everything will be ok………..we must keep our faith strong as ever
The example of the old lady is of a personal act of patience on the account of our beloved prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him and his family). I disagree that we should ‘get on with our lives’ as mentioned earlier on the account of our deen and the messengers of Allah. If you read up on the seerah and the sunnahs of the rightly guided companions, you will find thousands of accounts about their lives, families, wealth, knowledge and blood illuminated in the defence of the deen and our noble messenger. Of course, the discourse we have should be with wisdom and knowledge.
I fully agree with the borther who wrote the article and who pays attention to the authneticity of the information. May Allah reward him for that.
We shall all be carefull on what we say and what information we pass on. The true and the clearness of information may alsoi be seen on our holy Qur’an, that remained allways authentic as expressed by Allah. This is another fact that it is important we keep the information flow correct.
This pain of an email forward is doing the rounds again. I received the second one in as many days today. I find my patience with these email forwards is wearing thin with each one – I believe I am in real danger of lashing out at the ‘forwarders’ one of these days.
While searching on google, “did the Jyllands-post cartoonist die in a fire?”, I landed onto your page. Not that I beleived the forward one itty bitty bit, but I was looking for some facts to back up my email, or hopefully a clear refutation of the hoax forward.
Instead of writing a long reply to the person/people who forwarded this asinine email to me, I will email them a link to this post. This and some wiki links. I hope they will take the time to read through.
There is no point for presenting yourself as soft, harmonious and peaceful people unless you have no respect for the one who has taught you all these keywords. If I am not wrong and your ‘peaceful’ interpretation doesn’t overshadow this statement of Allah about Muhammad S.A.W in which Allah says that
“The Prophet is preferable for the believers even to their own selves” (33:6)
Where as Muhammad S.A.W himself said that
“None of you becomes a believer until I am dearer to him than his children, his parents and all mankind” (Bukhari/Muslim)
[ You can forgive someone who harms your children, parent or any other but you can't do the same in case of Muhammad S.A.W ]
All you pseudo Muslims remain happy under your own prejudices regarding Islam and its natural that you are taking this path so that you can look softer and impotent among non-muslim and cover all kind of disgrace and humiliation against Islam just in the name of peace and blessing.