Muslims Protest Wikipedia Images of Muhammad

I respect their right to their belief as anyone else's belief, but it is not mine or many others belief.So if I decide to draw a picture of Mohammad in my own home or say art class...then by their religion I should not be able to do that or should be killed according to some of the fanatics of that religion.
You know many people are offended in this country if you burn our flag....when ever I see protesters doing that it offends me....however it is their right to do so....I just choose not to look or ignore it....I think they have taken the whole thing too far in some respects. You know they have murdered some people because of it. I say keep it up....it is our right to do so.They should choose to not look at it then.

Another example of people trying to enforce thier beliefs onto someone else.

Wiki leave the picture up !!!

I don't follow any religion, mohamed included. So why should others think that I as a non believer should have to bow down to thier beliefs.

I also don't believe in santa however Im not going to run into my kids room and tell them he doesn't exist. Maybe 100,000 people should get up a petition to make sure I dont go and tell them.

If only it were so easy to dispel other peoples beliefs !!



Wouldn't that be great " sorry guys, its all been a load of old bunkem. Me and your mum made up the whole religion thing just to keep you happy. But your old enough now to move on so quit your crying"

Anyway Im rambling now, no religious insults intended just want to have someone respect my wishes for a change.

Three words shall supply an adequately cogent argument:

Freedom of Speech

I wouldnt care if 5.9999999999999 billion people signed that petition, freedom is absolute and unnegotiable.

Originally posted by budski
So it's deemed acceptable to mock a persons faith and beliefs.

I don't call it childish, I call it people taking their religion seriously.

To me it matters not a jot, but if these petitioners feel strongly about this then they have every right to protest - and those who mock are only showing their own childish nature.

because someone takes their religion "seriously" does not mean I have to respect their beliefs- they are free to believe it but by # Im not about to regress to thr 15th century to accomodate such nonsense

Originally posted by AshleyD


This is interesting. It is pretty well known Islam considers it to be a form of idolatry to show an image of Mohammad. I noticed the Wikipedia article showed images of Mohammad several months and was surprised they had been posted.

I could understand not wanting an image of Allah but why not Mohammad? He was only a human being.
www.foxnews.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

at the time of muhammad, christianity as in orthodox christianity, was heavy into icons and and during that time it had become a controversy that tore eastern Christianity apart... It was that more than anything that led to the accusation that Christians were idoltors in disguise and led to the banning of all religious images in Islam. Islam does have images of Muhammad by the way but he is always veiled.

reply to post by grover


I pride myself in being tolerant of the beliefs of others. I have friends who are Muslim, but this kind of demand or behavior is an exercise in the exact intolerance I completely disagree with.

I certainly hope that there are a large number of Muslims who would disagree with this stance.

Originally posted by Rockpuck
reply to post by AshleyD
Since Islam diverted from Judaism, Muhammad brought back Jewish customs.. of course adding his own teachings.. essentially is Arabized Judaism to better fit the people.. but kept some of the Judaic tradition.

Islam and Christianity are both just sects of Judaism. That should be obvious, but for some reason is often overlooked in any discussion. There really isn't much distance between these religions -- not like the gulf between Judaism and Hinduism for example. It always amazes me that there is so much in-fighting between these three religions, which share a huge core belief system. I guess the devil is in the details.

#

BTW, Iran has about 50,000 Jews, and the Jewish religion is recognized and protected by the Iranian constitution. This is something that isn't often noted. Iran may detest the state of Israel, but they actually practice some degree of tolerance for Judaism and Christianity.

See here for a discussion of Religion in Iran. Go figure.

I don't see in the Koran that forbids the images of Prophet Mohammed. I don't understand why they should try, unless they are trying to making him divine by making the perception that he is not a normal looking man. Unless he was never a man with pictures of him with a veil on it. I guess all Muslim males should wear veils now.

[edit on 8-2-2008 by deltaboy]

Originally posted by deltaboy
I don't see in the Koran that forbids the images of Prophet Mohammed. I don't understand why they should try, unless they are trying to making him divine by making the perception that he is not a normal looking man. Unless he was never a man with pictures of him with a veil on it. I guess all Muslim males should wear veils now.

[edit on 8-2-2008 by deltaboy]

I also haven't seen this, all I've seen is something about not worshiping statues or pictures, I don't call drawing a picture of mohammed worshiping him.

I may even call getting really upset over it worshiping him lol. Think about it, it's ironic.

reply to post by Buck Division

Islam and Christianity are both just sects of Judaism.

And it could be said that Judaism is a sect of Zorastorianism.. a most unuasual religion, but I believe most likley to be the original version of "judaism" in Eurasia, Christianity, Islam, and Judaim all share characteristics with this religion, even though it is much older then all three.

There really isn't much distance between these religions

A true Muslim will recognize Jews, Christians and Muslims to be "People of the Book" .. the differences are, imo, cultural, not religious exactly.

The fighting is blind ignorance, dogmatic ideologies that deteriate true belief, and above all else....

Insecurity.

BTW, Iran has about 50,000 Jews, and the Jewish religion is recognized and protected by the Iranian constitution. This is something that isn't often noted. Iran may detest the state of Israel, but they actually practice some degree of tolerance for Judaism and Christianity.

There are a few countries that persecute Jews and especially Christians. One being Iraq, but ironically, only after we invaded. They are now the most hunted religion in Iraq.

Iran as you state does protect Jews.. and I think people in America need to take notice of this. Israel is a secular post-modern society.. it is NOT a theocracy. What people hate about Israel is its society, its policy and its dominance, not its Jewish religion. Religion is propagated by those in charge to spur ignorant fools into pointless violence...

But the real objective behind the religion is political, and economical.

When people on ATS say "Israel did this" they don't think "Israeli government" they think "Jews" and "zionist". And they think all Muslims in the region hate the Jews, and want the Jews to leave... they don't.

They want Israel to leave.. which is nothing more then an American state.. a disruption of the natural order. As you said, Iran may hate Israel, but they have no problem with Jews..

reply to post by AshleyD

Originally posted by AshleyD
A). Should Wikipedia keep the images up since they are a privately owned site and they have the right to post the images for educational and illustrative purposes?

B). Should Wikipedia take down the images out of respect? If they do, do you think this could cause a chain reactions of other "offensive" material regarding Islam being taken down?

Wikipedia should absolutely not remove the images, for many reasons, including the fact that they would be bowing to censorship pressure. It is up to the people that are offended to solve this issue for themselves. Several solutions have been offered, including

Turning off the image display mechanism

Avoiding that particular Wiki page in the future.

Offendees, handle the problem yourselves. Free speech is the final answer.

reply to post by grover


Thank you, Grover. That brings the social context into light.

reply to post by deltaboy


reply to post by _Phoenix_


So you two are disagreeing with the above posters who said it was explicitly stated in the Koran? Just asking. I don't know either way.

Phoenix, I get the impression you are a Muslim (please correct me if I am wrong) so hopefully you can offer us some insight into this issue. Is it against the Koran to show images of Mohammad or are the radicals taking something out of context? Thanks.

Originally posted by AshleyD
Phoenix, I get the impression you are a Muslim (please correct me if I am wrong) so hopefully you can offer us some insight into this issue. Is it against the Koran to show images of Mohammad or are the radicals taking something out of context? Thanks.

When you answer this question, remember that it applies to muslims only. It may also be applicable in muslim theocracies which follow sharia. It does not apply in the USA, which renders the question moot, actually.

reply to post by jsobecky


I agree- it doesn't really matter in our society but it is something I'd like to know about just for the sake of knowing about it.

NEVER should wikipedia remove these images.

Yes, I do believe it is the muslims right to protest the images, but for wikipedia to remove them is going against everything we as a country stand for.

If I want to go online and research a subject, if it be a person, animal, or building - I want to not only read about it, but see pictures as well. Some people research plenty of things that others find offensive, but it is their right to do so. This is just a case of radical muslims crying over anything they can. I say we get a petition together for wikipedia to keep the images on their site - possibly even add more, because I for one do not believe they are clear enough to insure an accurate visual image of Muhammad, which is what I would love to know and see.

There is no reason any muslim is forced to look at the pictures - do christians get upset if they stumble upon a satanic website with an upside cross or disembowled jesus christ? no. do jews cry fowl if they stumble upon a picture making fun of Moses? no. So why in the hell do we bend over backwards all the time for muslims?!

Its a PICTURE! Hell, good thing they dont have an actual movie depicting Mohammad eating bacon for dinner. If I want to see it, its my freedom to do so and noone better try to change that, and if you dont, then close your eyes or change pages.

PS - If anyone does have any very good pictures of Muhammad, please send me a link in u2u - the ones on Wikipedia are far too small and not clear enough to get an actual visual representation of the siad prophet. I have always wondered what he looks like, and there is no reason I shouldent be allowed to find out.

Originally posted by AshleyD


So you two are disagreeing with the above posters who said it was explicitly stated in the Koran? Just asking. I don't know either way.

Phoenix, I get the impression you are a Muslim (please correct me if I am wrong) so hopefully you can offer us some insight into this issue. Is it against the Koran to show images of Mohammad or are the radicals taking something out of context? Thanks.

Hi Ashley.

I believe the hadiths are lies created by men who possibly hate women and dogs etc. I don't believe the hadiths represent much truth, The hadiths were written 200 years!!! after Mohammeds death, how can anyone say these are the words of Mohammed, how can muslims follow these hadiths more than the Quran. It's crazy, but it happens because of tradition, and follow the crowd type thing. They don't think for themselves.

Anyway to the point, all these crazy things you hear, all these crazy rules, they end up coming from the hadiths, suprise suprise, you cannot find anything like this in the Quran, for example stoning to death, not touching dogs, all these things about womans submission to her husband etc. They are not in the quran.

For example in the hadiths, it says you cannot live in the same house as dogs because angels wont come in.

BUT in the Quran there is a story about Mohammed sleeping in the same place as a dog, waking up with a dog beside them. haha what should we believe the Quran by Mohammed, or the hadiths by men 200 years later?

There are so many more things in the hadith that are the opposite of what the Quran shows. To me thats proof that the hadiths are lies created for men to have control over the people.

Anyway sorry for the long post, basically there are Hadiths about drawing being wrong, but there is nothing in the Quran. All the Quran states is that we should'nt worship Mohammed or anyone else, we should only worship God. Nice and simple.







[edit on 8-2-2008 by _Phoenix_]

hi _Phoenix_
excellent post there.I was totally unaware of the Hadith and it's background.I was under the impression there was just the Quran. Well after looking into this a little it looks like the majority of the Hadith was written as(example: I have a friend of a friend of a friend who Muhammad told this was the law)if I'm wrong let me know.

Here is exactly what Wikipedia said about it:

Hadiths were originally oral traditions of the actions and customs of Muhammad. Starting with the first Fitna of the 7th century people began to question the sources of hadiths. [7] This resulted in a list of transmitters, for example "A told me that B told him that Muhammad said." This list of the chain of testimony by which a hadith was transmitted is called an Isnad. The text itself came to be known as Matn.

reply to post by CaptGizmo


Like chinese whispers.

And the thing is the one at the end can just make anything up, have you ever played chinese whispers and when your the last one to say what the first guy said you just make it up for fun. How can anyone trust that.

Ah yes we use to play that on the playground in elementary school...we called it "Pass It Down"..your right at the end of the chain the story would be different
from the original.Funny that happens in everyday life with gossip mongers.
I gave you a star for your original post.cheers

[edit on 8-2-2008 by CaptGizmo]

reply to post by lifestudent


What kind of behavior? Are you reading the same news article as I am? The one I'm reading says an internet petition has gotten 100,000 signatures. What this tells me is that there are a few thousand mooks who are simply too dumb or lazy to use the wiki system (I have some experience with online petitions, they're more worthless than tits on a boar).

If you're offended by stupidity on the internet, I would suggest calling your ISP and cancelling your subscription before one of the chan sites gets you.