U.S. Muslims react with tempered anger over cartoons

By Caryle Murphy

WASHINGTON -- Wearing a brown golf cap against the cold drizzle, Rocky Omary stood outside Walima Cafe in Falls Church, where he and about 50 other men of Middle Eastern descent had just watched the Tunisian soccer team take a drubbing from the Nigerians. That trouncing was bad enough. But Omary had other, more disturbing, insults on his mind: specifically, the recent publication in European newspapers of cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammad as a terrorist.

"I've been getting a lot of e-mails about it, and I'm distributing them all," said Omary, a Damascus native who sells real estate in Northern Virginia. "There is a limit to freedom. There are 1.2 billion Muslims in the world. Let's have some respect."

A few miles away at the All Dulles Area Muslim Society mosque in Sterling, Zaki Al Barzinji, 16, was equally upset. "Just because you can say something doesn't mean you should say something," the teenager said. "If somebody showed a picture of the pope with a bomb on his head, that would cause a great public outcry. Nobody would be talking about freedom of speech."

Source: [MSNBC]

Washington area Muslims say they are closely following the furor in Europe and other parts of the world sparked by the cartoons, which first appeared in Denmark and Norway. In interviews yesterday, they expressed anger and hurt feelings. And although they said they recognized the value of freedom of speech, they said the freedom must be matched with respect and responsibility.

"Technically, you have the right to walk into a crowded theater and yell 'Fire,' " said Uzma Unus, 34, a teacher in Sterling who is also vice president of ADAMS. "But is that responsible?"

Critical of violent protests

Several were critical of the violent reactions of some Muslims in Europe and the Middle East. The better way to respond, they added, is through dialogue and peaceful protests, such as the recently launched boycott of Danish dairy products.

"We don't want what is happening in Europe ... to cross over to the United States," ADAMS Deputy Imam Sheikh Rashid Lamptey told about 150 men and women attending midday prayers. "We want to conduct [our protests] in a very orderly way."

The cartoons, including one showing Muhammad with a bomb in his head covering, have drawn escalating outrage from Muslims in England, Turkey, Pakistan, Indonesia, Malaysia and in the Palestinian territories.

Yesterday, crowds in Syria set fire to the Danish, Norwegian and Swedish embassies. And, according to a wire report, a radical Islamic preacher in Lebanon demanded that the Danish editor who first printed the cartoons be killed.

Such reactions are "not warranted," said Robert Marro of Great Falls, who was attending prayers at ADAMS. Europeans could have defused the situation by apologizing instead of staking out a hard-line position of upholding free speech, he said.

"Growing up in America, I'm used to political cartoons, but ... it's clear that this just crossed the line," said Marro, a retired U.S. diplomat. "What would the reaction have been if on Jan. 16, The Washington Post had published a picture of Martin Luther King with gangsta-rap clothing, a crack pipe and a Saturday night special? ... It would have provoked a storm of outrage."

The cartoons doubly offended Muslims, because in addition to depicting Muhammad in a pejorative manner, they violated Islam's longtime prohibition on any image of the prophet, his family or early companions.

ADAMS's imam, Mohamed Magid, explained that the ban stems from early Islam, when Muhammad preached monotheism in a culture steeped in the worship of idols.

To discourage such idolatry, he ordered Muslims not to draw, and religious leaders have interpreted this to mean that the prophet was banning images of himself and those close to him so they would never become objects of worship for Muslims, Magid said.

"We don't want to attribute divinity to the prophet," he said.

'Freedom has to be united with responsibility'

Cautioning his congregation not to overreact, Magid urged them to follow the model set by the prophet, who is said to have always forgiven those who insulted him, including the woman who deposited her trash on him as he passed her home.

Magid also called for "constructive, civilized dialogue so we avoid a clash of civilizations." As part of that effort, he said he and other area Muslim leaders will meet tomorrow with the Danish ambassador to Washington.

At the Falls Church strip mall, where the soccer fans scrunched their shoulders against the damp, cold air, several men voiced appreciation for the U.S. government's criticism of the cartoons. "We salute this position," said a 39-year-old salesman from Tunisia, who declined to give his name.

Majdi Omouri, 30, a limousine driver, was philosophical. "If you look at freedom as something really large, without limits, it doesn't make sense," he said. "Freedom has to be united with responsibility ... In the name of freedom, I cannot insult your beliefs."

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