Eight and a half years ago, I wrote this article on the controversy of the cartoons of Prophet Muhammad. I tried to look at it from both sides and analyse what went wrong. Sadly, we have now been reminded of this controversy in the worst way possible, with the heartless, senseless, and inexcusable slaughter of French journalists. I wrote then: “There is absolutely nothing in the Qur’an that gives any Muslim the right to call for the beheading, killing, or physical harming of someone who insults Islam. The Qur’an stresses in many verses how the Prophet himself was being insulted and ridiculed, but there is not a single verse that states that the Prophet or Muslims should attack those offenders.” No one had the right to kill those journalists for publishing the cartoons. This murder is against the teachings of Islam and must be fully condemned by anyone who takes the Qur’an as the source of their guiding values and principles.
