This all makes sense I guess. Islam prohibits printing pictures/making statues of prophets since it is an easy leap from that to idolatry. The writer should want as many muslims as possible to read this so he should follow major religious rules like that (that picture/statue rule is very well-obeyed today from what I know).
It doesn't compromise this book either since everybody already knew about the shock value of the original cartoons. If they didn't, you just write "mohammad with a turban-bomb" and they'll be up to speed. Maybe some people will be butthurt that you're losing some of the original's "political value" but I think it would be more productive to have muslims reading a western pov on this whole situation.
How many Muslim fundamentalists are going to read a Western book entitled Cartoons that Shook the World. And which religious prohibitions should Yale follow? Just Islamic ones?I'm not talking about the fundamentalists, I just think that normal muslims would benefit from reading this.
And no, it does compromise the book, a book called Cartoons that Shook the World! Not everyone has actually seen the cartoons. They're actually quite mild for the most, and readers would benefit from actually seeing them for themselves.
I'm not talking about the fundamentalists, I just think that normal muslims would benefit from reading this.Non-fundamentalist should have less of a problem with seeing these actual cartoons. And maybe they would benefit more from seeing the actual cartoons.
The article says that they consulted muslim clerics so they were definitely aware of the specific reasoning that muslims have against seeing a prophet's face.
Honestly, I would expect most muslims to be more upset by the "normal" pictures of prophets than by the danish ones. The danish ones are designed to get people angry and they're also what the book is about. I think that printing the other pictures would suggest to muslims that there weren't any muslim clerics consulted before printing this book.
In the introduction, they could easily explain all this and let the reader decide for themselves if taking out the pictures was the best decision.
Kind of off-topic, but I think the writer of this article really, really should have done a tiny bit of research, like 10 minutes on google, to understand why muslims wouldn't want ANY pictures. It would make the situation make a little bit more sense. In the illogical, religious type of way.
As a Muslim, I am offended that the New York Times did not take the time to find out why Muslims were so angry about the Danish cartoons in an article discussing the publication of a book that documents the events.The title of her article says "images", not cartoons, were banned in the book. She mentions that even the harmless pictures were banned.