I guess you are missing on a very important point here…now first of all I am not sure which Ahadith you are referring too (Source missing)…Let me relate a small incident to clarify the point you have raised..

An old women in Mecca used to throw trash at Prophet Muhammad (P.B.U.H) whenever he passed by from that area…one day the old women didn’t appear and the prophet Muhammad (P.B.U.H) went to her home to see if she was OK! On visiting her, the last prophet (P.B.U.H) came to know that she was Ill…The last prophet (P.B.U.H) questioned about her health etc…The old women was highly impressed by all this and she embraced Islam…in the very same manner the people of TIAF threw stones on the prophet Muhammad (P.B.U.H) and yet he did not take any sort of revenge for them, infect he prayed to Almighty Allah to show them the right path…all these sort of acts and kindness made Islam spread thick and fast not in Arab only but in the rest of the world…Prophet Muhammad was hit both personally and mentally by his enemies yet he did not took any sort of revenge from anyone…

In the current scenario, its not simply about publishing the cartoons, it’s about publishing them again and again knowingly that these wrongful acts will hurt the Muslims all over the world…As per the international rules of press and media publishing any sort of Blasphemous material is disallowed so why publish it then? It’s a clear act of violation of the international press and media rules…

Muslims have a great sense of attachment with Prophet Muhammad (P.B.U.H) that west cannot understand because they don’t know the inner feelings of a Muslim as to how much we as Muslims owe to the last prophet Muhammad (P.B.U.H), you talk about the world we say this whole universe was made for him, he is a blessing for all the mankind, so my dear friend how can you even about disgracing such a personality? and expect us to observe complete silence and pretend if nothing has happened.

Black sheep’s can be found everywhere; certainly we have some black sheep’s in our ranks as well who for their own personal agenda turned the peaceful demonstrations into violent ones…The Muslim nations know it all that they are far lesser when it comes to education, technology, electronic media and military warfare as compared to west so the question arises as to why would the Muslims ever like to fight the likes of US or Israel, when they know that they won’t be able to win against them?…they throw stones against the bullet because its part of our faith to raise voice against the oppressor…you give Muslims the right to live in Palestine, Kashmir and elsewhere, believe me all these type of suicide attacks etc would end up…we also care about our own life and life’s of other regardless of any cast, color, creed, religion or race.

Let their be peace amongst our and your ranks, leave the religious differences on one side and start talking about humanity and elevating poverty from this world…

What is your opinion of the Hadiths which describe militant actions on account of the prophet? For example: Mohammad (pbuh) orders the assassination of the poetess, Asma bin Marwan simply because she wrote a poem that insulted Mohammad and his followers in 624 A.D. At least three separate Hadiths describe Mohammad saying of her death, “two goats won’t butt heads about that woman.”

Do you think episodes like this, and acounts of at least 10 other assainations of poets and artists during Mohammad’s(pbuh) time, may contribute to the violent demands of today’s protesters throughout the Islamic world?

Because these channels don’t want to tell the truth and they want to continue on the false propaganda about Islam and its followers that goes in favor of the current policies adopted by current American regime. The current cartoon controversy has raised many questions about the double standards that exist within the western media…after the mass demonstrations mainly in the Muslim countries have made Danes to study more about Islam and Prophet Muhammad (P.B.U.H) and it’s said that 50 Danes have embraced Islam, they were amazed to see the somber mood of true Muslims who marched on the streets to register their thoughts on this controversy.

People from all the religions should respect Prophet Muhammad (P.B.U.H) as he is the last prophet and he has been discussed in many Holy Scriptures like Bible etc.

For Muslims its part of their faith to respect and practice the teachings of all the prophets from Adam to Prophet Muhammad (P.B.U.H) as all of them told people to follow ONE GOD (Almighty ALLAH). Islam never spread by force it was the high moral character of Prophet Muhammad (P.B.U.H) that draw the worst idol (Statue) worshipers of that time to start trusting and praying to on One God…
For more information on the life of Prophet Muhammad (P.B.U.H) please visit: http://www.muhammad.net/

May Almighty Allah show us all the right path

Even small amounts of right wing xenophobia or denigration of Muslims in general will give mental cover to those who wish to dismiss this as a disagreement that can be compromised and wished away.

My guess is no: people can always select the facts that form their worldview (God knows I do), but as I said, it will be interesting to watch.

Oh, and also, I hate to be one of those people, but most journalists and editors in this country are henceforth a bunch of frickin’ pussies until individually proven otherwise. Unfortunate.

Why don’t we get anything similar about Mohammad? It would seem relevant in a Post 9/11 world to discuss the early history of Islam, if anything because it is what the terrorists claim they are emulating and protecting. You don’t even have to dramatize his physical character if you don’t want to offend muslim sensibilities! I believe there are 2 reasons for this:

1) The MSM has convinced itself that Islamic terrorists are just another crowd of un-educated ethnicly exotic rebels, fighting over material resources or out of a sense of nationalism, ect… the typical marxist-acedemia B.S. that interprets every conflict in history as some version of class warfare, or imperial conquest. Religion is just a ruse, an exuse by the radical leadership to rial up the masses in an otherwise secular conflict.

2) When the occasional journalist dares to investigate the life of Mohammad, he is disturbed by what he discovers. That Mohammad was a warlord who ordered assassinations, raided caravans for booty, and massacred whole tribes of people. To simply report what has been recorded by Muslim historians in sacred sciptures would invalidate the media’s pre-concieved world view (described above) and would be supremely politically incorrect, in that it would call into question the inherent morality of a religion beloved by poor brown people.

Its better to close your mouth about it; anyway you are not a muslim, its like a white person who is forbidden to use the N-word.

However, I have seen a huge anti-Muslim culture emerge that fails to recognize that being a believer in Islam does not equate to being an extremist or even a sympathizer. If anything, I’ve failed to see the media address the growing ebb in bigotry against Muslims that many justify by the disgusting acts of the extremists.

But maybe the problem is that some journalists simply don’t believe in a universal truth.

Wow; you are a mind-reader. And it didn’t used to be so. When I started in the trade, I’d say most of my peers did believe in absolute reality. In fact, a buddy of mine was getting divorced by his poetess/grad-student-for-life wife, and when they came before the judge he unexpectedly asked her why the marriage was irretrievably broken. She fumbled for a bit, then blurted out, “Because he believes in an absolute reality and I don’t.”

That was enough for the judge.

While it’s not a bona-fide ‘clash of civilizations’ (yet), it IS a clash of the very differning value systems of two cultures: the secular Western culture of free speech and the religious culture of Islam. That radical Islamists can incite the ‘Muslim street’ to riot with some fake cartoons points to this very fact.

“The impulse that led to hyperventilation over Cheney’s hunting accident is an annoying but generally harmless failing.”

I disagree. By distracting viewers and inflaming partisan passions on both sides with inane puffery of this sort and not giving issues involving the fundamental value of free speech equal play (which, incidentally, is DIRECTLY germaine to the functioning of the press itself), the media does its viewers a great disservice.

A balance of the two would be nice. I’m not privy to the inner workings of the press, but from the outside, it seems to me the mainstream press only speaks “Truth to Power” when Power deigns to “speak back” as it were.