Followers Of The Prophet? Hardly

The Prophet Muhammad would be ashamed of the riots that went on in the Muslim world.

The rabble involved isn’t large. There’s a balanced account in the Economist (www.economist.com). It says in part: “The anger displayed at all these events was certainly real, and widely shared among Muslims. Yet the television coverage of protests obscured an obvious fact. As in many other protests across the region, the crowd at the fiery Friday sermon in Cairo numbered in the mere hundreds, in a space where throngs a thousand times bigger have become commonplace. In the midst of a city of perhaps 20 million inhabitants, the rest went about their business as usual. The number of youths who actually picked up rocks barely rose to the dozens.”

What’s more, the protesters were wrong.

I’m no religious scholar or even a believer in Islam, but I know the amazing events of the Prophet’s life. The Prophet became a major, recognized religious leader within his lifetime.

Within the lifetime of those who learned Islam directly from him, the treasures of the Eastern Roman Empire and of Persia were brought to Mecca.

Before any of those glories, the Prophet suffered insult and injury.

He fled for his life from Mecca. A stone thrown inthe Battle of Uhud hit him so hard, he lost teeth.

He eventually returned to Mecca in near-bloodless triumph. And - this is the important part - whoever ran him out of town in the first place and whoever threw that stone at Uhud was not hunted down and murdered. In fact, he forgave most of those who were caught in a plot to murder him upon his return. His great mercy won over many who had fought him for years.

The Prophet and those who knew him and his mercy were people who would not be troubled by the insults of fools.

Anyone willing to riot over a sophomoric YouTube video is looking too hard for a reason to be offended. These riots look like a pitiable attempt to posture as the off ended party on the anniversary of 9/11. The mob doth protest too much, methinks.

I have no apology to make for freedom of speech. Core belief in basic freedom helped stop anti-mosque ordinances in Bella Vista. The same shared belief had most New Yorkers admit in a poll the Islamic faithful had a right to build a mosque there. How muchthose New Yorkers didn’t like it didn’t matter. Those same core beliefs protect the makers of that dumb video that served as the pitiful excuse for all this violence. It’s even more ridiculous to believe that this farce produced by an obscure group in California represents the views of Americans than it is to claim terrorists speak for mainstream Muslims.

Now four Americans in Libya, including the ambassador, are dead.

Cold comfort as it may be to their families, thesepeople are martyrs. As for the mobs who killed them: Forgive them, Father. They know not what they do.

That, of course, is what Jesus said on the cross.

You know, the cross he was nailed to after he had a crown of thorns put on his head and was publicly mocked in the streets of Jerusalem. There was a sign on that cross too, a mocking sneer that said: “Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews.” All that insult, and he uses almost his last breath to plead for the forgiveness of the ignorantmob that killed him.

There’s a lesson in that.

Muslims have suff ered a litany of ills from imperialistic Western powers for much of recent history. Muslim rage is, in part, a reaction to this. I get that. But I’m supposed to excuse murder because of hard feelings over a decline that started before Christopher Columbus landed here? After all, the explorer’s sponsors had already kicked Muslim rulers out of Cordoba. The only reason for the voyage was precisely because theMuslim world still held a grip on overland trade routes.

It’s past time for the Western world to stop judging the Muslim world on the basis of terrorists and loudmouthed mobs - and for the Muslim world to stop insisting the West give up free speech.

We each have our holy things. Both are abused sometimes, but they are still sacred to each of us.

DOUG THOMPSON IS A POLITICAL REPORTER AND COLUMNIST FOR NWA MEDIA.