Depictions of Muhammad

Although nothing in the Quran explicitly bans images, some supplemental hadith explicitly ban the drawing of images of any living creature; other hadith tolerate images, but never encourage them. Hence, most Muslims avoid visual depictions of any prophet or messenger such as Muhammad, Moses, and Abraham. Most Sunni Muslims believe that visual depictions of all the prophets and messengers should be prohibited and are particularly averse to visual representations of Muhammad. The key concern is that the use of images can encourage shirk or "idolatry". In Shia Islam, however, images of Muhammad are quite common nowadays even though historically, Shia scholars opposed such depictions. Many major religions have experienced times during their history when images of their religious figures were forbidden. In Judaism, one of the Ten Commandments states "Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image", while in the Christian New Testament all covetousness (greed) is defined as idolatry. During the periods of Byzantine Iconoclasm in the eighth century, and again during the ninth century, visual representations of sacred figures were forbidden by the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, and only the Christian cross could be depicted in churches. The visual representation of Jesus and other religious figures remains a concern in parts of stricter Protestant Christianity. ==Portraiture of Muhammad in Islamic literature==

Several ahadith and other writings of the early Islamic period include stories in which portraits of Muhammad appear. Abu Hanifa Dinawari, ibn al-Faqih, Ibn Wahshiyya, and Abu Nu'aym al-Isfahani tell versions of a story in which the Byzantine Emperor Heraclius is visited by two Meccans. He shows them a cabinet, handed down to him from Alexander the Great and created by God for Adam, each of whose drawers contains a portrait of a prophet. They are astonished to see a portrait of Muhammad in the final drawer. Sadid al-Din al-Kazaruni tells a similar story in which the Meccans are visiting the king of China. Al-Kisa'i tells that God did indeed give portraits of the prophets to Adam. Ibn Wahshiyya and Abu Nuʿaym al-Isfahani tell a second story in which a Meccan merchant visiting Syria is invited to a Christian monastery where several sculptures and paintings depict prophets and saints. There he sees the images of Muhammad and Abu Bakr, as yet unidentified by the Christians. In an 11th-century story, Muhammad is said to have sat for a portrait by an artist retained by Sasanian emperor Kavad II. The emperor liked the portrait so much that he placed it on his pillow. ==Depiction by Muslims==

Verbal descriptions '' by Hâfiz Osman (1642–1698) In one of the earliest sources, ibn Sa'd's Kitab al-Tabaqat al-Kabir, there are numerous verbal descriptions of Muhammad. One description sourced to Ali is as follows: From the Ottoman period on, such texts have been presented on calligraphic hilya panels (, pl. hilyeler, from , plural ḥilān), commonly surrounded by an elaborate frame of illuminated decoration and either included in books or, more often, muraqqas, or albums, or sometimes placed in wooden frames so that they can hang on a wall. The elaborated form of the calligraphic tradition was founded in the 17th century by the Ottoman calligrapher Hâfiz Osman. While containing a concrete and artistically appealing description of Muhammad's appearance, they complied with the strictures against figurative depictions of Muhammad, leaving his appearance to the viewer's imagination. Several parts of the complex design were named after parts of the body, from the head downwards, indicating the explicit purpose of the hilye as a substitute for a figurative depiction. The Ottoman hilye format customarily starts with the basmala shown on top and is separated in the middle by Quran 21:107: "And We have not sent you but as a mercy to the worlds". Four compartments set around the central one often contain the names of the Rashidun: Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman, and Ali, each followed by radhi Allahu anhu "may God be pleased with him". Image:Hilye-i serif 1.jpg|Hilye by Hâfiz Osman Image:Hilye-i serif 3.png|Hilye by Hâfiz Osman Image:Hilye-i serif 5.jpg|Hilye by Hâfiz Osman Image:Hilye-i serif 7.jpg|Hilye by Mehmed Tahir Efendi (d. 1848) Image:Hilye-i serif 4.jpg|Hilye by Kazasker Mustafa İzzet Efendi (1801–1876) Image:Hilye-i Serif 6.jpg|Hilye by Kazasker Mustafa İzzet Efendi Rose Hilye.jpg|Hilye inscribed on the petals of a pink rose symbolising Muhammad (18th century) Calligraphic representations The most common visual representation of the Muhammad in Islamic art, especially in Arabic-speaking areas, is by a calligraphic representation of his name, a sort of monogram in roughly circular form, often given a decorated frame. Such inscriptions are normally in Arabic, and may rearrange or repeat forms, or add a blessing or honorific, or for example the word "messenger" or a contraction of it. The range of ways of representing Muhammad's name is considerable, including ambigrams; he is also frequently symbolised by a rose. The more elaborate versions relate to other Islamic traditions of special forms of calligraphy such as those writing the names of God, and the secular tughra or elaborate monogram of Ottoman rulers. File:Muhammad Salat.PNG|Muhammad's name in Thuluth, an Arabic calligraphic script; the smaller writing in the top left means "Peace be upon him". File:Edirne 7331 Nevit.JPG|Calligraphic representation of Muhammad's name, painted on the wall of a mosque in Edirne in Turkey File:Tile with Calligraphy.JPG|Calligraphy tile from Turkey (18th century), containing the names of God, Muhammad, and his first four successors, Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman and Ali File:Mustafa Rakim, calligraphic panel.jpg|Late 18th- or early 19th-century calligraphic panel by Mustafa Rakim File:Mirror Muhammad green.jpg|Mirror calligraphy of Muhammad's name File:Muhammad decoupage calligraphy panel.jpg|Decoupage calligraphy (18th or 19th century) with Muhammad's name in mirror script, top centre; the area below represents a mihrab, or prayer niche. File:Pal Pottery Cal3.jpg|Palestinian pottery calligraphy featuring the names of God (الله) and Muhammad (محمد) File:Ambigram - Muhammad and Ali2.svg|Ambigram – Muhammad (محمد) upside down is read as Ali (علي), and vice versa. File:Kufic Muhammad.svg|Fourfold Muhammad in square (or geometric) Kufic script, often used as a tilework pattern in Islamic architecture File:Meknes Medersa Bou Inania Calligraphy.jpg|Geometric Kufic from the Bou Inania Madrasa (Meknes); the text reads بركة محمد or baraka muḥammad, i.e. be blessed Muhammad. File:Muhammad calligraphy tile.jpg|Tile from a 14th-century mausoleum in Uzbekistan, inscribed with Muhammad's name (محمد) in square Kufic; one of a set used to frame a doorway File:Kerman Friday Mosque main entrance cupola.JPG|Mosque cupola, with Quranic inscriptions and Kufic representations of Allah's and Muhammad's names worked into the tiling File:Ханака Ахмеда Ясави 2010 017.jpg|''Banna'i'' incorporating square Kufic representations of Muhammad's name on the Mausoleum of Khoja Ahmed Yasavi, Kazakhstan File:Isfahan Royal Mosque minaret.JPG|''Banna'i'' on the Royal Mosque in Isfahan, Iran, with square Kufic repeats of Muhammad's and Ali's names File:Wooden frame disk muhammad.jpg|Muhammad's name on a wooden disk in Hagia Sophia Figurative visual depictions , Moses, Jesus and others in prayer. Persian miniature, 15th century Throughout Islamic history, depictions of Muhammad in Islamic art were rare. Depictions of Muhammad date back to the start of the tradition of Persian miniatures as illustrations in books. The illustrated book from the Persianate world (Warka and Gulshah, Topkapi Palace Library H. 841, attributed to Konya 1200–1250) contains the two earliest known Islamic depictions of Muhammad. This book dates to before or just around the time of the Mongol invasion of Anatolia in the 1240s, and before the campaigns against Persia and Iraq of the 1250s, which destroyed great numbers of books in libraries. Recent scholarship has noted that, although surviving early examples are now uncommon, generally human figurative art was a continuous tradition in Islamic lands (such as in literature, science, and history); as early as the 8th century, such art flourished during the Abbasid Caliphate (c. 749 - 1258, across Spain, North Africa, Egypt, Syria, Turkey, Mesopotamia, and Persia). Christiane Gruber traces a development from 'veristic' images depicting the entire body and face during the 13th to 15th centuries, to more "abstract" representations in the 16th to 19th centuries, the latter including the representation of Muhammad by a special type of calligraphic representation, with the older types also remaining in use. An intermediate type, first found from about 1400, is the "inscribed portrait" where the face of Muhammad is blank, with "Ya Muhammad" ("O Muhammad") or a similar phrase written in the space instead; these may be related to Sufi thought. In some cases the inscription appears to have been an underpainting that would later be covered by a face or veil, so a pious act by the painter, for his eyes alone, but in others it was intended to be seen. A number of extant Persian manuscripts representing Muhammad date from the Ilkhanid period under the new Mongol rulers, including a Marzubannama dating to 1299. The Ilkhanid MS Arab 161 of 1307/8 contains 25 illustrations found in an illustrated version of Al-Biruni's The Remaining Signs of Past Centuries, of which five include depictions Muhammad, including the two concluding images, the largest and most accomplished in the manuscript, which emphasize the relation of Muhammad and `Ali according to Shi`ite doctrine. According to Christiane Gruber, other works use images to promote Sunni Islam, such as a set of Mi'raj illustrations (MS H 2154) in the early 14th century, although other historians have dated the same illustrations to the Jalayrid period of Shia rulers. (16th-century Ottoman illustration of the Siyer-i Nebi) Depictions of Muhammad are also found in Persian manuscripts in the following Timurid and Safavid dynasties, and Turkish Ottoman art in the 14th to 17th centuries, and beyond. Perhaps the most elaborate cycle of illustrations of Muhammad's life is the copy, completed in 1595, of the 14th-century biography Siyer-i Nebi commissioned by the Ottoman sultan Murat III for his son, the future Mehmed III, containing over 800 illustrations. Probably the commonest narrative scene represented is the Mi'raj; according to Gruber, "There exist countless single-page paintings of the meʿrāj included in the beginnings of Persian and Turkish romances and epic stories produced from the beginning of the 15th century to the 20th century". These images were also used in celebrations of the anniversary of the Mi'raj on 27 Rajab, when the accounts were recited aloud to male groups: "Didactic and engaging, oral stories of the ascension seem to have had the religious goal of inducing attitudes of praise among their audiences". Such practices are most easily documented in the 18th and 19th centuries, but manuscripts from much earlier appear to have fulfilled the same function. Otherwise a large number of different scenes may be represented at times, from Muhammad's birth to the end of his life, and his existence in Paradise. Halo In the earliest depictions Muhammad may be shown with or without a halo, the earliest halos being round in the style of Christian art, but before long a flaming halo or aureole in the Buddhist or Chinese tradition becomes more common than the circular form found in the West, when a halo is used. A halo or flame may surround only his head, but often his whole body, and in some images the body itself cannot be seen for the halo. This "luminous" form of representation avoided the issues caused by "veristic" images, and could be taken to convey qualities of Muhammad's person described in texts. If the body is visible, the face may be covered with a veil (see gallery for examples of both types). This form of representation, which began at the start of the Safavid period in Persia, was done out of reverence and respect. File:Mohammed receiving revelation from the angel Gabriel.jpg|Mohammed receiving his first revelation from the angel Gabriel. Illustration on vellum in ''Jami' al-tawarikh'' by Rashid al-Din Hamadani, Tabriz, Persia, 1307. File:Investiture of Ali Edinburgh codex.jpg|The Investiture of Ali at Ghadir Khumm, MS Arab 161, fol. 162r, Ilkhanid manuscript illustration, 1308–1309. File:Mohammed receiving the submission of the Banu Nadir.jpg|Mohammad (riding the horse) receiving the submission of the Banu Nadir, also Jami Al-Tawarikh. 1314 - 1315. File:Muammad-as-youth-meeting-monk-bahira-compendium-persia-1315-edin-550.jpg|Muhammad meets the monk Bahira. From Jami Al-Tawarikh ("The Universal History" written by Rashid Al-Din), a manuscript in the Library of the University of Edinburgh; illustrated in Tabriz, Muzaffarid period, 1315. File:Mohammed kaaba 1315.jpg|Miniature of Muhammad rededicating the Black Stone at the Kaaba. From Jami Al-Tawarikh, c. 1315 File:Muhammad at Badr.jpg|Muhammad at the Battle of Badr. From the Siyer-i Nebi, c. 1388. File:Muhammad and aisha free a captive daughter of a tribal chief800x1300x300.jpg|Muhammad and his wife Aisha freeing the daughter of a tribal chief. From the Siyer-i Nebi, c. 1388. File:Muhammad-Majmac-al-tawarikh-1.jpg|Muhammad's Call to Prophecy and the First Revelation; in the Majmac al-tawarikh (Compendium of Histories), Timurid, Herat, Afghanistan, Muhammad is shown with veiled face. c. 1425. File:Journey of the Prophet Muhammad, Folio from the Majma al-Tavarikh, 1425, Metmuseum.jpg|Journey of the Prophet Muhammad in the Majmac al-tawarikh (Compendium of Histories), Timurid. Herat, Afghanistan, c. 1425. File:The Giant 'Uj and the Prophets Moses, Jesus and Muhammad - Khalili Collection Islamic Art.jpg|''Musa va 'Uj'', a painting showing Muhammad veiled, surrounded by his successors, and enclosed in a flaming nimbus, 1460s File:Muhammad 1514.jpg|Muhammad's ascent into the Heavens, a journey known as the Mi'raj, as depicted in a copy of the Bostan of Saadi, 1514 File:"Firdausi's Parable of the Ship of Shi'ism", Folio 18v from the Shahnama (Book of Kings) of Shah Tahmasp MET DP107118.jpg|An image from the Houghton Shahnameh (Metropolitan Museum of Art), dated 1530 - 1535 File:Miraj by Sultan Muhammad.jpg|A miraj image, reflecting the new, Safavid convention of depicting Muhammad veiled, dated 1539 - 1543 File:Siyer-i Nebi - Muhammad und Chadidscha () führen die ersten rituelle Waschung -wudhu- durch.jpg|Muhammad and Khadija performing the first wudu, as illustrated in the Siyer-i Nebi, c. 1594 File:Ali Beheading Nadr ibn al-Harith in the Presence of the Prophet Muhammad. Miniature from volume 4 of a copy of Mustafa al-Darir’s Siyar-i-Nabi. Istanbul; c. 1594 The David Col..jpg|Ali beheading Nadr ibn al-Harith in the presence of Muhammad and his companions. From the Siyer-i Nebi, 1594. File:Siyer-i Nebi 223b.jpg|Birth of Muhammad, from Siyer-i Nebi, an Ottoman manuscript, probably by Nakkaş Osman, 1595 File:Siyer-i Nebi 298a.jpg|Muhammad advancing on Mecca, with the angels Gabriel, Michael, Israfil and Azrail, 1595 File:Siyer-i Nebi 123a.jpg|Muhammad removes a dragon from the Kaaba. From the Siyer-i Nebi, c. 1595. File:Siyer-i Nebi 414a.jpg|The death of Muhammad. From the Siyer-i Nebi, c. 1595. File:Siyer-i Nebi 151b.jpg|"Muhammad at the Ka'ba" from the Siyer-i Nebi. Muhammad is shown with veiled face, c. 1595. File:Paris, BnF, Supplément Persan 1030 fol. 35v Muhammad visits Paradise.jpg|Islamic miniature depicting Muhammad's visit to Paradise, BnF, Kashmir, 1808 File:Paris, BnF, Supplément Persan 1030 fol. 305v-306r Muhammad and Ali lead destruction of Meccan idols.jpg|The destruction of idols at the Kaaba. Muhammad and Ali are represented as a flaming aureole. From Hamla-i haydarî ("Haydar's Battle"), Kashmir, 1808. Contemporary Iran Despite the avoidance of the representation of Muhammad in Sunni Islam, images of Muhammad are not uncommon in Iran. The Iranian Shi'ism seems more tolerant on this point than Sunnite orthodoxy. Since the late 1990s, experts in Islamic iconography discovered images, printed on paper in Iran, portraying Muhammad as a teenager wearing a turban. This depiction has been popular in Iran as a form of curiosity. In Tehran, a mural depicting the prophet – his face veiled – riding Buraq was installed at a public road intersection in 2008, the only mural of its kind in a Muslim-majority country. Cinema Very few films have been made about Muhammad. The 1976 film The Message told the story of his life without ever depicting him directly. While unseen, Muhammad is quoted, addressed directly and discussed throughout the film, and a distinct organ music cue signifies his off-camera presence. Most members of his family were also not depicted, leaving figures such as Hamza, Bilal and Abu Sufyan as on-screen protagonists to advance the story. A devotional cartoon called Muhammad: The Last Prophet was released in 2004. An Iranian film directed by Majid Majidi was released in 2015 named Muhammad. It is the first part of the trilogy film series on Muhammad by Majid Majidi. While Sunni Muslims have always explicitly prohibited the depiction of Muhammad on film, contemporary Shi'a scholars have taken a more relaxed attitude, stating that it is permissible to depict Muhammad, even in television or movies, if done with respect. ==Depiction by non-Muslims==

'', 12th century '', c. 1320 The earliest depiction of Muhammad in the West is found in a 12th-century manuscript of the Corpus Cluniacense, tied to Hermann of Carinthia's introduction to his translation of the Kitab al-Anwar of Abu al-Hasan Bakri. The image is intentionally defamatory, portraying Muhammad with a bearded human face and a fish-like body. It is perhaps inspired by Horace's Ars poetica, wherein the poet imagines "a woman, lovely above, foully ended in an ugly fish below" and asks if you would "restrain your laughter, my friends, if admitted to this private view?", a passage alluded to by Peter the Venerable in his account of Islam in the Corpus. This depiction, however, did not set the paradigm for later depictions. Western representations of Muhammad were very rare until the explosion of images following the invention of the printing press; he is shown in a few medieval images, normally in an unflattering manner, often influenced by his brief mention in Dante's Divine Comedy. Dante placed Muhammad in the Eighth Circle of Hell, with his entrails hanging out (Canto 28): This scene was sometimes shown in illustrations of the Divina Commedia before modern times. Muhammad is represented in a 15th-century fresco Last Judgement by Giovanni da Modena and drawing on Dante, in the Church of San Petronio, Bologna, Italy and artwork by Salvador Dalí, Auguste Rodin, William Blake, and Gustave Doré. Muhammad sometimes figures in Western depictions of groups of influential people in world history. Such depictions tend to be favourable or neutral in intent; one example can be found at the United States Supreme Court building in Washington, D.C. Created in 1935, the frieze includes major historical lawgivers, and places Muhammad alongside Hammurabi, Moses, Confucius, and others. In 1997, a controversy erupted surrounding the frieze, and tourist materials have since been edited to describe the depiction as "a well-intentioned attempt by the sculptor to honor Muhammad" that "bears no resemblance to Muhammad." In 1955, a statue of Muhammad was removed from a courthouse in New York City after the ambassadors of Indonesia, Pakistan, and Egypt requested its removal. In 1997, the Council on American–Islamic Relations, a Muslim advocacy group in the United States, wrote to United States Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist requesting that the sculpted representation of Muhammad on the north frieze inside the Supreme Court building be removed or sanded down. The court rejected CAIR's request. File:Nuremberg_chronicles_-_Mohammed_(CLIv).jpg|Muhammad, seated on the left, possibly reading from the Quran, as depicted in the 15th century Nuremberg Chronicle File:Mohamet and Devil Bologna.jpg|Early Renaissance fresco illustrating Dante's Inferno. Muhammad is depicted being dragged down to Hell. Image:Mohammed2.jpg|Muhammed and the Monk Sergius (Bahira). This 1508 engraving by the Dutch artist Lucas van Leyden shows a legend that circulated in Europe. Image:Mahomet.jpg|Portrait of Muhammad as a generic "Easterner", from the PANSEBEIA, or A View of all Religions in the World by Alexander Ross (1683) Image:La.Vie.de.Mahomet Christies.jpg|Illustration from La vie de Mahomet, by M. Prideaux, published in 1699. It shows Muhammad holding a sword and a crescent while trampling on a globe, a cross, and the Ten Commandments. Image:Lifeofmahomet.jpg|An engraving of Muhammad in The Life of Mahomet (1719) Image:Dante and Virgil Meet Muhammad and His Son-in-law, Ali in Hell.jpg|William Blake, Muhammad pulling his chest open in an illustration to Dante's Inferno (1827) File:Mohammeds Berufung, Hosemann 1847.jpg|Die Berufung Mohammeds durch den Engel Gabriel by Theodor Hosemann, 1847: Muhammad receiving the words of God from Gabriel in the cave of Hira Image:Mohammed (148619179).jpg|Muhammad suffering punishment in Hell. From Gustave Doré's illustrations of the Divine Comedy (1861) Image:Mohammed the Prophet.jpg|Пророк Магомет (Mohammed the Prophet) by Nicholas Roerich, 1925 Image:Scotusnfrieze.jpeg|Muhammad as depicted by sculptor Adolph Weinman on the U.S. Supreme Court building in Washington, DC carrying a sword and the Quran, 1930s ==Controversies in the 20th and 21st centuries==

The 20th and 21st centuries have been marked by controversies over depictions of Muhammad, not only for recent caricatures or cartoons, but also regarding the display of historical artwork. In a story on morals at the end of the millennium in December 1999, the German news magazine Der Spiegel printed on the same page pictures of “moral apostles” Muhammad, Jesus, Confucius, and Immanuel Kant. In the subsequent weeks, the magazine received protests, petitions and threats against publishing the picture of Muhammad. The Turkish TV-station Show TV broadcast the telephone number of an editor who then received daily calls. Nadeem Elyas, leader of the Central Council of Muslims in Germany said that the picture should not be printed again in order to avoid hurting the feelings of Muslims intentionally. Elyas recommended whitening the face of Muhammad instead. In June 2001, the Spiegel with consideration of Islamic laws published a picture of Muhammed with a whitened face on its title page. The same picture of Muhammad by Hosemann had been published by the magazine once before in 1998 in a special edition on Islam, but then without evoking similar protests. In 2002, Italian police reported that they had disrupted a terrorist plot to destroy the Church of San Petronio in Bologna, which contains a 15th-century fresco depicting an image of Muhammad being dragged to hell by a demon (see above). Examples of depictions of Muhammad being altered include a 1940 mural at the University of Utah having the name of Muhammad removed from beneath the painting in 2000 at the request of Muslim students. Sketch in Senang magazine In 1990, the Indonesian magazine Senang published a letter to the editor by a reader who claimed to have dreamed of Muhammad. The letter was accompanied by a sketch by the magazine's resident artist featuring a "turbaned, faceless figure." No major repercussions immediately followed. However, soon afterwards, there was a separate controversy in which a Christian-owned Indonesian magazine named Monitor published the results of a readers' poll about "most-admired leaders" that put Suharto at number 1 and Muhammad at number 11. The wake of this scandal led to a crackdown on "insulting Muhammad" in general, and so police announced they were investigating Senang and would attempt to track down the author of the letter. Before anything further could happen, Senang voluntarily offered to cease publication. 's'' controversial cartoons of Muhammad from September 2005|269x269px Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy In 2005, Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten published a set of editorial cartoons, many of which depicted Muhammad. In late 2005 and early 2006, Danish Muslim organizations ignited the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy through public protests and by spreading knowledge of the publication of the cartoons. On 12 February 2008 the Danish police arrested three men alleged to be involved in a plot to assassinate Kurt Westergaard, one of the cartoonists. '' episode "Super Best Friends". He was intended to re-appear in "Cartoon Wars", but was removed due to controversies regarding Muhammad cartoons in European newspapers. The episodes "200" and "201" satirized censorship of Muhammad’s image. All of these episodes have been removed from streaming services. South Park In 2006, the controversial American animated television comedy program South Park, which had previously depicted Muhammad as a superhero character in the July 4, 2001 episode "Super Best Friends" and has depicted Muhammad in the opening sequence since that episode, attempted to satirize the Danish newspaper incident. In the episode, "Cartoon Wars Part II", they intended to show Muhammad handing a salmon helmet to Peter Griffin, a character from the Fox animated series Family Guy. However, Comedy Central, who airs South Park, rejected the scene, citing concerns of violent protests in the Islamic world. The creators of South Park reacted by instead satirizing Comedy Central's double standard for broadcast acceptability by including a segment of "Cartoon Wars Part II" in which American president George W. Bush and Jesus defecate on the flag of the United States. Everybody Draw Mohammed Day was a protest against those who threatened violence against artists who drew representations of Muhammad. It began as a protest against the action of Comedy Central in forbidding the broadcast of the South Park episode "201" in response to death threats against some of those responsible for the segment. Observance of the day began with a drawing posted on the Internet on April 20, 2010, accompanied by text suggesting that "everybody" create a drawing representing Muhammad, on May 20, 2010, as a protest against efforts to limit freedom of speech. Lars Vilks Muhammad drawings controversy The Lars Vilks Muhammad drawings controversy began in July 2007 with a series of drawings by Swedish artist Lars Vilks which depicted Muhammad as a roundabout dog. Several art galleries in Sweden declined to show the drawings, citing security concerns and fear of violence. The controversy gained international attention after the Örebro-based regional newspaper Nerikes Allehanda published one of the drawings on August 18 to illustrate an editorial on self-censorship and freedom of religion. While several other leading Swedish newspapers had published the drawings already, this particular publication led to protests from Muslims in Sweden as well as official condemnations from several foreign governments including Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Egypt and Jordan, as well as by the inter-governmental Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC). The controversy occurred about one and a half years after the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy in Denmark in early 2006. Another controversy emerged in September 2007 when Bangladeshi cartoonist Arifur Rahman was detained on suspicion of showing disrespect to Muhammad. The interim government confiscated copies of the Bengali-language Prothom Alo in which the drawings appeared. The cartoon consisted of a boy holding a cat conversing with an elderly man. The man asks the boy his name, and he replies "Babu". The older man chides him for not mentioning the name of Muhammad before his name. He then points to the cat and asks the boy what it is called, and the boy replies "Muhammad the cat". The cartoon caused a firestorm in Bangladesh, with militant Islamists demanding that Rahman be executed for blasphemy. A group of people torched copies of the paper and several Islamic groups protested, saying the drawings ridiculed Muhammad and his companions. They demanded "exemplary punishment" for the paper's editor and the cartoonist. Bangladesh does not have a blasphemy law, although one had been demanded by the same fundamentalist Islamic groups. Wikipedia article In 2008, around 180,000 people, many of them Muslims, signed a petition protesting against the inclusion of Muhammad's depictions in the English Wikipedia's Muhammad article. . The petition opposed a reproduction of a 17th-century Ottoman copy of a 14th-century Ilkhanate manuscript image (MS Arabe 1489) depicting Muhammad as he prohibited Nasīʾ. Jeremy Henzell-Thomas of The American Muslim deplored the petition as one of "these mechanical knee-jerk reactions [which] are gifts to those who seek every opportunity to decry Islam and ridicule Muslims and can only exacerbate a situation in which Muslims and the Western media seem to be locked in an ever-descending spiral of ignorance and mutual loathing." Wikipedia considered but rejected a compromise that would allow visitors to choose whether to view the page with images. Charlie Hebdo On 2 November 2010, the office of the French satirical weekly newspaper Charlie Hebdo at Paris was attacked with a firebomb and its website hacked, after it had announced plans to publish a special edition with Muhammad as its “chief editor”, and the title page with a cartoon of Muhammad had been pre-issued on social media. In September 2012, the newspaper published a series of satirical cartoons of Muhammad, some of which feature nude caricatures of him. In January 2013, Charlie Hebdo announced that they would make a comic book on the life of Muhammad. In March 2013, Al-Qaeda's branch in Yemen, commonly known as Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), released a hit list in an edition of their English-language magazine Inspire. The list included Stéphane Charbonnier, Lars Vilks, three Jyllands-Posten employees involved in the Muhammad cartoon controversy, Molly Norris from the Everybody Draw Mohammed Day and others whom AQAP accused of insulting Islam. On 7 January 2015, the office was attacked again with 12 shot dead, including Stéphane Charbonnier, and 11 injured. A May 3, 2015, event held in Garland, Texas, held by American activists Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer, was the scene of a shooting by two individuals who were later themselves shot and killed outside the event. Police officers assisting in security at the event returned fire and killed the two gunmen. The event offered a $10,000 prize and was said to be in response to the January 2015 attacks on Charlie Hebdo. One of the gunmen was identified as a former terror suspect, known to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. On 16 October 2020, middle-school teacher Samuel Paty was killed and beheaded after showing Charlie Hebdo cartoons depicting Muhammad during a class discussion on freedom of speech. In March 2021 a teacher at Batley Grammar School in England was suspended, and the headmaster issued an apology, after the teacher showed one or more of the Charlie Hebdo cartoons to pupils during a lesson. The incident sparked protests outside the school, demanding the resignation or sacking of the teacher involved. Commenting on the situation, the UK government's Communities Secretary, Robert Jenrick, said teachers should be able to "appropriately show images of the prophet" in class and the protests are "deeply unsettling" due to the UK being a "free society". He added teachers should "not be threatened" by religious extremists. Other incidents The Metropolitan Museum of Art in January 2010 confirmed to the New York Post that it had quietly removed all historic paintings which contained depictions of Muhammad from public exhibition. The Museum quoted objections on the part of conservative Muslims which were "under review". The museum's action was criticized as excessive political correctness, as were other decisions taken close to the same time, including the renaming of the "Primitive Art Galleries" to the "Arts of Africa, Oceania and the Americas" and the projected "Islamic Galleries" to "Arab Lands, Turkey, Iran, Central Asia and Later South Asia". In December 2022, Hamline University in Saint Paul, Minnesota did not renew the contract of an adjunct professor over an October 2022 global art history class showing Medieval-era paintings of Muhammad, despite the professor providing a content warning and allowing students to opt-out of the viewing. In response to criticism from the university's Muslim Students Association chapter, Hamline's Vice President for Inclusive Excellence criticized the incident as Islamophobic. The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, PEN America, Muslim Public Affairs Council, and Council on American–Islamic Relations all issued statements supporting the professor's academic freedom. In addition, the case prompted a formal investigation by the American Association of University Professors. In January 2023, the professor sued for religious discrimination and defamation, prompting Hamline University officials to retract their accusations of Islamophobia. ==See also==