As the controversy surrounding the publication of satirical caricatures of Muhammed in a Danish magazine continues—prompting the recall of ambassadors and the torching of consulates—some commentators from within the Muslim world have offered more nuanced, less virulent responses.
Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani of Iraq—a deeply pious man and certainly not a lackey of decadent Western interests—decried the pictures, but conspicuously did not call for violence and even blamed Muslim extremists for this distorted image of Islam:
In Iraq, the country's top Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, decried the drawings but did not call for protests.
"We strongly denounce and condemn this horrific action," he said in a statement posted on his Web site and dated Tuesday.
Al-Sistani, who wields enormous influence over Iraq's majority Shiites, made no call for protests and suggested that militant Muslims were partly to blame for distorting Islam's image.
He referred to "misguided and oppressive" segments of the Muslim community and said their actions "projected a distorted and dark image of the faith of justice, love and brotherhood."
"Enemies have exploited this ... to spread their poison and revive their old hatreds with new methods and mechanisms," he said.
Muhammad al-Hamadi of the United Arab Emirates' newspaper Al-Ittihad took the "it's our fault" line one step further
The world has come to believe that Islam is what is practiced by Bin Laden, Zawahiri, Zarqawi, the Muslim Brotherhood, the Salafis, and others who have presented a distorted image of Islam. We must be honest with ourselves and admit that we are the reason for these drawings. Any harm to the Prophet or Islam is a result of Muslims who have come to reflect the worst image of Islam and certain Arabs who have not conveyed faithfully the life and biography of the Prophet.
Finally, an editorial in a Jordania paper asked
"Who offends Islam more? A foreigner who endeavors to draw the prophet as described by his followers in the world, or a Muslim with an explosive belt who commits suicide in a wedding party in Amman or elsewhere."
Perhaps this cartoon business will have the unintended effect of forcing moderate Muslims to take a more proactive role in how their religion is viewed in the West. An aggressive PR blitz by the moderates might be just what Islam needs to rescue it from the hands of a minority of extremist fundamentalists.
