An interesting article in the Daily Telegraph frames the question in an interesting way. As the author, Charlse Moore, notes:
“But, as I write, I have beside me a learned book about Islamic art and architecture which shows numerous Muslim paintings from Turkey, Persia, Arabia and so on. These depict the Prophet preaching, having visions, being fed by his wet nurse, going on his Night-Journey to heaven, etc. The truth is that in Islam, as in Christianity, not everyone agrees about what is permissible.
Some of these depictions are in Western museums. What will the authorities do if the puritan factions within Islam start calling for them to be removed from display (this call has been made, by the way, about a medieval Christian depiction of the Prophet in Bologna)? Will their feeling of “offence” outweigh the rights of everyone else?
Obviously, in the case of the Danish pictures, there was no danger of idolatry, since the pictures were unflattering. The problem, rather, was insult. But I am a bit confused about why someone like Qaradawi thinks it is insulting to show the Prophet’s turban turned into a bomb, as one of the cartoons does. He never stops telling us that Islam commands its followers to blow other people up.”
You should give it a read. His comments about how the whole thing seemed staged is a bit of speculation, and as speculation, may have little basis in fact. However, he does point out something I’ve noted elsewhere: the cartoons were published on 30 September 2005, and only now we are seeing a proliferation of Danish flags burned and paraded ‘where cameras are’, as he puts it.
“The complained-of cartoons first appeared in October; they have provoked such fury only now. As reported in this newspaper yesterday, it turns out that a group of Danish imams circulated the images to brethren in Muslim countries. When they did so, they included in their package three other, much more offensive cartoons which had not appeared in Jyllands-Posten but were lumped together so that many thought they had.”
There are, also, reports about how Danish Imams have been going about inciting other muslims with packaged pictures that did not appear on Jyllands-Posten, and which were far more offensive. The work of well-coordinated extremist Muslims or mere hate-mongering? Who knows?
Related link: muslim uproar over caricatures: an overview.