Once again faithful followers of the Prophet Muhammad have shown the world that Islam is an inherently peaceful relgion. I've heard it so many times from Muslim clerics on TV, but I never really believed it until I saw how smoothly the Miss World pageant was received in Nigeria. The good Muslims of Kaduna peacefully indicated their objection to the event, but did not seek to forcibly interfere with the activities of those who disagree. And when they were religiously offended by the irresponsible journalism, rather than burn down the newspaper's offices (which any liberal westerner would do), they went through the proper legal channels. According to Reuters, "This Day published an article on November 16 which said the Prophet Mohammad would probably have married one of the contestants in the beauty pageant, which had been scheduled to take place in the capital Abuja on December 7. This Day, which has apologized for the article, said the editor of its Saturday edition, Simon Kolawole, was arrested on Friday and had not been seen since." All's well that ends well. Innocuous comments like that have no place in a religiously respectful society. I hope that editor is never heard from again.
So I say Kudos to the moderate, peaceful Muslims of Nigeria for respecting the rule of law, and for agreeing to disagree without being disagreeable. The New York Times published a thorough account of how civilly Kaduna's Islamic majority interfaced with the global marketplace of ideas:
At least 105 people have been reported killed in the fighting between Christians and Muslims in the northern city of Kaduna in the past few days. The violence spread today to Abuja, the capital, where the Miss World Pageant was to have had its finale on Dec. 7. The rioting started after an article published on Nov. 16 in the newspaper ThisDay, in Lagos, the commercial capital, seemed to defend the pageant against Muslim protests. The article implied that the Prophet Muhammad would have been happy to marry one of the contestants.
Nigeria was selected to be the host for the contest after a Nigerian contender, Agbani Darego, won last year's competition. But the plan was contentious from the start, after several contestants threatened to withdraw to protest a Nigerian Shariah court's sentence to death by stoning for Amina Lawal, who was found guilty of bearing a child out of wedlock.
In the newspaper article, the writer, Isioma Daniel, wrote: "What would Muhammad think? In all honesty, he would probably have chosen a wife from among them." The newspaper initially published a brief apology after Muslims complained that it was offensive.
But as fury built over the reference to Muhammad, Muslim youths attacked and burned the newspaper's office in Kaduna, the scene of fighting between Muslims and the city's Christian minority in which thousands of people were killed two years ago after imposition of Shariah law, governed by the Koran. The Nigerian Red Cross said today that 500 people had been treated in hospitals and that more than 3,000 had been left homeless by the fighting, which began Wednesday.
The death toll remained uncertain because some bodies of people killed by civilians or security forces were thrown down wells or taken away and burned, residents told Reuters. Mosques and churches were said to have been burned to the ground. And today, a Reuters correspondent reported seeing 13 more bodies on the dusty streets of the city.
The rioting in Kaduna persisted today despite official attempts to impose a 24-hour curfew. Muslim residents apparently took the curfew as an attempt to prevent them from attending Friday prayers and ignored it, pouring onto the streets, witnesses said. Earlier in Abuja, Muslims leaving a mosque after prayers reportedly stampeded, attacking people they believed to be Christians before police fired tear gas to disperse them, according to The Associated Press.
Mr. Obasanjo blamed the rioting on the newspaper article, not the contest. "The beauty queens should not feel that they are the cause of the violence," he said. "It could happen at any time irresponsible journalism is committed against Islam."
So we see the consequences of straying from total theocracy; of allowing the existence of a press which is not directly controlled by religious authorities. It is sad that a simple newspaper can perpetrate such violence on a community. This Day no doubt staged all of this violence in the hope of blaming it on Islam, much in the same way that the Jews staged the holocaust in order to gain the world's sympathy in Israel's struggle against Palestine. If the U.N. is involved in Israel, surely it should be involved in Nigeria. Someone must protect all those peaceful Muslims from words which might offend them.
