What would Muhammad do?
That's one question the Council on American-Islamic Relations hopes to help answer as violence in some Muslim countries over unflattering cartoons of Islam's prophet continues to claim lives and fuel tensions between the Islamic and Western worlds.
The Washington-based Muslim advocacy group launched a year-long campaign Tuesday (Feb. 14) called "Explore the Life of Muhammad."
CAIR will allow visitors to its Web site to order either "Muhammad," a biography, or "Muhammad: Legacy of a Prophet," a PBS documentary on DVD. Both are from 2002. CAIR will also help Muslim communities arrange their own events, such as documentary screenings, panel discussions and mosque open houses, and hopes to eventually expand the effort to Europe.
Last May, CAIR started an "Explore the Quran" campaign after reports alleging that American soldiers desecrated Islam's holy book sparked deadly riots in parts of the Muslim world. CAIR offered to send copies of Islam's holy book to anyone who asked, and has since received requests for more than 27,000, it said.
As the Muhammad campaign was launched Tuesday, violence fueled by the cartoons left two people dead in Pakistan.
Several European newspapers republished the controversial cartoons, some depicting Muhammad as a terrorist, two weeks ago. They were originally published last September in a Danish newspaper, Jyllands-Posten.
Hooper said he hopes the campaign will send the message that Muhammad would condemn the violence. "We've been reminding Muslims that violence and other inappropriate responses only serve to reinforce existing stereotypes," Hooper said.
Muhammad epitomized forgiveness and compassion in the face of hostility, Hooper said.
Imam Mohamed Magid, executive director of the All Dulles Area Muslim Society near Washington, D.C., which serves about 5,000 families, praised the initiative, but also said Muslims should look at anti-Semitism in their own media. The CAIR campaign does not address anti-Semitism in Muslim media.
"Muslims should speak up on this also," Magid said. "If you don't like something for yourself, you should not like it for others. Bigotry is bigotry."
