Recent Responses to the Controversy


The furor over the Danish cartoons has provoked a wide variety of responses from the media and from artists. Several European publications not only reprinted the original cartoons, but published new cartoon portraits of Mohammed as well. Many professional and amateur artists have also been inspired to fashion their own satirical portraits of Mohammed as a statement about freedom of speech. (The contemporary depictions of Mohammed on this page are for the most part respectful, neutral, or at most mildly satirical. To see new Mohammed portraits that are intentionally direspectful and/or obscene, go to the Extreme Mohammed page.)



Filibuster cartoons featured a comic that pointedly exposed the hypocrisy of the Islamic response.
(Hat tip: Ole and Benjamin.)
 

A wide selection of Mohammed Smileys -- also known as Mocons (Mohammed Icons) -- are available at Hodja's Blog:

Muhammad (((:~{>
Muhammad playing Little Orphan Annie (((8~{>
Muhammad as a pirate (((P~{>
Muhammad as Moshe Dayan (((P~{>
Muhammad on a bad turban day ))):~{>
Muhammad with sand in his eye (((;~{>
Muhammad wearing sunglasses (((B~{>
Muhammad giving the raspberry. (((:~{>
Giving Muhammad the raspberry. ;-P
Mohammad with a lit bomb in his turban *-O)):~{>
The devil mo ]:~{>
Mohammed with a bomb in his turban. *@(((:~{>>
Mohammed with a nuclear bomb in his turban. @=(((:~{>

Mocons are the most efficient way to digitally propagate the maximum amount of Mohammed imagery per byte.

This stencilled graffiti version of one of the cartoons on a wall was photographed by a reader in Hamburg, Germany on February 16, 2006. The words under the image say, "Hallo Mittelalter '06" -- "Hello Middle Ages '06".
(Hat tip: Tim.)


On February 1, France Soir newspaper published this cartoon on its cover, caricaturing Mohammed equally with other religious figures. The artist Delize drew another similar cartoon as well.
(Hat tip: Gathers and etienne.)



On February 3, Le Monde newspaper published this cartoon by artist Plantu on its front page -- a drawing of Mohammed composed of sentences that say "Je ne dois pas dessiner Mahomet," or "I must not draw Mohammed."
(Hat tip: John, Erik, and Breteuil.)



Several postmodern satirists have highlighted the point that -- since no one really knows what Mohammed looked like -- any image could be said to depict him. To that end, they have captioned photos of their thumbs or rudimentary stick figures as "Mohammed." This image -- of a generic figure from the Danish toy company Lego, identified as being Mohammed -- is a good example of the genre.
(Hat tip: darmin.)


MSNBC political cartoonist Daryl Cagle emphasized the point with this response to the story, which includes a stick-figure Mohammed. Cagle also maintains an excellent collection of political cartoons about the controversy.


Mohammed offers some Koranic wisdom about meddlesome artists in the "Mohammed the Prophet Answers Your Emails" cartoon strip.


Charlie Hebdo, a French humor weekly, published an issue devoted to Mohammed satires (visible here) on February 7 after winning a court case granting them permission to do so. The publication has sparked anger in France's Muslim community. In the cartoon above, Mohammed is saying, "It's hard to be loved by idiots."
(Hat tip: etienne.)


Le Nouvel Observateur also has scans of the Charlie Hebdo edition online, including this panel with two surrealist visual jokes: the one on top says, "Can one represent Mohammed...like he is today?"; the bottom caption says, "This is not a caricature of the Prophet" (a take-off on This Magritte painting).
(Hat tip: Martin.)

When a Russian newspaper published this cartoon, it was shut down by authorities and its editor faced criminal charges.
(Hat tip: Martin.)

This black-light painting of a kitschy evil Elvis-Mohammed was created by the team at Velvet Prophet.
(To get a version that doesn't have the "Copy" watermark on it, you'd have to buy one of the Velvet Prophet paintings or t-shirts.)
(Hat tip: Killgore Trout.)


Many pundits, weary of repeating his name so often, have given Mohammed the nickname "Mo" -- which inspired this portrait of Mo as Moe of the Three Stooges.

"Mohammed -- Seconds before his destruction," is the title of this anonymous allegorical montage. A full-size version can be viewed here.
 

This unusual complimentary portrait compares Mohammed with Miss Liberty as a political liberator against tyrants.
(Hat tip: Martin.)


The board of Finnish culture magazine Kaltio fired its editor for publishing a five-panel comic about Mohammed; the first panel is shown here, and the other four are visible in the linked article. (High-resolution versions can be downloaded here.) Editor Jussi Vilkkuna was told to leave after he refused to remove the cartoons from the publication's website as requested by the magazine's board of directors. He served as editor for almost seven years.
(Hat tip: Paul B., nord, Tuomas H., and Martin.)

Links to additional recent images:

The Six Faces of Mohammed is Macker's Warholesque parody of the most notorious Danish cartoon.

Click here to return to the main Mohammed Image Archive page

Other Archive Sections:
Islamic Depictions of Mohammed in Full
Islamic Depictions of Mohammed with Face Hidden
European Medieval and Renaissance Images
Miscellaneous Mohammed Images
Book Illustrations
Dante's Inferno
French Book Covers
Satirical Modern Cartoons
The Jyllands-Posten Cartoons
Recent Responses to the Controversy
Extreme Mohammed
Email Responses from Readers
Links