Leaders distinguish between religion, action of angry mobs

Jean Torkelson, Rocky Mountain News

Published February 7, 2006 at midnight

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Colorado's Muslim community briefly considered whether they should mount peaceful demonstrations against the Danish cartoons that mocked the Prophet Muhammad and sparked bloody riots overseas.

The decision was no, said Mohammad Noorzai, executive director of the Colorado Muslim Council, on Monday.

"My reaction was, we don't need to do that. We all condemn these (depictions)," Noorzai said. "We totally condemn these kind of (insults) about any religion - especially our own. In the meantime, we don't believe in rioting and violence."

Local leaders said they mostly have refrained from looking at the cartoons, which depict the prophet as a terrorist and bumpkin. Images, even sacred ones, of the prophet are considered a sacrilege in Islam.

There's also been a concern that the rioting overseas might reflect on American Muslims. But mostly, local leaders believe people can separate a religion from the actions of angry mobs.

"These are just incidents - people think deeper than that," Noorzai said. "People are emotional about their religion. But two wrongs do not make a right."

Arshad Yousufi, a spokesman in Colorado Springs, said, "When you do something provocative, there will be an extreme action from some parts."

He said that didn't excuse riots, but he believes they also were fueled by deeper political unrest around the world - in some cases anti-American sentiment - and frustration over events such as the recent deaths in the accidental sinking of an Egyptian ferry. He said he didn't expect the riots to create bad feelings for his local Muslim community: "People can distinguish between good and bad Christians and good and bad Muslims."

Ammar Amonette, a spiritual leader at the Colorado Muslim Society, said the rioters allowed themselves to be manipulated, which fed into the notion that Muslims are violent.

"That didn't do our community any good at all," he said.

Rima Barakat, a local Muslim activist, said, "The cartoons were very offensive, but we have to rise above this and recognize we have challenges as Muslims that are greater than cartoons."

Among them, she said, are women's issues, extremism and terrorism.

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