BY PAUL WILLIAM ROBERTS

From Saturday’s Globe and Mail (Section F1)
February 11, 2006

Mecca sits in a barren valley between two ranges of steep hills in the west of what is now Saudi Arabia. Immediately to its west lies the bleak and blistering Red Sea coast; to the east stretches the vast Rub’ al-Khali, or Empty Quarter — the largest continuous body of sand on Earth.

The setting is forbidding: The ground is hot, dry and dusty, the horizon wobbles under a relentless sun; the entire region is scrubbed by searing desert winds. Years can pass without rainfall, but when rain does come it is often torrential, with flash floods that stream out of the hills and drown the basin in which the city lies.

As a backdrop for divine revelation, the place has much in common with the mountains of Sinai and the deserts of Judea, and is thus a fitting birthplace for the Prophet of Islam, the man at the centre of this current storm, the man depicted in those notorious Danish cartoons that in no way represent the faith followed by more than one billion human beings.

I trample under my feet all distinctions between

man and man, all hatred between man and man.

— Mohammed, upon conquering Mecca

One thing is certain, Mohammed himself would probably have found the cartoons amusing, for we are told that he had a great sense of humour. We also know what his suggested response to this insult would have been: Let Muslim newspapers print cartoons showing Danish cartoonists’ ignorance of our religion. For the ethics of Islam are based on “limits and proportions,” and prescribe something approximating an eye for an eye when it comes to retribution.

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