Danish Mohammed Cartoons

A 500 years old Mohammed cartoon: Mohammed asleep while drunk

Do you remember two years ago, when Western media cowardly refused to show their audience the "terrible" cartoons, so the audience could form their own opinion? One of the most hypocritical papers was the N.Y.Times, who refused to show the cartoons they were describing (out of "respect"), but instead illustrated their article with a picture of the Virgin Mary made out of elephant dung - out of "respect" for whom?

But there was a time when the N.Y.Times were free of censorship. A 100 years ago, in November 1908 (PDF-file) the paper featured an almost full-size picture of a print by Lucas von Leyden illustrating the sad story of Mohammed's friend getting murdered and the drunken Mohammed getting the blame. From the article:

The famous print of the year, 1508, is an illustration of the story of the Prophet Mohammed and the Monk Sergius. Mohammed, when in company with his friend Sergius, drank too much wine and fell asleep. Before he awakened a soldier killed Sergius and placed the sword in Mohammed's hand. When the prophet wakened the soldier and his companions told him that while drunk he had slain the monk. Therefore Mohammed forbade the drinking of wine by his followers.

While Mohammed sleeps, the murderer places a sword in his hand.

It's a sad story indeed. According to the N.Y.Times, Mohammed was a drunkard, who didn't even know whether he had killed his good friend.

The N.Y.Times even informs us that parts of the Holy Quran were made up by Mohammed. Wine, we're told, is forbidden in the Quran, not because Allah wills it, but because of Mohammed's moral hangover.

It's a sad story indeed that the N. Y. Times were less fettered by censorship a hundred years ago than today.

The picture in the article isn't very clear, so click at the one to the left instead.