The Englishman Who Explained Muhammad and Islam...

...did so almost a century ago!

You've probably heard of him...

...H G Wells!

Yep, the guy who wrote War of the Worlds, Time Machine, Things to Come, and numerous other seminal sci-fi tales also did quite a bit of highly-acclaimed non-fiction, including the incredibly-popular Outline of History: Being a Plain History of Life and Mankind, first published in 1919!

It caught on first in Britain and America and then throughout the rest of the Western world, selling over two million copies in its first decade of publication, receiving highly enthusiastic reviews.

(Even twenty years after its initial publication, The Outline of History was so well-known to the public that, in The Maltese Falcon, Sidney Greenstreet's malevolent Kasper Gutman tells Humphrey Bogart's Sam Spade that the legend of the Falcon is true..."These are facts, historical facts, not schoolbook history, not Mr. Wells' History, but history nevertheless.")

Coming right after the carnage of World War I, the Outline was neither unduly pessimistic and cynical about the human condition nor Pollyannaish about humanity's future.

Instead, it offered an account of the development of the world's civilizations (including Asian and African, usually left out of Eurocentric "histories") up to the (then) present, to convince readers that an enlightened future depended on a clear, unprejudiced/un-nationalistic view of the past.

His look at Islam and Muhammed, found HERE, is a fascinating piece of scholarship.

I suggest you read it...with the caveat that the OCR scanning or keyboarding has a couple of glitches.

The complete Outline can be downloaded from The Gutenberg Project HERE or read and/or downloaded from Archive.Org HERE.

The Muhammad Cartoon You NEVER Saw!

Remember when this cartoon ran in your local newspaper's Sunday funnies on October 3rd?
Nope.
Because they DIDN'T!
Read the fascinating explanations by newspaper editors as to why they didn't run a cartoon that DOESN'T SHOW Muhammad HERE!
Ironically, you CAN order a huge color print for your wall by clicking HERE!

The Cartoon Book WITHOUT Cartoons!

"...except we won't show you the cartoons!"

"Freedom of speech is at stake here, don't you all see?
If anything, we should ALL make cartoons of Muhammad, and show the terrorists and the extremists that we are all united in the belief that every person has a right to say what they want!
Look, people, it's... been real easy for us to stand up for free speech lately!
For the past few decades we haven't had to risk anything to defend it.
But those times are going to come!
And one of those times is right now!
And if WE... aren't willing to RISK... what we have, then we just believe in free speech, but we don't defend it."
Chris in South Park "Cartoon Wars"

It's a sad world where a cartoon character has more sense and courage than John Donatich, the director of Yale University Press, publishers of an upcoming book by a noted authority on Islam about the Muhammad editorial cartoons published in a Danish newspaper in 2005, and the ensuing controversy (to put it mildly)!

The book, The Cartoons that Shook the World!, will NOT contain the cartoons themselves!

It's like doing a book analyzing the classic comic strip Peanuts, but not using a single illustration of Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Linus, Lucy, or any of the characters, or reprinting any of the strips!
Instead the author would just describe them in the text!

In addition, Yale removed all the other Muhammad images included in the book as comparisons, including centuries-old fine art published in encyclopedias and currently on exhibit in noted museums!

Needless to say, author Jytte Klausen is pissed!
She said “Muslim friends, leaders and activists thought that the incident was misunderstood, so the cartoons needed to be reprinted so we could have a discussion about it.”
Makes sense, right?

Donatich is quoted as saying the reason NOT to print the cartoons in the reference book was “when it came between that and blood on my hands, there was no question.”
What the hell is he talking about?
There has been no outcry about the book's impending publication, despite the fact that it was originally announced last year!
No death threats!
No fatwahs!
So, what is Donatich afraid of?
Is he buying into the stereotype of Muslims being fanatics who would kill him for publishing this book?
An academic who believes in ethnic stereotypes?
Now THAT'S scary!