An Italian Catholic magazine has published a cartoon depicting the Prophet Muhammed in hell.
Agence France-Presse explains:
The drawing in Studi Cattolici's March issue shows the poets Dante Alighieri and Virgil on the edge of a circle of flames looking down on Muhammad, whose body is cut in half down to his buttocks, according to a description by the Italian news agency ANSA.
"Isn't that Muhammad?" Virgil is shown asking Dante.
"Yes, and he's cut in two because he has brought division to society," Dante replies.
And predictably, some Muslims are outraged — not over terrorism done in their name but another cartoon.
Expect hand-wringing — including no mass re-publication of the cartoon by the western media and no appearance on "South Park" — and perhaps riots anytime now.
The backpedaling by the magazine's editor has already begun.
The London Telegraph reports:
Cesare Cavalleri, the editor of the magazine, said last night that he had not meant to cause offence. "If, contrary to my intentions and those of the author, anyone felt offended in his religious feelings, I freely ask him in a Christian manner for forgiveness."
That was a marked change of tone from an earlier statement, when he said: "We must not fear freedom of opinion." If the cartoon provoked an attack, it would only confirm "the idiotic positions" of Muslim extremists.
"This is not a cartoon against Mohammed. It is a cartoon which addresses the loss of the West's identity.
"Why all the fuss over a cartoon which only represents that which has already been written centuries ago by Dante Alighieri?"
Dante placed Mohammed in Hell in Canto 28 of The Divine Comedy. His work inspired a painting by William Blake, depicting Mohammed with his entrails hanging out, and a fresco in Bologna Cathedral showing him being tortured by a devil.
The new drawing threatens to reignite the controversy over a series of cartoons published by the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten last September and reproduced in France in February.
As Michelle Malkin, who gets the hat tip, notes, "Too bad (Cavalleri) didn't stick to his guns."
UPDATED, 8:10 a.m. EDT
Chris at Home has the William Blake drawing that inspired the cartoon.
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