Everyone who reads this explanation, please sign CHRISTIANE GRUBER’S petition to “REINSTATE THE PROFESSOR IN HIS CLASS” here: https://www.change.org/p/petition-in-support-of-the-dismissed-hamline-instructor-wrongly-accused-of-islamophobiaWhat was the professor’s crime? He dared to show a 14th century painting of Muhammad in his class on “Islamic Art”!Hamline University, a united Methodist affiliated school, in St. Paul, Minnesota, apologized to Muslim students after an adjunct professor showed a depiction of the prophet Muhammad in an ‘Islamic Art’ class on Oct. 6,2022.Aram Wedatalla, the president of the Muslim Student Association, complained to the administration, saying it was offensive and disrespectful to Muslims. She said “”I’m like, ‘This can’t be real. As a Muslim, and a Black person, I don’t feel like I belong, and I don’t think I’ll ever belong in a community where they don’t value me as a member, and they don’t show the same respect that I show them”.David Everett (Hamline’s associate vice president of inclusive excellence) emailed the staff on Nov. 7 and described the incident as “undeniably inconsiderate, disrespectful and Islamophobic…inlieu of this incident, it was decided it was best that this faculty member was no longer part of the Hamline community”.Mark Berkson, the professor of religion at Hamline wrote in defense of the professor, in the school newspaper, saying, “these students, like many religious people, do not know about some aspects of their own tradition. In this case, they do not realize how these images have been used in other parts of the Muslim world and are still used today. They have a particular perspective, and I honor that. But as an academic institution, one group’s prohibition cannot be extended to everyone else.”The Oracle removed his comments after 2 days.Fayneese Miller, the school president then said, “it is not our intent to place blame; rather, it is our intent to note that in the classroom incident, where an image forbidden for Muslims to look upon was projected on the screen and left for many minutes. Respect for the observant Muslim students in that classroom should have superseded academic freedom. Many subjects contain controversial subject material but kindness for others was more important than academics. Academic freedom is very important, but it does not have to come at the expense of care, and indecency towards others”. If you disagree with her you can e-mail her at: President@hamline.eduThe School, supporting President Miller explained, “For those of us who have been entrusted with the responsibility of educating the next generation of leaders and engage citizens, it was important that our Muslim students, as well as all other students, feel safe, supported, and respected both in and out of the classrooms” So, what was the painting which caused so much offense? It is a 14th century painting by medieval Islamic scholar Rashid al-Din (1247-1318), and shows Muhammad receiving his first revelation from the angel Gabriel. It is the property of the Edinburg university library.Ironically, the professor gave students both written and verbal notifications that the painting would be shown and allowed the students not to participate if they did not want to. The instructor was nonetheless, fired without due process.Muslims scholars have rushed to defend the painting. Ali Asan, Prof. of Islamic religion and culture at Harvard wrote, “The painting was intended to extol Muhammad, not to denigrate him. To make blanket statements that this is prohibited, especially the image in question, is absolutely wrong. It shows illiteracy about the Islamic religion”.Omid Safi (the professor of Asian and Middle Eastern studies at Duke University) wrote, “I tell students we’re going to be looking at Muslim devotional art. I know some students may not have seen these before, and some may have even been told it’s not done, but it’s a historical part of our tradition. And I certainly do not give students the choice to opt out”.Christiane Gruber, the professor of Islamic art at the University of Michigan, who has authored books on the subject, and so possibly the most capable to understand Islamic art said, “historic representations of the prophet Muhammad, his face sometimes veiled, sometimes not, can be viewed at the Louvre in Paris, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, in the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco. Through conflation or confusion, Hamline has privileged an ultraconservative Muslim view on the subject that happens to coincide with the age old Western cliché that Muslims are banned from viewing images of the prophet”.She has now started a change.org petition to reinstate the instructor, which you can sign above. We must not allow uninformed students and staff to stop our “freedom of speech”© Pfander Centre for Apologetics – US, 2022(69,740) Music: “New Beginning” by Rafael Krux, from filmmusic-io