Today is Everybody Draw Mohammed Day, an initiative launched by a Seattle cartoonist as a response to the Comedy Central/Southpark/Mohammed cartoons/Mohammed in a bear suit nonsense. Apparently the creators have now dropped the gag after it became controversial. This is definitely the cartoonist’s prerogative and it’s ludicrous to judge a person’s safety concerns when people have died for some lousy cartoons. Still, let’s not let the creator’s withdrawal spoil the party, shall we?
The first picture is not my drawing, it is an Islamic drawing of Mohammed. For of course part of this day should be spreading awareness that the idea that Mohammed shouldn’t be drawn is nonsense at every level. Muslims have been drawing Mohammed for centuries and I invite you to browse a decent archive of Islamic drawings of Mohammed. Of course even if there weren’t such things it would still be nonsense. But this makes it even more nonsensical.
Now here is my drawing and rather than mock Mohammed I wanted to draw a period piece. Here is Mohammed with his bride Aisha:
In case the relative heights and smile vs frown didn’t make it obvious, Mohammed seems to have been 53 while Aisha was 9 when their marriage was consumated. (Apparently they got married a few years before that but she lived with her parents.)
In today’s age of the infographic, I was afraid the enormity of this age difference would slip by so I prepared some charts. First a standard info chart:
And now, a pie chart so you can see the difference in 3D. Note how Mohammed is literally gobbling up Aisha in his clutches?!
And for the finale, a direct representation: middle-aged-man beards vs rattles. I was originally planning to make it into 2 columns but the difference was so huge I actually had to put half of Mohammad’s age into Aisha’s column. Symbollic, huh?
I know this was very common for his day etc etc. He was certainly no worse than his contemporaries who entered into similar marriages. But he was also no better. And now, over to you for your masterpieces of art…
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