She came to the Sudan … and cashed her salary in dollars

This teacher could have received 40 lashes, but was sentenced instead to 15 days in jail — while demonstrators are calling for her execution. Her crime? Officially, that she allowed her students to name a class teddy bear “Muhammad”. Scholars can debate whether this is in any way an offense against Islam (though I am amazed that it could be thought so). But the real cause for grievance may be rather more base: “A Muslim cleric at Khartoum’s main Martyrs Mosque denounced Gibbons during one sermon, saying she intentionally insulted Islam. He did not call for protests, however. ‘Imprisoning this lady does not satisfy the thirst of Muslims in Sudan. But we welcome imprisonment and expulsion’, the cleric, Abdul-Jalil Nazeer al-Karouri, a well-known hard-liner, told worshippers. ‘This an arrogant woman who came to our country, cashing her salary in dollars, teaching our children hatred of our Prophet Muhammad’, he said”. The report on the demonstrations in Sudan are here.


Here are some excerpts from remarks made by British Muslims — of a decidedly different tone — included in an Associated Press “Questions and Answers” file on the “teddy bear controversy”: “Shaykh Ibrahim Mogra, who chairs the interfaith council of the Muslim Council of Britain, says the Sudanese trial was more political than religious. Gibbons did make a mistake, he says, but it was an innocent one. A Muslim teacher would not have named a teddy bear Muhammad because ‘they know the score with the name’, Mogra said, adding that such stuffed toys were largely alien to Sudanese culture. ‘In Britain, there are hardly any children who grew up without a teddy bear’, Mogra said. In the Sudanese culture, the bear is not a cuddly thing. It is seen as vicious, ferocious animal, and when you use the name Muhammad and attach it to a ferocious animal, there is scope there for it to cause (suspicion)’.” The AP Q and A file is posted here.

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