Varying beliefs

The Hamline University student newspaper reports on the showing of images in an art history class a few weeks ago:

Hamline undergraduate students received an email from the Dean of Students on Nov. 7, condemning an unnamed classroom incident as “undeniably inconsiderate, disrespectful and Islamophobic.”

That must have been weird. “Hi students. There was a bad bad bad incident. Love, the Dean.”

The Oracle has since learned that the event in question occurred on Oct. 6, when a professor shared two depictions of the Prophet Muhammad in class, while discussing Islamic art. One was a 14th century depiction of the Prophet and the other was a 16th century depiction of the Prophet with veil and halo. 

In other words a professor showed images in a discussion of art history. What else are instructors supposed to do? Nobody has claimed (as far as I’ve seen) that the instructor was discussing Islamic art for no apparent reason and that he was supposed to be teaching Marketing 101. Assuming he was teaching art history or history or comparative religion or similar, what law or rule says he’s not allowed to use images in teaching? Hamline University is not a madrassa so why wouldn’t he shouldn’t he couldn’t he refer to images in doing so?

Why is there an assumption that this is at least rude (at worst all but murderous) to Muslim students? Why should their rules (or Catholic rules or Hindu rules or Lutheran rules) govern teaching at a university?

I tell you what, I don’t think there is any genuine religious outrage here. I think any Muslim students fanatical enough to be horrified by images labeled “Mohammed” in an art history class wouldn’t be at a secular university in the first place. They wouldn’t be in Minnesota in the first place. People that narrow and confined in their thinking aren’t going to run off to a mongrel country like the US, full of people from a whole range of religions, and with a hefty fraction of the citizenry that’s not religious at all.

It’s not real outrage, it’s an excuse to make a big stink and get a lot of attention.

The Oracle goes on:

Within Islam, there are varying beliefs regarding whether the representation of the Prophet Muhammad is acceptable. The majority of those practicing Islam today believe it is forbidden to see and create representations of Prophet Muhammad.

That’s nice, but their beliefs about what is forbidden don’t govern anyone else. It’s like someone who works for Facebook moving over to Twitter and getting into a rage over some Facebook rule that isn’t a rule at Twitter. You’re not in Kansas any more, Dorothy.

Aram Wedatalla, a Hamline senior and the president of Muslim Student Association (MSA), was in the class at the time the photos were shared.

“I’m like, ‘this can’t be real,’” Wedatalla told the Oracle. “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.”

What respect is that though? What images are forbidden in that other community that Wedatalla respectfully keeps out of sight?

Crickets.

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