While furor builds over the satirical cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammad in Danish and European newspapers, lost is the fact that his likeness has long been portrayed in art without exciting alarm, says the Washington Times, which quoted UGA’s Islamic studies professor Alan A. Godlas: “The reason these cartoons sparked such a reaction has more to do with the tensions that were already there between the Islamic world and the West, and because in the age of the Internet, what goes on anywhere in the world is heard and seen everywhere,” he said.
