THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume X, Issue # 58, February 28, 2008
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
DESTROYING SCULPTURES OF MUHAMMAD
By Dr. Daniel Pipes
ISLAMIST ATTEMPTS TO SUPPRESS FREE SPEECH IN THE WEST: THE ISLAMISTS' MIXED SUCCESS IN CURBING
WESTERN FREEDOM OF SPEECH ABOUT MUHAMMAD -- PRESSURE BY MUSLIMS ON THE WEST TO CONFORM TO ISLAMIC
CUSTOMS -- THE CONTEMPORARY (I.E., ISLAMIST) APPROACH: HIGH-HANDED DEMANDS BACKED UP BY ANGRY
MOBS, RIOTS, & TERRORIST PLOTS
FULL STORY:
A cartoon of Muhammad by Kurt Westergaard, published on September 30, 2005, along with eleven others, attracted
the most attention and generated the highest degree of anger.
This month, Denmark's police foiled a terrorist plot to murder Kurt Westergaard, the cartoonist who drew the strongest
of the Muhammad pictures, prompting most of the country's newspapers to reprint his cartoon as an act of solidarity
and a signal to Islamists that their threats and violence will not succeed.
This incident points to the Islamists' mixed success in curbing Western freedom of speech about Muhammad – think of
Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses or the Deutsche Oper's production of Mozart's Idomeneo. If threats of
violence sometimes do work, they as often provoke, anger, and inspire resistance. A polite demarche can achieve more.
Illustrating this, note two parallel efforts, dating from 1955 and 1997, to remove nearly-identical American courthouse
sculptures of Muhammad.
In 1997, the Council on American-Islamic Relations demanded that part of a 1930s frieze in the main chamber of the U.S.
Supreme Court building in Washington, D.C. be sandblasted into oblivion, on the grounds that Islam prohibits
representations of its prophet. The seven-foot high marble relief by Adolph Weinman depicts Muhammad as one of 18
historic lawgivers. His left hand holds the Koran in book form -- a jarring historical inaccuracy from the Muslim
point of view -- and his right holds a sword.
In regard to the Supreme Court frieze depiction of Muhammad. Official Court information points out:
"The figure above is a well-intentioned attempt by the
sculptor, Adolph Weinman, to honor Muhammad and
it bears no resemblance to Muhammad. Muslims
generally have a strong aversion to sculptured or
pictured representations of their Prophet."
Chief Justice William Rehnquist, however, rejected CAIR's pressure, finding that the depiction "was intended only to
recognize [Muhammad] … as an important figure in the history of law; it is not intended as a form of idol worship."
Rehnquist only conceded that court literature should mention that the representation offends Muslim sensibilities. His
decision met with riots and injuries in India.
In contrast, back in 1955, a campaign to censor a representation of Muhammad in another American court building did
succeed. That would be the New York City-based courthouse of the Appellate Division, First Department of the New
York State Supreme Court. Built in 1902, it featured on its roof balustrade an eight-foot marble statue of "Mohammed"
by Charles Albert Lopez as one of ten historic lawgivers. This Muhammad statue also held a Koran in his left
hand and a scimitar in the right.
Though visible from the street, the identities of the lawgivers high atop the building were difficult to discern. Only with
a general overhaul of the building in February, 1953, including its statues, did the public become aware of their identities.
The Egyptian, Indonesian, and Pakistani Ambassadors to the United Nations responded by asking the U.S. Department
of State to use its influence to have the Muhammad statue not renovated but removed.
Characteristically, the U.S. State Department dispatched two employees to convince New York City's Public Works
Commissioner, Frederick H. Zurmuhlen, to accommodate the ambassadors. The court, Chief Clerk George T. Campbell,
reported, "also got a number of letters from Mohammedans about that time, all asking the court to get rid of the statue."
All seven appellate justices recommended to Zurmuhlen that he take down the statue.
Even though, as Time magazine put it, "the danger that any large number of New Yorkers would take to
worshiping the statue was, admittedly, minimal," the ambassadors got their way. Zurmuhlen had the offending statue
carted off to a storehouse in Newark, New Jersey. As Zurmuhlen figured out what to do with it, the Times
reported, in 1955, the statue "has lain on its back in a crate for several months." Its ultimate disposition is unknown.
Then, rather than replace the empty pedestal on the court building roof, where Muhhamad no longer stood, Zurmuhlen
had the nine remaining statues shifted around to disguise the empty space, with Zoroaster replacing Muhammad at the
westerly corner spot. Over a half-century later, that is where matters remain at the courthouse.
Recalling these events of 1955 suggests several points. First, pressure by Muslims on the West to conform to Islamic
customs predates the current Islamist era. Second, even when minimal numbers of Muslims lived in the West, such
pressures could succeed. Finally, contrasting the parallel 1955 and 1997 episodes suggests that the earlier approach of
ambassadors making polite representations – not high-handed demands backed up by angry mobs, much less terrorist
plots – can be the more effective route.
This conclusion confirms my more general point – and the premise of the Islamist Watch project – that Islamists
working quietly within the system achieve more than does ferocity and bellicosity. Ultimately, however, soft Islamism
presents dangers as great as does violent Islamism.
© Daniel Pipes 2008
Originally Published in the Jerusalem Post, February 28, 2008
Republished with the Permission of Daniel Pipes
Reprinted from the Daniel Pipes Mailing List, February 28,
Article URL: http://www.danielpipes.org/article/5487
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
Political Correctness, Censorship, Thought Control:
Supression of Unacceptable Views & Opinions
Denial of Rights to Free Speech & Free Press
Islamism & Jihadism -- The Threat of Radical Islam
Page Three
Page Two
Page One
Middle East -- Arabs, Arab States,
& Their Middle Eastern Neighbors
American Foreign Policy -- The Middle East
International Politics & World Disorder:
War & Peace in the Real World
Page Two
Page One
Islamist Terrorist Attacks on the U.S.A.
Osama bin Laden & the Islamist Declaration of War
Against the U.S.A. & Western Civilization
Islamist International Terrorism &
U.S. Intelligence Agencies
Counterterrorism & U.S. National Security
U.S. National Security Strategy
Dr. Daniel Pipes, a Ph.D. in Islamic History (Harvard University, 1978), is the Founder and Director of the Middle East Forum,
the Founder of Campus Watch, a signatory of the Project for the New American Century, a former board member of the U.S.
Institute of Peace, a former adjunct scholar at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a Golden Circle supporter of the
U.S. Committee for a Free Lebanon, a former member of the U.S. Department of Defense Special Task Force on Terrorism and
Technology, and a former lecturer at the U.S. Naval War College, Harvard University, the University of Chicago, and the
University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Pipes was the Director of the Foreign Policy Research Institute from 1986 to 1993.
Author or co-author of eighteen books, Dr. Pipes is a regular columnist for Front Page Magazine, the New York
Sun, and the Jerusalem Post. His analyses of world trends and of forces and developments in the Middle East
have appeared in numerous North American newspapers, including the Washington Post, the New York Times,
and the Wall Street Journal. He frequently appears on American network television, as well as at universities and
think tanks, to discuss the Middle East, Islam, and the Islamist threat to the U.S.A. and the West. He also has appeared on
BBC and Al Jazeera, and has lectured in approximately twenty-five countries.
Dr. Pipes is a Polish-American Jew whose parents fled Poland in 1939, immigrated to the U.S.A., and assimilated well into
American society and culture. His father is Richard Pipes, an American historian specializing in Russian and Soviet history
and serving as Professor of History at Harvard University from 1950 until his retirement in 1996. During the Cold War, the
worldview of Richard Pipes was strongly anti-Soviet and anti-Communist.
Return to Top of Page
Go to the WEBSITE INDEX
Return to Beginning of
THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA,
Public Issues & Political Controversies
Return to Beginning of
THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
Most Recent Articles
Return to Beginning of
THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA,
Volume X, 2007
Return to Beginning of
THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA,
Subject Matter Highlights
Return to POLITICAL EDUCATION Homepage
CONTACT & ACCESS INFORMATION
This is not a commercial website. The sole purpose of the website is to share with interested persons information regarding civics,
civic and social education, political science, government, politics, law, constitutional law and history, public policy, and political
philosophy and history, as well as current and recent political developments, public issues, and political controversies.
POLITICAL EDUCATION, CONSERVATIVE ANALYSIS
POLITICS, SOCIETY, & THE SOVEREIGN STATE
Website of Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr.
Government, Politics, Public Policy, Legal Issues, Constitutional Law, Government & the Economy, Cultural Values, Foreign Affairs,
International Relations, Military Defense & National Security, Geopolitics, Terrorism & Homeland Security, American National Interests,
Political Systems & Processes, Political Institutions, Political Ideologies, & Political Philosophy
INDEX FOR THE ENTIRE WEBSITE
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
M
N
O
P
Q
R
S
T
U
V
W
X
Y
Z
THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Conservative & Free-Market Analysis of Government, Politics & Public Policy, Covering Political, Legal, Constitutional, Economic,
Cultural, Military, International, Strategic, & Geopolitical Issues
Conservative Government Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity