The head of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) has rejected a fatwa, or an Islamic religious decree, issued last week against Danish cartoonists who drew cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad.
An Islamic court in northern India said this week it issued a fatwa calling for the death of the 12 cartoonists.
The cartoons, printed in a Danish newspaper in September and reprinted in several European newspapers, are seen by many Muslims as offensive to the Muslim community and blasphemous.
The OIC’s Secretary General Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu said fatwas condemning these cartoonists to death are “very dangerous.” He also called on Muslims to end the deadly riots that have erupted across the Muslim world, the Gulf Daily News reported.
Ihsanoglu said such fatwas harm the Muslim cause. “Nobody should adhere to it because it goes against the essence of Islam and the Prophet’s teachings. Nobody has the authority to kill anybody,” he said.
A Pakistani cleric and an Indian government minister have also offered a bounty for killing the artists.
Ihsanoglu issued a joint statement on February 7 with European Union Foreign Policy Chief Javier Solana and United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan. The statement called the pictures “offensive caricatures” and said the anguish Muslims felt “is shared by all individuals and communities who recognize the sensitivity of deeply held religious belief.” However, they condemned the violence that erupted after the cartoons were published.