Eleventh International Conference on Religion & Spirituality in Society

Abstract

Nearly 15 years after the publication of the first collection of cartoons dealing with Islamic religious symbols in the Danish press, cultural and political relations between the West and the Islamic world have witnessed multiple events that revealed the nature and understanding of historical relations between the worlds and the role of contemporary media in formulating them (Modood, 2020). This study seeks to understand the positions of a group of opinion leaders of intellectuals and influencers who represent cultural and political currents in a number of Arab countries from the phenomenon of cartoons in the Western media. It evaluates the intense reactions by rage witnessed in multiple Islamic and Arab countries after the release of these drawings between 2005 - 2008 (Zaytoon, 2017), and asks them basic questions: Did the Arab media practice and opinion leaders and intellectuals play a huge incitement role that provoked the Western media’s handling of Islamic religious symbols or that this practice by the Arab media and opinion leaders came to be expected and consistent with the Arab-Islamic cultural context and its limits (Hussain, 2007) - and has there been a change in the way these intellectual and political currents understand freedom of expression and the concept of religious symbols in exchange for the continued issuance of judgments in the context of traditional stereotypes (Steiner, 2012)?