Apparently it's disrespectful to see them

Feb 7, 2008 11:08 GMT  ·  By

Religion has dragged behind it many bloody wars for as long as history can count and it's most definitely not going to stop now. With time, though, man has increasingly become more rational and has begun to value life over everything else. The wars fought today don't involve capes and medieval swords, but are more in the area of words and logical arguments, leaving behind the dark times of "I love my god and that's why you must die, heretic!"

Wikipedia has received increasing numbers of emails over the article relating to Muhammad and they all complained about the pictures that accompany it and depict the Prophet as a human being. The images, mostly paintings from manuscripts dating back to the Middle Ages, show various aspects of Muhammad's life and work.

The wave of protest was met by Wikipedia with a firm but polite answer, that it would stand its ground in this matter and not budge an inch, because "Since Wikipedia is an encyclopedia with the goal of representing all topics from a neutral point of view, Wikipedia is not censored for the benefit of any particular group," as its FAQ page writes. That's a pretty good mark of courage to face one of the biggest religions in the world of the followers. "We have been noticing a lot more similar sounding, similar looking e-mails beginning mid-January," Jay Walsh, spokesman for the San Francisco-based foundation, said.

Opinions over the matter have rallied into an online petition, signed so far by nigh 80,000 people, most of which decided to remain anonymous. Some of the comments following it were very straight to the point, like Saadia Bukhari's, who said that "It's totally unacceptable to print the prophet's picture. [�] It shows insensitivity towards Muslim feelings and should be removed immediately."