[Foundation-l] Muhammad

[Florence Devouard]

Oldak Quill wrote:
> On 03/03/2008, Florence Devouard <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>> Hello,
>>
>> We received an email on OTRS. I'll copy it in its entirety here for
>> consideration, and will do a very simple translation. I think the
>> proposal is interesting to reflect on.
>>
>> ---------
>>
>> Hello,
>>
>> I receive a lot of petition regarding the removal of our prophet.
>>
>> I am myself against the removal, because it shows how the friday prayer
>> is important for muslims.
>>
>> However, it so happens that the man on the image represents not the
>> prophet, but an imam (Ali, since the image is from Persia). In various
>> descriptions of our prophet, it was said that he had a very long beard
>> and it could be seen when he was talking very softly because his beard
>> was moving (which was not the case of Ali).
>>
>> May I suggest a solution ?
>> - Change of the name of the picture to islam.jpg instead of mohamet.jpg
>> - Change of the description which could say something like "groups of
>> muslims during the friday prayer in ancient times (date ?)"
>>
>> I love your encyclopedia for its richness, and conflict leads to
>> nowhere. It is sometimes necessary to concede things, both from readers
>> and from editors. But if a group is disturbed by something to the point
>> of requesting removal, then it means the solution chosen is not the good
>> one.
>> I thank you for creating such a rich and free encyclopedia, and thank
>> you for reading me.
>>
>> Bennani M.
> 
> Seems like a good solution for one image. We shouldn't assert that an
> image is one person if we are not certain that the image does depict
> that person. If we aren't sure, the caption should convey this ("Some
> scholars believe this to be a depiction of Muhammad"). Which image in
> particular is he referring to, because there are several on the
> en.Wikipedia article, most of which are known to show Muhammad? Is he
> even referring to en.wikipedia?

Apparently this image: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Maome.jpg

It represents Friday prayer.
Indeed, the beard is very short, whilst here, it is very long: 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Mohammed_kaaba_1315.jpg

> Still, this doesn't help images which are known to depict Muhammad's
> face (such as plates from the [[Siyer-i Nebi]], including "Prophet
> Muhammad at the Ka'ba").

Indeed

ant

(not a Muhamad specialist :-))