Yes, My New Book Teaching Kids About Religions Portrays Muhammad

[trotsky]

https://www.patheos.com/blogs/nosacredcows/2018/12/yes-my-new-book-teaching-kids-about-religions-portrays-muhammad/

My newest book, a collaboration with artist Chuck Harrison, teaches children about religions and where they come from. A lot of people have asked if that includes Muhammad and Islam, and the answer is yes.

I wrote about the Book of Religions yesterday, and explained that kids can create their own religion using the book’s animated instructions, but I didn’t talk about how Chuck and I handled the issue of Muhammad (and his visual portrayal) in the text itself. We threaded the needle carefully with the Belief Book and the Book of the Gods, but with this one we tackled the controversial issue head on.

For starters, Chuck’s cover has a not-so-subtle dig at the issue of censoring Muhammad’s face. Several people have noted that the cover has an outline around one character’s face, showing that he couldn’t be drawn. Here’s that image, along with the alternative art Chuck produced.

Excerpt from the book itself:

We’ll start with the second most popular and fastest-growing religion on the planet, Islam, a close relative to Christianity and another branch of Judaism. Islam is based on the teachings of its founder, Muḥammad, who believers (called Muslims) say was sent by God to help people. Muslims believe the purpose of life is to worship God, or “Allah,” and to give to charity without other people knowing (zakat). They also have strict rules against drawing their leader. In fact, some people have been killed just for making a cartoon of Muḥammad.

[3Hotdogs]

1. --- make your own religion. Now that's subversive.

I don't think Jesus likes that shit.

[Docreed2003]

2. It's interesting to me

How often Buddhism is portrayed with images of "Budai", rather than the traditional images of Gautama Buddha.

[Act_of_Reparation]

3. Familiarity.

Budai is more aesthetically accessible to western audiences than the traditional Indic deipictions of Siddhartha Guatama. That would be my guess, anyway.

[Docreed2003]

4. I suppose you are correct in your assessment

That's the only thing that makes practical sense. As westerners, we are hard pressed to miss seeing Budai/Hotei at our local sushi bars/Chinese restaurants. Just a curiosity to me!

[Act_of_Reparation]

5. What I mean to say is the style is more familiar to western tastes

A jovial, friendly, corpulent old man is perhaps more relatable to the average westerner than an emotionless, androgenous, almost alien figure.

It certainly is the predominant image at Asian restaurants. I'm guessing that probably has more to do with the owners believing that's the sort of decor their customers expect to see.