Cartoons of Muhammad anger Muslims worldwide

COPENHAGEN, Denmark — It was a provocative exercise: asking cartoonists to draw pictures of the Prophet Muhammad that were published in one of Denmark's largest papers.

But apparently no one at the Jyllands-Posten daily imagined the scale of the fallout: death threats against the artists, protest strikes in Kashmir, condemnation from Muslim leaders worldwide and even criticism from the U.N.

"I'm very surprised that the reactions have been so sharp, very shocked, and I find the death threats against the cartoonists to be horrible and out of proportion," Carsten Juste, chief editor of Jyllands-Posten, told The Associated Press. He said the pictures were not meant to offend.

The paper refuses to apologize for publishing the drawings Sept. 30, citing freedom of speech — a right cherished in this northern European country of 5.4 million.

One cartoon shows Muhammad wearing a turban shaped as a bomb with a burning fuse. Another portrays him with a bushy gray beard and holding a sword, his eyes covered by a black rectangle. A third pictures a middle-aged prophet standing in the desert with a walking stick in front of a donkey and a sunset. A fourth depicts a schoolboy near a blackboard.

"If we apologize, we go against the freedom of speech that generations before us have struggled to win," Juste said.

The paper had asked 40 cartoonists to draw images of the prophet. That idea alone would be enough to offend many Muslims since Sunni Islam bars depiction of any prophet from the Quran out of concern that such images could lead to idolatry.

"The Quran clearly forbids anyone from belittling a prophet, whether Jesus Christ, Abraham or Muhammad — peace and blessings be upon them — and it stresses they must be accorded utmost respect," said Ragab Zaki, a Muslim Sunni senior cleric at Egypt's Ministry of Endowments.

"Ridiculing any prophet is a crime, according to the Quran," he said.

Critics say the drawings in Jyllands-Posten were particularly insulting because some appeared to ridicule Muhammad.

"Those cartoons are very offensive to every Muslim feeling, and to Islam as a religion," said Abdel Moeti Bayoumi, a theology professor at Al-Azhar University in Cairo. "Do you expect Muslims to remain silent, or rise to defend their religion?"