French satirical magazine set to spark outrage by naming Prophet Mohammed as editor-in-chief

 

A leading French magazine is set to provoke fury around the world by calling itself Sharia Weekly and pretending that the Prophet Mohammed is editing it.

Charlie Hebdo, a Gallic version of Private Eye, prides itself on its mix of cutting satire and investigative journalism.

But it now plans to mock Islam by ‘celebrating’ the victory of Muslim groups in newly liberated Tunisia and Libya following the Arab Spring.

Not only will this week’s magazine be full of jokes about Islamic revolutionaries, but the slogan on the front page is ‘100 lashes if you don’t die of laughter’.

On the back, meanwhile, is a depiction of Mohammed wearing a red nose, and the words: ‘Yes, Islam is compatible with humour.’

The special edition also features an editorial ‘by the Prophet’ about Halal drinks, and there are features on ‘soft Sharia’, as well as a women’s section called ‘Sharia Madame’.

Ahmed Dabi, a leading French Muslim rights campaigner, said: ‘For a start the jokes are not funny, but the magazine is also deliberately trying to provoke anger and unhappiness against Muslims.

‘People will read it and come away with a very negative opinion of a worldwide religion. If a similar magazine was produced about Christianity, then Christians would rightly complain.’

But spokesman for the magazine said: ‘We don’t feel like we are being provocative. ‘We just see it as doing our job as usual. The only difference this week is that the Prophet is on the cover, and it’s rare for him to be on the cover.’

Today the cover of the magazine was already circulating on social media sites such as Twitter, and it will be out on newsstands all over France on Wednesday.

In 2007 a Paris court rejected a suit brought by two Muslim organisations against Charlie for reprinting cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed that had appeared in a Danish newspaper.

The cartoons fuelled a fury of violent protests in the Islamic world when they were first printed in Denmark’s Jyllands-Posten newspaper in September 2005 and reprinted in European papers in January and February.

Embassies and churches were burned in the protests and at least 200 are thought to have died and many more were injured.

One of the cartoons showed the Prophet Muhammad wearing a turban shaped like a bomb with a burning fuse.

Islamic law forbids any depiction of the prophet, even positive ones, to prevent idolatry.

There are some six million Muslims living in France – the largest group of its kind in western Europe.

While many have welcomed the fall of despots like Muammar Gaddafi following the Arab Spring revolts, many fear that they will be replaced by extreme Islamist governments.