Reply #103: And now: what the cartoon means [View All]

I have only my curiosity and google. Comment from an actual Muslim, or someone more learnèd in Islam than I, would be appreciated.


The pictorial instruction dropped on Lebanon shows a fanged cobra rising out of what I assume to be the neighbourhoods of Beirut where Hezbollah amounts to the local government, turning back on those places and preparing to consume them.

The cobra itself appears to have the head and face of Sheik Hassan Nasrallah:


http://www.cbc.ca/story/world/national/2005/02/20/lebanon050220.html

(The other one portrays him being summoned from his jar by what I take to be political leaders I don't recognize. And my knowledge of Arabic script extends to being able to pronounce some of what I see, but not to having a clue as to what it means. I'd like to know what he is depicted as saying, if anyone can tell.)

It certainly does convey a number of things ... none of which is likely to win the hearts and minds of much of anybody, I'd think.

And one has to wonder whether there was some less literal meaning intended that non-Muslims aren't getting:
http://answering-islam.org.uk/Silas/snakes.htm
"Muhammed and the Snakes"

Essentially, "snake" is used as a metaphor for jinn, which I gather to be roughly equivalent to Satan and the fallen angels in Christian mythology -- evil people or spirits falsely claiming to be followers of the religion's founder/figurehead:

A young Muslim man returns home and finds his wife standing near the door. He assumes immediately she’s an adulterer and raises his weapon to kill her. But she warns him that something dangerous is within their house. The man rushes in and on the bed is a large snake. The man attacks the snake and kills it, but during the struggle he is also bitten, both die quickly.

Some snakes are jinn; so when anyone sees one of them in his house, he should give it a warning three times. If it return (after that), he should kill it, for it is a devil.

So to summarize, as I understand it:

The cartoon uses Muslim religious metaphor to depict the leader of Hezbollah as Satan or a follower of Satan, coming back to bite the Lebanese people.

Not insulting on many levels at all, is it?