How Muslims View Terrorists

Naguib Sawiris has apologised for what he said was "joke" that was not meant to be taken seriously. The cartoons had been widely circulated already on the internet.

...we decided to take a shot at a satire to educate people about the Qur'an to prevent any further similar initiatives come to fruition. This initiative was extremely inflammatory - spreading misconceptions and divisiveness over a very short period of time. This video attempts to demystify the Qur'an, dispelling some of the myths propagated.

The relationship between cartoons and Islam is clearly a rather sensitive one at the moment. Generally, combining the word of God in the Koran with western-style interpretations has been frowned on by Islamic religious authorities. It will be interesting to see how these authorities react in May when a new team of comic book superheroes - the 99 - are launched, each one embodying one of the 99 qualities that Muslims believe God possesses. Especially as they will all be wearing tights.

Teshkeel Comics is the brainchild of Naif al-Mutawa, a 34-year-old Kuwaiti comics fan. He grew up in the US where he fell in love with Marvel and, after training as a psychologist, wrote kids' books on prejudice. He thought up his superheroes during a cab ride across London in 2003. The 99 are a quasi-spiritual version of the X-Men or the Fantastic Four, drawn by US comic book authors with Batman, Hulk and Spiderman experience. After publication in Arabic in May, an English version follows later in the year. Each hero is based on an Islamic archetype and, by combining, they build divine power. Although, as only God is allowed to possess all 99 characteristics, Mutawa is likely to peak with around 70 caped crusaders.

"Do you have any idea how offensive that is?"

Bangladesh has become the latest country to block social networking site Facebook because of a page that asks people to draw their own images of the prophet Muhammad.

Clearly, this isn’t going to kill Facebook, which has nearly 500 million users. But it shows that what might have been considered a small protest is gathering steam in the Muslim world. Facebook is already facing a lot of opposition over its privacy rule changes, so all it needs now is another controversy.

A comic on three people who must split 17 camels