By Arsalan Iftikhar

In light of the recent South Park cartoon controversy surrounding 'depictions' of the Prophet Muhammad, some brainiac cartoonists around the world have decided to declare May 20 to be 'Everybody Draw Muhammad' day.

According to the Los Angeles Times, Seattle artist Molly Norris started the day rolling when she created a poster-like cartoon showing many objects -- from a cup of coffee to a box of pasta to a tomato -- all claiming to be the likeness of Muhammad.

As I wrote in a recent CNN column on the South Park controversy, as an American Muslim civil rights lawyer and proud First Amendment freak, I can honestly say that I love both my Prophet Mohammed and cartoons like South Park. In any free democratic society, the concept of free speech can only be combated with more free speech, not censorship. If the creators of "South Park" choose to depict the Prophet Mohammed, that is their First Amendment right, and they should be able to do so freely without any threats of physical violence and retribution.

As proud millenial Muslims, we should think about how our Prophet Muhammad would respond to such silly faux controversies.

We should all be reminded of a well-known Islamic parable which tells the story of the Prophet Mohammed and his daily interactions with an uruly female neighbor who used to curse him violently and then proceed to dump garbage onto him every day from her perchtop window each time he would ever walk by her house.

One day, the Prophet noticed that the woman was not present to throw garbage outside of her window. In true prophetic kindness, he actually went out of his way to inquire about her well-being and then proceeded to visit this unfriendly neighbor at her bedside inside of her own home when he had found out that she had fallen sick.

This genteel act of prophetic kindness toward unfriendly (and overtly hostile) neighbors is the Muslim 'Ubuntu' standard that we should all use within our collective lives -- not threats of violence aimed at the silliness of some sophmoric cartoons aimed at inciting a provocative response around the world.

As people get in a huffy over a bunch of stupid cartoons, every Muslim around the world should take a very deep breath and simlpy ask themselves one basic question:

"What Would Muhammad Do?"
When it comes to a bunch of silly and sophmoric cartoons, the answer would be two very simple words: Absolutely nothing.