This is a link to the school in Sudan, where an English teacher let her kids call a teddy bear Muhammad. http://www.unityhighschool.org/
Calling a teddy bear Jesus is something that very few English speakers would ever consider. It has nothing to do with the fact that it is forbidden or against the law, culturally, the English speaking world very rarely uses the name Jesus outside of its normal use. Maybe we have it inbuilt into our conscience from a very early age that the name Jesus is out of bounds, maybe we realise that it the use might actually cause offence to the dwindling number of Christians out there. So, I have to ask the question; why did Gillian Gibbons allow the children to call their bear Muhammad?
Having looked at the school website, I noticed that it the school is supposed to be a multi faith school, but with over 50% of Sudanese being Muslim, especially in the north (in which over 75% are Muslims) where the capital, and therefore the school, is based, what the Muslim clergy need to be asking themselves is why did the Muslim children not say that naming the bear Muhammad was a no-no? Indoctrination into religion occurs at a very early age, I myself was Christian very early on and never questions my Christianity until I left Sierra Leone and went to England, so the children should have known the fundamentals of Islam. They should have known that there are no images made of Allah, they should have known that it is custom to pray 5 times a day facing Mecca, they should have known that it is against their religion to eat pork, and yes they should have known that naming a teddy bear Muhammad is seen as a blasphemous act. Fine, one could also state that they were young children and would not have had the wherewithal to state their case to their teacher. Yet, seeing as part of their assignment was to take the bear home, the bear having a tag stating that its name is Muhammad, surely some of the parents would have noticed? Surely parents are paying attention to their children’s homework? Or maybe, as they were taking turns to take the bear home, the bear was taken to the homes of the Christians and the Animists (one of the more popular local religions in Sudan) first and children of Islamic homes has not had the chance to take the bear home yet? So it was left to one of the teaching assistants to report the teacher. This assistant so outraged at her colleague that she did not find the time to sit the scouser down and chat with her teacher to teacher but sought to punish her to the maximum by getting the authorities involved. Well there is solidarity for you.
As far as I am concerned, though I am no expert on Islamic law, this is a matter that should have been dealt with internally by the school. Gillian Gibbons is guilty of nothing more than cultural insensitivity, and 15 days in prison is a tad harsh for that, however she should have been more aware of the quirks and the doctrines of Islam, and she should have been more sensitive to her surroundings. Just because she was working in what seems like a progressive school, does not mean that those working with her are equally as progressive. The school is also guilty of not monitoring their foreign staff to ensure that problems such as these do not arise, and in the cases where they do appear, can be dealt with swiftly and decisively. The assistant teacher who made the complaint to the authorities should be sacked, but will not be I am pretty certain of that. It would be obvious that anyone following on from Gibbons will have a very had time trusting this person, and other teachers will now be very weary of their own situation causing a tension that is really not welcome in an educational institution. As for the people demanding for Ms Gibbons to be shot, please stop I implore you. It is for this reason that Islam is sometimes feared as a very extreme religion and that claims of Islam being a religion of peace are laughed off. Islam may think it is a religion of peace, but it seems more likely that it is one of fear, where the slightest faux pas is rewarded with lashings or stoning or even death. The authorities evidently realised that Ms Giddons did not blaspheme deliberately, or they would have given her the full sentence, which included a lot more jail time and 40 lashes to boot.
Living in a foreign country is difficult enough without the extra pressures of dealing with various cultural differences that arise through religion, but what seems to be missing here is a huge dose of common sense. Yes the two parties are from vastly different parts of the world, with different moral codes, different attitudes to religion indoctrination and difference ways of dealing with people who do wrong; common sense however is called common sense for a reason.