The Sunday Star's Haroon Siddiqui tries to put the cartoon situation into both a contemporary and historical context.

Some excerpts:

The Danish paper that invoked freedom of speech to justify caricaturing the Prophet Muhammad is, thus, only half right. But let's say that it did have an absolute right. Equally, though, Muslims had a right to be offended. Defenders of the first principle have had difficulty acknowledging the second.

"Why the fuss? These are only cartoons," many said of the Arab boycott of Danish products.

The peaceful consumer revolt was a legitimate response (until overtaken by gun-toting hotheads issuing dire warnings).

Yet many Europeans derided the boycott, with the unmistakable underlying message: "We can treat you the way we want and thou shall shut up."

Those days are gone. Still, why do Muslims react so strongly? ...

The drawings were hurtful to a people who are, arguably, more attached to their prophet than others may be to theirs.

Each time they say his name, Muslims invoke "peace and blessings" on Muhammad. Nearly 4 million visit his grave in Saudi Arabia every year.

But more than religion, it is geo-politics, past and present, that hangs over the controversy.

Siddiqui goes on to offer a bit of a history lesson that is well worth reading.

He also points out, and rightly so, that the West has exhibited double standards when it comes to dealings with Muslim countries.

They see double standards in the Danish affair as well.

A cartoon Thursday in the al-Quds newspaper showed an artist at work at Jyllands-Posten (the Danish newspaper that first published the cartoons). In the first panel, he rejects a grotesque drawing of a black person: "This is racism." He rejects the second, which equated the Cross of David with the swastika: "This is anti-Semitism." He keeps the longer third panel, of the Prophet's cartoons: "This is freedom of speech."