Some prominent Muslim intellectuals, including novelist Salman Rushdie and Canada's Irshad Manji, have issued a public statement warning about totalitarian Islamism.

From the BBC story:

The writers say the violence sparked by the publication of cartoons satirising the Prophet Muhammad shows the need to fight for secular values and freedom. ...

Almost all of those who have signed the statement have experienced difficulties with Islamic militancy first-hand, says the BBC's Caroline Wyatt in Paris.

They include Dutch MP and filmmaker Ayaan Hirsi Ali and exiled Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen.

After having overcome fascism, Nazism, and Stalinism, the world now faces a new global threat: Islamism," the manifesto says.

"We, writers, journalists, intellectuals, call for resistance to religious totalitarianism and for the promotion of freedom, equal opportunity and secular values for all."

The clashes over the cartoons "revealed the necessity of the struggle for these universal values," the statement continues.

"It is not a clash of civilisations nor an antagonism of West and East that we are witnessing, but a global struggle that confronts democrats and theocrats."

Here's the full statement, which was printed first in the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo. That magazine also reprinted the Jyllands-Posten cartoons.