The above citation from the Prophet Muhammad's hadith popped into my mind as I was following the news here in the U.S. on the worldwide protests staged against the insulting cartoons of the Prophet. Earlier, I received an email from a friend with the website address containing the 12 cartoons, and also from an email group of which I am a member.

My immediate reaction was, like most other Muslims', emotional. I could not help but to shed tears. It was like the feeling I had when my beloved kids were hurt or insulted by their naughty friends. It is even more than that.

But then I tried to calm myself down. I prayed to Allah to give me patience and wisdom so that I can react with sanity.

My childhood times in pesantren (Islamic boarding school) have shaped my loving and respectful image of this special human who is an uswatun hasanah (role model for good qualities). Muhammad's life and his work are a living testimony to his genius. His success in transforming the Arab nomads into societies with shared norms and ethics within ten years is a tribute to his faith and his superior moral qualities.

Muhammad did not consider his mission as superior to any of the former prophets; he was one of them, but the last to be commissioned by Allah to deliver the same message previously delivered by his former colleagues. He wanted his fellow Arabs to worship one God, the only God, as worshiped by their neighbors, the Christians and the Jews, as ordained in the Koran,

"Say, we believe in Allah and in what has been revealed to us, in what was revealed to Abraham, Ishmael, Isaac, Jacob, and the tribes; in what was given to Moses and Jesus, and in what the prophets received from their Lord; we make no distinction between any of them." (Q.S. al-Baqarah/2:136)

Every religion emphasizes human improvement, love, respect for others, sharing other people's suffering. On these lines every religion had more or less the same viewpoint and the same goal," so said the Dalai Lama of Tibet.

The Prophet Muhammad's above hadith clearly reflects the Dalai Lama's saying. Back 15 centuries ago, the Prophet taught his people that if they want to become true believers, they are to treat their fellow human beings the way they wish to be treated. In Christianity, this religious precept is often expressed as "Do unto others as you would have them do onto you."

Religions differ in their concepts of deity, other beliefs and practices. But there is a near unanimity of opinions among almost all religions that each person should treat others in a decent manner. Almost all great traditions have passages in their holy texts, or in the writings of their leaders, which promote this Ethic of Reciprocity.

One result of this Ethic of Reciprocity is the concept that every person shares certain inherent human rights simply because of their membership in the human race. People are individually very different, they come in different genders; different sizes, colors and shapes; different races and ethnic groups; and different levels of ability. They follow different religious and economic systems; and they speak different languages and follow different cultures. But there is a growing consensus that each and every member o the human race is of equal importance. All should enjoy basic human rights. The United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is one manifestation of this growing worldwide consensus.

The incidents resulting from the insulting cartoons on the Prophet Muhammad would not have happened if people in the Jyllands Posten in Denmark had internalized this Ethic of Reciprocity, which is an underlying principle of the UDHR. This ignorance is perpetrated by their further ignorance of the true essence of Islam, which led to their failure in distinguishing between Islam and its Prophet Muhammad and a number of individuals claiming themselves to be 'Muslims' but actually are hijackers of the religion for their political interests.

This incidence refutes Huntington's thesis that the conflicts between Islam and the West occur because of the so called 'clash of civilizations.' It is not that, but to me, it is because of clash of ignorance.