Offending Muslim sensibilities shouldn’t be dangerous.

As for the ‘perceived right not to be offended,’ perceive it not. — robson

Weird. London’s prest ig ious Saatchi Gallery just covered up some paintings that offended religious sensibilities. And if you’re wondering who complained and why a modern artist wouldn’t just cackle in response, the London Times reports that these works by whoever or whatever “SKU Style” is were hidden “after complaints from Muslims that they were ‘ blasphemous.’ ” Oh really?

It wouldn’t surprise me if the pictures were hideous and deliberately offensive. Especially since “The London artist, who has not revealed his name, said the works represented the expulsion of a ‘ toxic spew’ of media images, including degrading images of women, nationalistic symbols and propaganda designed to ‘ illicit support for a cause and demonize others’. “

While I’d have said “elicit” my fussiness on grammar as elsewhere is out of fashion. Let it all hang out, man. Until someone claiming to speak for Muslims blows a fuse. Then put it all back in quiiiiiiick.

The “offending” images, superimposing Arabic script on naked people, “were meant to represent the conflict between America and Islamic extremists.” Or something. Because past a certain point the pervasive modernist insistence that somebody undress reveals a feebly sublimated obsession with sex. And bad manners.

In response we’re supposed to smile and throw money. Unfortunately this modern art included the “shahada” or “declaration of faith”: “There is no god but God. Muhammad is the messenger of God.” And while you can dump a crucifix in urine and make out like a bandit, you can’t … you know … do anything that offends a Muslim. Why not?

According to The Times the dispute was perfectly civil and principled. “The gallery rejected calls to remove the paintings on the grounds it wanted visitors to see the works and come to their own conclusions.” But then the artist asked that they be covered as “a respectful solution that enables a debate about freedom of expression versus the perceived right not to be offended,” and the gallery agreed.

Perhaps they heard nothing from the crowd who believe insulting Islam is punishable by death. They just got a few courteous notes

saying please don’t show anti- religious art and went oh, yeah, it’s not nice. But such notes from Christians usually go straight into the wastebasket. And The Times interviewed Usama Hasan, head of Islamic studies at the British think- tank Quilliam, who opined that “the paintings were not only offensive but blasphemous and sacrilegious. ‘ They are really dangerous,’ he said. ‘ It’s The Satanic Verses all over again.’”

What? Quilliam opposes extremism. Yet Hasan obviously and deliberately invoked Ayatollah Khomeini’s fatwa against Satanic Verses author Salman Rushdie which led to several failed assassination attempts on Rushdie, the murder of one translator and vicious attacks on two others.

If it’s not a threat, it could easily be mistaken for one. And was, prompting Quilliam to tweet that it opposes blasphemy censorship. But while Muslims have every right to complain, debate, critique art and urge us to convert, given the long shadow of lethal riots over those Danish cartoons, the Charlie Hebdo massacre etc., it’s irresponsible not to avoid any implied “Nice gallery. Pity if something were to … happen to it.”

You know, I know and Usama Hasan knows that every publication that didn’t show those Danish cartoons was thinking partly of their manners and partly of the safety of their staff. Presumably unlike The New York Times when Jews and others complained about an anti- Semitic cartoon of Israel as a dog leading a blind, yarmulked Donald Trump.

Given this background I think it’s very important to take a stand that what’s dangerous isn’t paintings, it’s people who kill in response to paintings, books, cartoons or a sideways glance. And to take firm exception to the weird notion that everybody must obey Muslim “blasphemy” laws or risk being condemned and possibly killed as apostates by extremists from a religion they never embraced.

As for the “perceived right not to be offended,” perceive it not. The Qur’an is pretty harsh about the Trinity: “whoso ascribeth partners unto Allah, for him Allah hath forbidden paradise” ( Sura 5: 72). Which if true, is worth bluntly informing Christians about. But we in turn are allowed to say phooey, or reply with pointed questions about Islamic blasphemy laws and not fear a rock in the face in response.

Every time non- Muslims grovel before Islamist fundamentalists it encourages further peremptory demands and veiled threats. So take the cloth off the paintings and let me not see them by choice.