A moderate Imam at a Hartlepool mosque believes that newspapers should not show cartoons of Mohammed, but still defends the right to free speech. Here Tahir Selby explains his stance

DEPICTING the Holy Prophet and all prophets of God is offensive to Muslims and is forbidden in Islam.

We have wonderful rights of free speech in our country, rights which I sometimes feel English people take for granted, but I believe in totally.

But those rights don’t mean that because you can print something that you always should. That’s why I would advise The Northern Echo not to print the Charlie Hebdo cartoon, but to use wisdom and judgement. What good does it do to stir this up even more?

Showing any pictures, of the Holy Prophet is forbidden in Islam. There is a description of the Holy Prophet in the Ahadith (sayings of the Holy Prophet) but pictures were forbidden at the time by the prophet himself. He didn’t want to be worshipped but wanted his followers to worship God.

Some of the images that have been produced are especially offensive. For example, the cartoons published in a Danish newspaper that caused such offence showed the Prophet with a bomb on his back. They went out of their way to mock us. That was very offensive because the Prophet was known as the 'Prince of Peace' and was against violence. The word 'Islam' actually means peace.

We are also offended by such depictions of Jesus Christ, a prophet in Islam.

So, yes, we are offended by these images. But what I went to stress is that ordinary, decent Muslims, true to their religion, would never react to that offence by hurting anybody.

This is a good place to stress, in the strongest possible way, that ordinary Muslims absolutely condemn the terrible crimes by the terrorists in Paris. Our thoughts are 100 per cent with the families of the dead and injured.

The people who committed this crime are not portraying the real Islam and, in fact, they often kill Muslims in their terrorist attacks, as they did in Paris. Their actions have nothing to do with real Islam. They have perverted its teachings. The Koran says that if you kill one person, you kill all mankind.

The Islamic way of reacting to offence is simply to approach the people causing it and explain, to talk and discuss peacefully. That is what the vast majority of Muslims believe: the way of peace. The Koran teaches us to leave the company of people whose speech and actions you find offensive, until such time that they revert to pure speech and actions, then you are permitted to return to them.

The community I represent, the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, a sect of Islam, believe very strongly in free speech and we are totally against any blasphemy laws.

In Pakistan they have such a law and people can be imprisoned for three years or even put to death for the crime of blasphemy. That includes people in my community. We believe that a sub-ordinate prophet to the Holy Prophet, Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, has come among us to revive the true peaceful religion of Islam by highlighting its teachings on love and forgiveness. Some people have condemned our belief as blasphemy. So we know how such laws can be abused.

So, for us, the liberties and freedoms in this country are a great blessing and I gave a sermon last Friday stating that we cannot afford to lose these precious freedoms in this country, especially given what is happening in Pakistan.

Like most British people we simply believe that freedom of speech is a great right but must have limitations. You can’t just say whatever you like about anybody, as a newspaper dealing with libel law well knows. You must be responsible and wise with that right.

Finally, I would like to commend ordinary Hartlepudians for their behaviour shown towards us and all the Muslims in Hartlepool in these last few days. In spite of these atrocities and media attention, they have continued to be supportive and warm to us.