A new Danish documentary on the dreaded cartoons of blasphemy reveals that the clerics most responsible for inciting the Islamic world into a frenzy of violence, including Muslim Brotherhood Sheik Yussuf Al-Qaradawi, never even saw the cartoons.

Danish director Karsten Kjaer travelled throughout the Middle East to investigate who and what was responsible for the wave of violence released from the cartoons for his documentary ‘Those Damned Drawings’ (‘De Forbandede Tegninger’). He said the primary theme of the film is freedom of expression and its boundaries.

‘I’ve sought to be objective about the crisis’ factual events,’ Kjaer told public broadcaster DR. ‘But it is also a very personal film that portrays my travels around the Middle East and my own impression of both the causes and consequences of the conflict brought about by the 12 drawings.

The film suggests the crisis began full-force when the man many consider to be Islam’s most powerful figure, Sheik Yussuf Al-Qaradawi, declared 3 February 2006 as ‘Anger Day’ on his TV programme. A wave of violent protests across the globe unleashing followed in the wake of that transmission.

In the documentary, Kjaer shows the Mohammed drawings to Al-Qaradawi, who views them for the first time.

Kjaer also shows the cartoons to Ali Bakhsi, the Iranian who spearheaded demonstrations in Tehran that led to the burning of the Danish embassy there. Bakhsi laughingly says the drawings look nothing like Mohammed but rather like an Indian Sikh.

(Hat tip: Fjordman.)