The celebrities, of course, want the prophet because every human being has a "goo" in them, and Muhammad's goo prevents anybody from ever disrespecting or mocking him. They want that power for themselves. And so begins an entire episode that flirts with how he can be shown and in what context. Is it okay to draw a stick figure version of him? To use his voice? To dress him up in a full-body mascot costume?
What's ironic is, of course, that before the violence caused by the Danish cartoons, Muhammad was shown in an earlier episode of South Park. In this episode, Jesus, Moses, Krishna, Buddha, Lao Tzu, Joseph Smith, Seaman, and Muhammad all team up to fight the new religion of David Blaine (the famous magician/ illusionist).
Here he appears with the rest of the gang:
And by himself, showing off his power of fire.
In fact, there is no real Western prohibition on depicting the prophet. He's been shown in many circumstances, from paintings of Quranic events to biographical images and even on the US Supreme Court building. The ban on a depiction of the prophet is a strictly Muslim one - Muhammad imposed it to prevent his followers from deifying him as the Christians did to Jesus. He considered the deification of a human being to be a grievous sin against God. Yet, there is no risk of a non-Muslim elevating Muhammad to the status of prophet - and it's quite certain that the theology has firmed up by now so he's pretty well established as a prophet. Nothing more and nothing less.
Orthodox Jews take their commandment of "Don't use God's name in vain" very seriously. Many will type out "God" as "G-d" for exactly this purpose. Yet it would be unthinkable that a Jewish person would force a non-Jew to follow their custom. It stems from their theology and their holy texts, not from anybody else's. Likewise, the example of depicting the prophet is almost exactly analogous. The only reason that their customs get preference over the Jewish G-d custom is because of fear of violent reprisal. This is the part that South Park pointed out constantly last night. And it's one we should think about seriously.
