Ahmed Abu Laban, Denmark's leading imam and a key figure in last year's row over cartoons which depicted Muhammad, Islam's prophet, has died from lung cancer.A year too late. I'd have bought him an extra carton of Marlboros sooner, if I'd known.
Abu Laban, 60, died late Thursday at the Hvidovre Hospital in Copenhagen, Kasem Ahmad, a spokesman for the Islamic Faith Community, said on Friday. "We are very sorry and we ask people to pray for him," Ahmad said.
Was it as painful as I hope it was?
Following the publication of cartoons depicting the Prophet by the Jyllands-Posten newspaper, Abu Laban accused Denmark of being disrespectful of Islam and Muslim immigrants. Furthermore, many blamed him and other Islamic clerics in Denmark for fuelling anger that triggered massive and sometimes violent anti-Danish protests in Muslim countries in January and February last year.