Mohammed Image Archive

Derivative Works

This section of the Mohammed Image Archive is devoted to "derivative" works -- those which re-use existing well-known representations of Mohammed rather than containing any original portraiture. Most often these derivative portraits take the form of "a Photoshop" -- a digital file created with the image-editing program Photoshop (or any similar graphic-manipulation software) in which the existing Mohammed portrait is placed into a new context.

Although derivative Mohammed Photoshops are a recent phenomenon, there is a large and constantly growing number of them (since they're fairly simple to create for anyone with basic computer graphics skills) -- so many that they merit their own section here in the Mohammed Image Archive.

Certain specific Mohammed portaits are much more popular than others as the source material for the derivative works, and as a consequence they have been grouped below according to which original Mohammed depiction was used as the basis of the image.

Derivative Mohammed Portraits Based on Kurt Westergaard's "Mo-Bomb-Head" Cartoon

In 2005, Danish artist Kurt Westergaard contributed one of the original twelve cartoons published by the newspaper Jyllands-Posten, which ignited the current global controversy about depicting Mohammed. Of all twelve drawings, Westergaard's (showing Mohammed with a bomb in his turban) became by far the most well-known, and its notoriety has subsequently spawned numerous derivative works based on it. Pundits in the English-speaking world coined the name "Mo-Bomb-Head" to refer to Westergaard's drawing, a term which we will use here in the Archive as a shorthand title for the cartoon which is the basis for the following works.

Mickey Mo-Bomb-Head combines two iconic images into one. The portrait originally appeared at the now-defunct "alanwoody" blog.

One of the entrants in the boomka.org cartoon contest showed Mo-Bomb-Head as an Hasidic Jew. (The original contest site is now offline, and the image has been preserved only here at the Archive.)

Mo-Bomb-Head as the Satanic demon Baphomet (based on the original drawing of Baphomet by 19th-century occultist Eliphas Levi). Interestingly, the name "Baphomet" is actually thought to be a bastardization of "Mahomet," the French name for Mohammed.
(Thanks to: Terry.)

Mo-Bomb-Head enjoying some semen, by the aptly named "Forced Anonymous." Note also that the bomb fuse is actually a bloody tampon.

"Piss Mohammed" is a parody of Andres Serrano's controversial "Piss Christ" that incorporates Westergaard's equally controversial cartoon.
(Thanks to: Jeffrey Z.)

Mo-Bomb-Head's lit fuse finally reaches the end and ignites an explosion in this animated gif from now-offline "Caric caricatures" site.
(Thanks to: Alexander Z.)

In this montage featuring Mo-Bomb-Head, he suffers several humiliating indignities: being farted on by a pig labeled "Allah," having the sole of a foot pressed on his head (taboo in Arab culture), while his sword, a symbol of Islam's power, is broken in half by a Christian cross.
(Thanks to: Greg W.)

This stencilled graffiti version of Mo-Bomb-Head on a wall was photographed by a reader in Hamburg, Germany on February 16, 2006. The words under the image say, "Hallo Mittelalter '06" -- "Hello Middle Ages '06".
(Thanks to: Tim.)

As reported in the New York Daily News in 2006, an entrepreneur in Hawaii created and was successfully selling bobblehead Mohammeds on his site called "Dashboard Mohammed." The product, which cost $14.99, is shown on the left, and was based on the rendering of Mohammed shown on the right, which was itself based on the famous Mo-Bomb-Head cartoon. The "Dashboard Mohammed" Web site has since gone offline, and the product is no longer available.
(Thanks to: Nordish and Martin.)

In 2005 and 2006, the anti-jihad site "aaron's cc" hosted a satire of the early Internet meme Hampster Dance which superimposed Mo-Bomb-Head on the hamsters and changed the background song to a sped-up version of R.E.M.'s "Losing My Religion." Depicted here is a screenshot of just a small portion of the large animated Web page. The site was hacked by jihadists in 2006, then counter-hacked by Aaron, and a mirror site was set up as well, but after several years the URLs were eventually abandoned. The Internet Archive maintains a functioning version of "The MoHamster Dance," as it was called, here.
(Thanks to: Serr8d.)

Archive reader "Peon" created this doubly derivative montage showing Mickey Mo-Bomb-Head (the first image at the top of this page) as a pig in heaven and dancing with two of his promised virgins -- who happen to be male pigs wearing yarmulkes.

This animated gif shows Jesus and Mo-Bomb-Head in a loving relationship (with their heads pasted onto a kama sutra painting). Unknown artist.

The proprietor of the Chaikaroma blog wore a "Mo-bomb-head" costume for Halloween 2006 and posted the pictures online, but his site has since been taken down and this photo is now preserved only here at the Mohammed Image Archive.

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The image above is "ASCII art" (a picture composed of digitized characters arrayed in lines) showing Kurt Westergaard's turban-bomb Mohammed.
(Thanks to: Gern B.)

Steve D., the proprietor of the now-defunct "islamthreat.blogspot.com" site, fashioned his own statement about the controversy by Photoshopping Mo-Bomb-Head onto the rear end of a camel.
(Thanks to: Rant Wraith.)

This Photoshop collage features Mo-Bomb-Head as a dwarf porn star anally penetrating Allah on top of the Kaaba while Muslim pilgrims circumambulate the shrine during the annual pilgrimage to Mecca.
(Thanks to: A. Haque.)

Controversial Danish artist-provocateur Uwe Max Jensen painted this derivative montage of Captain Haddock kicking Mo-Bomb-Head in the rear end, a scene based on a panel in the Tintin book Land of the Black Gold. The painting is entitled "Belgium Strikes Back," a memorial to the victims of the Islamic terror attack at the Brussels Airport in March of 2016.

Uwe Max Jensen has in fact painted dozens of similar derivative portraits of Mo-Bomb-Head posing with various pop culture figures. He's so prolific that on October 31, 2016, Kurt Westergaard himself finally sued Jensen for copyright infringement for using Mo-Bomb-Head in yet another satire involving a photo of a Muslim refugee. Jensen replied that he has no intention of ever paying the fine, should he lose the case.

Derivative Mohammed Portraits Based on "The Green-Turbanned Man" in Iranian Shi'ite Religious Icons

In Iranian folk iconography there is a bearded figure wearing a green turban who appears in several popular religious posters. Most Westerners have assumed that this figure is Mohammed, and based on this assumption have used it as the basis for numerous derivative Mohammed Photoshops.

However, it is still not definitively confirmed that the figure even represents Mohammed at all; see this zomblog post for a full examination of this topic.

Even so, whether or not the original figure is indeed Mohammed, the Photoshops based on it are all derivative, and so will be included here on the "Derivative Works" page of the Mohammed Image Archive.

This reworking of a well-known Shi'ite religious poster shows "Mohammed" with devil horns, a Charles-Manson-style swastika tattoo on his forehead, feminine lips and eyes, while spouting degrading statements and holding a Qu'ran marked with "Oppression," surrounded by gay pride rainbow stripes -- thereby violating several Muslim taboos in one concise image.
(Thanks to: Adrian S.)

Sooreh Hera, a Dutch-Iranian artist, had his piece "Adam & Ewald," which depicted "two gay men wearing masks of the Muslim prophet Mohammed and his son-in-law Ali" rejected by The city museum of The Hague, in December of 2007. In this picture, Mohammed is apparently the one on the left. Both masks are based on Iranian iconographic religious posters.

Andreas M. created this montage of green-turban Mohammed in the place of Jesus on the cross, an attempt to be an equal opportunity blasphemer. He also created Photoshops of green-turban Mohammed as a fan of Tintin and caught in a blizzard.

Derivative Mohammed Portraits Based on Other Pre-existing Images of Mohammed

An artist who goes by the name "Patriotic Kiwi" combined this portrait of Mohammed with this famous Nazi poster to show Mohammed as Hitler.

Controversial Swedish "street artist" and political provocateur Dan Park created these stickers and pasted them all around the city of Malmö, Sweden. It shows the Piglet character from Winnie the Pooh stomping on the version of Mohammed drawn by Poul Erik Poulsen which had appeared among the original Jyllands-Posten cartoons, accompanied by the words "Die die die you fucking pedhofile."
(Thanks to: Martin H.)