It has been three weeks since violence started in the Islamic world in wake of the publication of cartoons satirizing the Prophet Muhammad in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten. It began with Palestinians burning Danish flags, rose to a crescendo in Beirut, and reached what might be called fever pitch in Afghanistan.

In the latter country a number of people were killed in the violence. In Pakistan, for some inexplicable reason, Islamists took up the cudgel in defence of the honour of the Prophet of Islam rather late in the chain on events. As if to compensate for this, the violence in that country has perhaps been the most widespread and has left a number of people dead. People seemed to have gone berserk in many places of the Islamic world, even though there have also been appeals for restraint.

The world seemed riveted to these scenes of rage. Newspapers carried the news day after day as did television channels; pundits came up with analyses of the causes of the trouble: and Muslims in general talked about nothing else. People with long memories will find this preoccupation with the prophetic cartoon a bit puzzling. This has not been the first time Muslim "sentiments" have been hurt by supposed insults to Islam and its prophet.

The theft of a lock of hair that was supposed to have belonged to Prophet Muhammad from a shrine in Kashmir lead to violent protests not only in that state but in various places in Pakistan. In Bangladesh, a manufacturer's emblem on shoes that looked (if my memory serves me) like Arabic calligraphy of the word Allah led Islamists to stage violent street demonstrations, leading to the shutting down of the shoe factory. In India a mere naming of a character Muhammad in a novel led to violence.

I have no intention of belittling the events surrounding the publication of the Muhammad cartoons. It is only right that their nature and significance should be fully investigated without fear or apology. But such events tend to have the unfortunate consequence of sidetracking some of the more enduring issues concerning Islam in the modern world. It can lead one to lower his guard against the ever present threat of Islamist extremism. Let me explain.

Just over a week ago several websites run by secular critics of Islam received death threats from a shadowy Islamist group. The threat was issued on the internet and was directed against a number of well-known critics of Islam who have written extensively on these websites. These writers were named and a "Death Warrant" was issued for their "blasphemous publications against Allah (SWT) and His most honoured prophet Muhammad (SAW)". The group, calling itself "International Organisation in the defence of Allah & the Prophet Muhammad, Peace Be Upon Him", cites verses of the Koran to support their conviction that "[the secularists'] blood has now become lawful to spill-"

Just about the same time when the threat on the internet was issued, a group of Islamists in the west coast of the United States circulated leaflets "condemning" to death a number of these critics of Islam. The leaflet says, according to my informant, that it has become incumbent for the fighters of Islam to soak their hands in the apostates' blood.

It is unnecessary and futile here to go into the grounds used by these jihadists for their decision to issue the fatwa. Note here only the apparent stupidity of the "Organisation in the Defence of Allah - " in quoting Koranic verses II:190-195 which were directed against unbelievers who were in armed struggle against the Muslims in the seventh century. The relevant verses, let me suggest to them, should have been something like verse IV: 89, which deals with renegades. The other face of their fatuity is their declared intention to defend Allah against His critics, as if Allah needs their defence, or anybody else's.

Of immediate importance, of course, is the threat itself. Here are a group people who have taken upon themselves the duty to defend their God and Prophet by killing fellow human beings whose thinking is different from theirs. And the threat is directed against people who live in a free country like the United States of America that guarantees full freedom of belief and expression and where a threat like this is a criminal offence.

We should consider the threat directed against a handful of free thinkers a far more significant event than the whole sorry cartoon saga. It is therefore amazing that the news of the "death warrant" has been met with such deafening silence. Not a single line of protest has, to my knowledge, been written or even posted on the internet, to which discussions of issues of Islamic fundamentalism and obscurantism has so far been largely confined. Equally disturbing is the actual shutting down of one of the secularist websites that have come under threat.

The fledgling tradition of critical thinking on religion, particularly Islam, is in grave danger if protest against such threat to it is not heard loud and clear. Let us protest. Let us follow it up with practical action under the law of the land against such heinous efforts to silence the voice of reason.