By: The Jerusalem Post

Images of Islam’s prophet Muhammad may soon disappear from the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s permanent display, in a move aimed to avoid offending Muslims, The New York Post reported Sunday.
One such image, an Ottoman miniature from the Siyer-i Nebi shows Islam’s prophet Mohammed in the typical way he was portrayed in Islamic art after the ban on showing him was put in place. The prophet is shown faceless, kneeling at the Kaaba, Mecca.

According to the report, the museum said the three ancient pieces depicting Muhammad date from a time when the ban on portraying him was not yet in place.

The museum has in the past made efforts to avoid potential insults to visitors by changing names of galleries to fit a new political correctness.

“The Primitive Art Galleries” were renamed the “Arts of Africa, Oceania and the Americas” Galleries three weeks ago.

Similarly, the New York Post reports, the renovated “Islamic Galleries” will be renamed as galleries containing art from “Arab Lands, Turkey, Iran, Central Asia and Later South Asia.” The paper quotes an Islamic arts’ expert, Kishwar Rizvi, as saying the new name of the galleries is misleading.

Rizvi told the paper it was “a shame” the museum dropped the word Islamic from the title of the Islamic art galleries. “It’s cumbersome and problematic to base it on nationalistic boundaries,” the historian said.