While some software was being installed on my office computer this morning, I strolled over to a bookshelf in the hallway and pulled down, more or less at random, a book about the New Zealand–born British cartoonist David Low (1891–1963). Low was best known for his political cartoons, but the one I saw when I opened the book was about cricket.

In 1925 the cricketer Jack Hobbs had his annus mirabilis, setting numerous records as a batsman including the career record for most centuries. To salute this achievement, Low drew a “Gallery of the Most Important Historical Celebrities,” with a row of heroic statues ranging from Adam to Lloyd George. Hobbs was in the center, towering like the Colossus of Rhodes over the rest, who could only look up at him in envy.

One of the “Historical Celebrities” that Hobbs drew was “Mahomet,” and this sacrilege elicited an angry response, but nothing like what we have seen in recent years. As the book’s authors explain (emphasis added):

Harmless enough at home, the depiction of Mahomet meant that in India the cartoon ‘convulsed many Moslems in speechless rage’, as the Calcutta correspondent of the Morning Post put it. Meetings were held and resolutions of protest were passed.