Mick Hartley

You might be forgiven for thinking that this was another case of militants giving Islam a bad name by claiming to speak for all. Unfortunately it isn’t:

Members of a moderate Sufi sect spent the day leafleting Khartoum’s Arab market in front of the city’s Great Mosque, urging the faithful to protest. “What has been done by this infidel lady is considered a matter of contempt and an insult to Muslims’ feelings and also the pollution of children’s mentality as an attempt to wipe their identity,” the leaflet said. It called on a million people to take to the streets after prayers tomorrow.

Ms Gibbons, a former deputy head teacher from Liverpool, spent yesterday locked in a cell at a police station in a suburb of Khartoum. Her toilet is a hole in the ground; her window a small, barred opening high in the wall. She looked tired and pale as she was escorted across the courtyard with a blanket across her shoulders to meet British consular officials.

Professor Eltyeb Hag Ateya, the director of the Khartoum University Peace Research Institute, said that the notion of naming a bear was alien to most Sudanese. “People are angry because the bear does not exist in Sudanese folklore,” he said. “It is not seen as a nice thing that children carry around. If you call someone a bear they will be angry, just as if you have called someone a camel in England.”

Does that make any sense? No, it doesn’t make any sense.

Ms Gibbon’s plight moves to Khartoum’s courts today when she is due to appear before a judge who will decide whether there is a case to answer. As the demonstration on the campus wound down, a group of young men huddled over a sheet of paper drafting an angry statement on behalf of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Elsheikh El Nour, a veterinary scientist, summed up their position. “If she made an innocent mistake and did not mean Muhammad the Prophet there is no problem,” he said, sipping sweet tea. “But if she meant Muhammad the Prophet, this is a big problem for Muslims. She must die.”