In response to the publication of cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in a Danish newspaper, a senior Islamic cleric has issued an edict banning Muslims from eating Danish pastries. “These Scandinavian confections”, said Sheikh Anwar Al-Censorloon, “although admittedly delicious, are intrinsically evil and contrary to the principles of Islam.”

Sheikh Al-Censorloon outlined his reasons for prohibiting the consumption of the mouth-watering cakes in the Islamic world. “Danish pastries are blasphemous because their coiled design is representative of the also coiled turban sported by the Prophet and many Muslim males. Coiled designs should be sacred; they are no place for icing and raisins.”

The Sheikh bolstered his argument by pointing out that “the coiled design of Danish pastries may also be perceived as a series of interlocking crescent shapes. This insidious portrayal of the Islamic crescent as a component of a decadently sweet Western snack is also grossly insulting.”

Sheikh Censorloon has also devised an ingenious method of punishment for those Muslims caught eating Danish pastries. “Existing supplies of the confection will be put into storage and left to harden. Perpetrators of pastry crimes will be publicly pelted with hundreds of the cakes. Only then will they be hanged.”

Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has been vociferously enthusiastic in his support for the ban. Responding to the sheikh’s comments, he said: “what nuclear weapons? I mean, the people of Iran fully endorse this ban and cherish it as a slap in the face to the infidel satanic-Zionist Danish conspirators, a plague upon their houses.”

Downtown Tehran has witnessed the public burning of products of Danish origin, including Hans Christian Anderson books and copies of Whigfield’s cd ’Saturday Night’, the latter causing messages of support to flood into Iran from music lovers worldwide.

Defending the beleaguered Danish pastry, one of the US’s most popular confectionery items, President Bush launched a wide-ranging attack on Iran. “To freedom lovers, Danish-eaters and all my fellow planetarians, I say: this country’s leader was elected in dubious circumstances, he spouts inflammable rhetoric and is pursuing an aggressivist foreign policy. But enough about me. I tell you this: it’ll be a snowy day in Texas before I give up the constitutionally protected right of Americans to gorge themselves on Danish pastries, Twinkies or any other high calorie snack you care to mention. That, my friends, is freedom.”

Seán Kenny