Why is Islam so easily offended?

Here are a couple of good articles that we should consider in light of the most recent Muslim outrages over supposed slurs of their prophet/messenger.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/in-the-arab-world-why-a-movie-trailer-can-lead-to-violencewhy-cant-the-arab-world-accept-offenses-without-violence/2012/09/14/d2b65d2e-fdc8-11e1-8adc-499661afe377_story.html

http://pakobserver.net/detailnews.asp?id=174022

Of course, the apparently wrong-headed You Tube video didn't cause the riots that led to destruction and deaths.  It was merely an excuse, like the cartoons of Muhammad, "Tickle Me Muhammad," etc. were excuses.  (That the Administration and State Dept were slow to recognize or at least admit that is disturbing and should be a reason for concern.)  But, why is Islam so easily offended?

More to the point, why is Islam so offended that murdering people is considered the lesser evil when compared with insulting the prophet/messenger?  I wonder, if Muhammad was such a saintly person, to be revered (although not as a god, as Allah), what he would think of another human being killed merely because Muhammad had been slurred.  Is an insult count more than a human life?  If so, then what kind of religion is that?

Of course, we know the Islamists merely use these things to precipitate violence, actions against the US and West.  Al Banna, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, was a fascist.  He didn't advocate using the state to "dominate," as he thought Islam should.  Rather, it was religion, Islam, that was to be used to extend power and impose laws on the rest of the world.

I know history isn't important, but here are some other things to consider.  Muhammad did marry an older widow, one with a lot of money.  He apparently never held a job.  I don't know what that says, but he ran afoul of many of the citizens of Mecca.  So much so, he was forced to flee to Medina (Yathrib), the Hijira  The explanation of Islam is that the rich people drove him out because he was exposing their greedy, corrupt ways.  Hmmmm....

Islam also spread very quickly and very wide.  The Islamic Empire, although it had several "houses" such as the Umayyads and Abbasids, was bigger than that of Rome, extending from India to Spain.  It lasted for four or five centuries and, in some areas, a thousand years.  It did this--spread and lasted--through military power, conquest and control.  It was not very tolerant of differences.

Which leads to my last point, one I've made before.  Islam has not accepted the ideas and ideals of the Enlightenment.  Of course, why should it have, seeing it was a European movement and the Europeans were the onces who began the Crusades?  Still, by the 20th and 21st centuries?  Principles such as those propagated by Locke, Voltaire, Rousseau, and others never gained footholds.  Granted, many of those ideals were slow to spread in the West (note "all men are created equal" took decades and more to apply to blacks, women, Indians--and too often not to gays).  But we've, if too slowly, worked at expanding them.  We, mostly, tolerate differences.  (I am concerned that we have begun taking backward steps in this regard.)  But we believe in free speech.  Voltaire infamously said, "I may disagree with what you say, but I will fight to my death your right to say it."  The key to this, as I point to my students, are the pronouns.  Muslims, at least the Islamists and those who do their dirty work at the slightest beck and call, don't embrace this idea, not in the least.  It's OK to murder people, to take human lives, but it's not OK to draw funny pictures of their prophet/messenger.  (Yes, I am aware that Christianity was--and in many ways still is--intolerant in much of its history.)

Anyway, the articles are worth reading and pondering.  Do they offer any kind of hope?  I don't know, but they can help us to understand a bit better....