A small child led the religious chanting as the crowd converged on the French embassy in Damascus. They had come from the mosque where a preacher had inveighed against the “blasphemous cartoons” in Europe. It was not a wise place for a Norwegian to be.

By publishing Danish caricatures of the prophet Muhammad, a Norwegian newspaper had helped to pitch Europe into the worst cultural clash between Islamic religious beliefs and western freedom of expression since Salman Rushdie’s book The Satanic Verses in 1989.

Even Nord, a Norwegian visitor to the local university, was curious to see the demonstration. Reaching the embassy, those in front began to scuffle with a line of police and the crowd’s anger grew.

Then, without warning, a Syrian grabbed Nord and addressed the crowd: “This is my friend. He is a Norwegian and a good man.”

A pin’s drop could have been heard as a menacing silence came over the crowd. The Syrian then hoisted the Norwegian on to his shoulders and commanded: “Speak for your country.”

The student surveyed his hostile audience for a moment before addressing them in Arabic. “This is just an embassy,” he said in a loud, clear voice. “It is not the country. This incident is the result of lack of understanding. We need to understand each other better and then hopefully we will have the chance to live in togetherness and we can show proper respect for you. Inshallah (God willing)!” The crowd roared in approval. But the goodwill did not last: yesterday they set fire to the Danish, Norwegian and Swedish embassies.

An army of diplomats was deployed across the globe last week in vain attempts to assuage Muslim fury at the publication in Denmark and other European countries of cartoons lampooning the prophet Muhammad.

Initially, Britain looked on as a bemused spectator. Yet a convergence of separate events soon put the same issue in the headlines.

In Leeds the decision to bring race hate charges against Nick Griffin, leader of the British National party, backfired spectacularly when a jury cleared him of two charges of inciting racial hatred against Asians by attacking the Muslim religion.

As he walked free from court surrounded by shaven-headed thugs, Griffin vowed that he would not tone down his language. “This evening, millions of people in Britain will be holding their heads a little higher,” he claimed.

Perhaps the supreme irony was the surprise Commons defeat by one vote of the Racial and Religious Hatred Bill, which might have made the Danish cartoons illegal in Britain.

MPs could not have imagined that some of the issues raised in that debate were to spring into alarming focus within hours as Europe and Islam confronted each other in a dialogue of the deaf.

Confusingly, the dispute mutated as fast as it grew. What began as a tasteless Danish prank became a serious issue of press freedom for some newspapers. Roger Koeppel, editor-in-chief of Die Welt, the German paper which reprinted the cartoon, was in no doubt. “It’s at the very core of our culture that the most sacred things can be subjected to criticism, laughter and satire,” he said.

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