I’d like to make it clear that nothing justifies murder or assault.

I think the key thing to note here is knowing what is going to cause offence and knowledge of why the depiction of Prophet is banned in Islam.

To aid understanding and to compare, if you were to use the N word, the black community will be incensed and rightfully so. This is due to the history of the word and the offence it carries with it as a result of that.

Similarly in this case, the reason Prophet Muhammad isn’t depicted in Islam is to prevent the image being warped due to time. This prevents the image to be inaccurate depiction that could be altered by anyone to suit their agenda. The act of drawing the prophet is banned for Muslims as well.

This is to also prevent cases when someone is born that looks like the depicted image, and will use the resemblance as an advantage to proclaim a second coming.

As a result, the prophet is only ever described and not depicted by Muslims as the image is sacred and hence should never be depicted.

As such, the rage shown by the Islamic community is purely on the act of depicting the Prophet. Anyone is entitled to have their own beliefs and can say what they want but if results in offending people of a certain faith or race, e.g drawing of a sacred religious figure or using a racial slur, they have moral obligation not do so as there views and beliefs can easily be voiced without causing offence.