There’s just been a shock horror report on the news channel about ‘the worst insult ever’; that’s how they described it when a joint of pork was found lying on the body of a muslim in a local hospital morgue.
Now quite apart from the fact that this was a damned nasty thing to do, it did get the mental cogwheels grinding.
Is it really the worst insult ever? See, thing is, what you deem to be an insult is gonna be based on your cultural values. So what I’m looking for is:
a) What would you consider the worst insult personally?
b) What would you consider the worst insult within the culture/society/religion that you’ve been raised in?
c) Is there such a thing as a cross-cultural worst insult?
Second, not to nitpick, but I think the dead find it pretty hard to get worked up about insults. They’re dead. However, the family, friends, and all other Muslims who saw the situation you described would probably be very insulted.
As to cross-cultural insults…I think insults are very culture-specific so there wouldn’t be many cases. You certainly have people from one culture inadvertently insulting people from other cultures. (Like the difference between the meaning of the ‘thumbs-up’ sign between Americans and Iraqis - even though they now have adopted our meaning.) But as for a certain phrase or action being insulting to multiple cultures…I think we need an experts opinion.