There have been a few threads on WikiEN-l recently discussing the issue of images of Muhammad being present on the relevant article. Some number of Muslims are offended by these images, and have written in to OTRS, on the talk page, and even started a petition requesting their removal.
The discussion on the mailing list has covered a fairly broad range of related topics, including, as I recall: an argument that the images shouldn't offend Muslims since they were, after all, created by Muslims and that the ban on images of Muhammad was really a recent development; that the petition was likely to be made up mostly of duplicate signatures produced by a bot; that we ought to remove (or hide by default, or provide an option to hide, etc.) any images which offend a significant number of people; that we ought not to hide any images merely because they offend people; that the images are not accurate representations of Muhammad anyway, being created many centuries after his death; that they serve no didactic purpose; quite a few messages were written arguing for or against the idea that the prohibition was against any representations of humans, and therefore it was illogical to be offended by an image of Muhammad in particular. I'm sure there were several other topics discussed which escape me at the moment.
I agree that the images are surely not accurate; I am not so certain that they therefore are not useful. I have not formally studied education, but it has been my understanding that people remember information more readily when they can associate it with an image than when it is merely text. If so, then even an image which makes no attempt to be realistic might be useful. Even disregarding this, it seems to me that a discussion about how Muhammad has been represented by artists is germane to the article, and an image would be appropriate there, if not at the top.
I confess that I support the position that offensiveness of material shouldn't be a consideration in whether it is included. I think that since our goal is to provide educational material, and therefore to educate, we should try to provide every piece of information we can, presented in the most useful way; I believe that the most useful way to present pictures is inline in articles, so I don't think that we should be removing them.
It is not that I don't care that people are offended. I think it's very unfortunate, since I don't believe that removing those images is compatible with our goals. I don't desire to offend anyone, but my desire to educate trumps my desire to be inoffensive.
I may yet be convinced that the images ought to be removed, although I doubt it, since most of the argument for removal seems to be of the 'we shouldn't be offending people' variety.