COPENHAGEN, Feb. 10 — Flemming Rose, the Danish editor whose decision to publish cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad helped provoke weeks of fury in the Muslim world, said in an interview on Friday that he was leaving his newspaper on indefinite vacation.
Mr. Rose, 47, stood by the decision of the newspaper, Jyllands-Posten, to publish the caricatures, citing freedom of the press. And he refused to apologize for the drawings, which were seen by many Muslims as sacrilegious and have prompted widespread protests, boycotts of Danish goods and the burning of Danish diplomatic missions in the Middle East.
He said in an interview, however, that the stress of recent events had given him sleepless nights.
"I am thankful that the newspaper has given me the chance to recover," said Mr. Rose, who is the newspaper's culture editor. "I am tired. In the middle of a crisis, you do not always recognize the tensions placed on you. I'm glad someone on the paper had the guts to make the decision to give me a break, because sometimes you want to keep on fighting."
The vacation announcement comes after weeks of violent clashes in Europe, Asia and the Middle East over the cartoons. At least 11 people have died.
After a brief lull on Thursday, demonstrations resumed as thousands of Muslims emerged from Friday Prayer and took to the streets in the Middle East, Asia and Africa, The Associated Press reported. The protests were mostly peaceful, but in Nairobi, Kenya, the police shot and wounded one person as officers tried to keep about 200 demonstrators from marching to the residence of Denmark's ambassador, The A.P. reported.
In Tehran about 60 protesters threw stones, firecrackers and firebombs at the French Embassy, shattering nearly every window on its street front, even after a prominent cleric urged people not to attack diplomatic missions.
Egypt had its largest protests yet, with demonstrations in most major cities. In El Mahalla el Kubra, security forces used tear gas and water cannons to break up a march of about 15,000 people after protesters threw rocks and attacked shops and cars.
Muslim leaders in Denmark said Mr. Rose's leave was unlikely to be enough to lessen tensions in the Muslim world.
"I am not his boss, but I would fire him," said Imam Abdul Wahid Pedersen, a prominent Muslim leader in Copenhagen. "What he did is disgraceful, and I can't even begin to understand what has gone on in his head."
In France, where the editor of France Soir — the first newspaper there to reprint all 12 cartoons — was fired last week, some Muslim leaders considered the fact that Mr. Rose had taken a leave a small victory.
"That's very good news," said Mohamed Henniche, president of the Union of Muslim Associations in a department northeast of Paris. "It shows that there is an evolution and that people recognize that offense has been caused."
After the publication of the cartoons in Denmark and Norway in September, and the republication last week by France Soir, the satirical French weekly Charlie Hebdo followed suit. Several Muslim organizations in France said they were planning legal action against Charlie Hebdo for incitement of hatred.
Mr. Rose acknowledged it had been a mistake to say in an interview with CNN on Wednesday that the paper intended to reprint Holocaust cartoons as part of a contest being sponsored by an Iranian newspaper. He said he had no intention to offend Jews, but had suggested publishing the Holocaust cartoons in order to document cultural satire in the Middle East for a Danish audience.
Mr. Rose also said he had erred in suggesting on Danish television that Jyllands-Posten should reprint previous cartoons satirizing Christians and Jews, including a drawing of the Star of David in the shape of a bomb by a cartoonist who drew one of the Muhammad cartoons.
"I wanted to show that in Denmark we do not have an anti-Muslim bias and that we had published these cartoons before without having riots or boycotts of Danish goods in Israel or Christian countries," he said. Last Saturday, Jyllands-Posten did publish cartoons from the Arab world; one showed Auschwitz with a tower draped in the Israeli flag.
The paper apologized last week for offending Muslims, but has steadfastly stood by its decision to print the Muhammad cartoons.
"I feel sorry if Muslims feel offended and that was not the intention," Mr. Rose said. "But the cartoons were within the acceptable boundaries of free speech in Denmark."
The crisis began in early September when Mr. Rose commissioned the cartoons. He said he came up with the idea after the Danish writer Kare Bluitgen, the author of a children's book about religion, complained that she was having difficulty finding artists to illustrate a book about Muhammad because of fears of violent attacks by extremist Muslims.
Mr. Rose, a former war correspondent in Afghanistan and Iran, known for his fearlessness and trenchant views about immigration, was incensed, colleagues say.
He invited 25 newspaper cartoonists to draw a picture of Muhammad "how they saw him." Twelve cartoonists responded and their pictures were printed on Sept. 30. Mr. Rose said he knew that Islam barred depictions of the prophet because of concern that such images could lead to idolatry.
But he said nothing had prepared him for the reaction that followed.
