It's a classic example of the symbol being taken to represent the thing...
A school teachers gets the kids to vote on the name for a class teddy-bear and being in an islamic country, the primary school kids choose Mohammed. Hardly surprising, but the teacher has now been arrested and is awaiting charges, apparently of blasphemy.
Some sensitive islamic folks have taken the fact that the name was used to identify a teddy-bear as somehow an insult to the prophet of Islam, Mohammed. Just what exactly is blasphemous in the identification of a toy as Mohammed will presumably exercise islamic legal scholars but surely the only safe way to behave for islamic parents is to refuse to allow the name Mohammed to be used in any context. Ludicrous.
By extension there's a whole new area of islamic jurisprudence opening up... There are 25 prophets named in the Qur'an including Adam, Ibrahim, Ishaq, Ismail, Sulaiman, and so on and these are popular names. Sooner or later we'll need a list of approved names for teddy-bears, or any other toys.
If a child calls a pet cat or dog the name of some prophet, does that become blasphemous?
This is the sort of crazy situation you get when you venerate a symbol and insist on the right not to be offended. In normal conversation it's laughed off as ridiculous but when you're dealing with a medieval state machine insisting on it's right to vengeance when insulted, the mere hint of a slight can trigger a catastrophic response.
Islamic law is based on the ethics and morals of the middle ages and the followers insist on its literal truth - hence it cannot be changed. Any reasonable person would ask where in the Qur'an does it say anything about teddy-bears? The unreasonable will scour the book for any reference that justifies the interpretation of blasphemy. Guess who's in charge?
