The Satanic Verses - where it all began...
- Thread starter JayKeeley
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Black Winter Day
Member
that pic is strangely hilarious
by the way, i am almost finished with the book... and yes, nastybad salman brings out the prophet's compromise of the 3 goddesses (as dictated by gabreel, of course) and the overall incongruities of mahound. and who here doesn't identify with chamcha's metamorphosis into the satanic avatar? i know i can!
addictive, bizarre and interesting... i am digging the book
by the way, i am almost finished with the book... and yes, nastybad salman brings out the prophet's compromise of the 3 goddesses (as dictated by gabreel, of course) and the overall incongruities of mahound. and who here doesn't identify with chamcha's metamorphosis into the satanic avatar? i know i can!
addictive, bizarre and interesting... i am digging the book
Black Winter Day
Member
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Troy/1731/a_rushdie.html
read this.... and especially pay attention to what is written under BEFITTING END.
some people are too stupid to live...
read this.... and especially pay attention to what is written under BEFITTING END.
some people are too stupid to live...
NAD
What A Horrible Night To Have A Curse
Blah blah, I'm not reading any more of that. What a fucking putz.
I love the beginning:
I love the beginning:
Yes, because Islamic governments haven't killed more than 40 people yet, right? :Smug:
Ayeka
Hell Bent For Leather!
NAD
What A Horrible Night To Have A Curse
By coincidence I was reading this new Bernard Lewis( th preeminent western scholar on the middle east) book From Babel to DRagomans- a collection of essays on the middle east. Anyway in one essay he writes of the threats againsts Rushdie. So i ll condense the salient points:
Mr Rushdie published a novel. The Ayatollah Khomeini, who knew no english an had apparently never read the novel, condemned it and issued a fatwa concerning its author. Issuing a fatwa is not, as is sometimes thought, the Muslim equivalent of the American term "putting out a contract." A fatwa is a juristic ruling, provding an answer to a question on a point of law. In this fatwa Khomeini ruled that it would be appropriate to kill Salman Rushdie, and indicated why and - to some extent- how.
Rushdie was accused of two offenses. One is insulting the prophet. When a muslim insults the prophet it is much more serious, because insulting the prophet is considered tantamount to aposatsy, and aposatasy- that is to say abandoning islam- is a capital crime under any interpretation. The offense, therefore, for which Salman Rushdie was sentenced t odeath was apostasy, being a renegade from Islam.
Crime, judgment, punishment- all these raise serious questions concerning the procedures of adjudication. Any accusation in Shari'a as in any system of law, there had to be an arraignment, a trial, confrontation between the accused and the accuser, judicial consideration, verdict and, if appropriate, sentence. No procedure preceded the death sentence on Rushdie. There is hadith, that is, a saying attributed to the prophet, accepted by Shi'ites, according to which the Prophet said: "If anyone insults me, then any Muslim who hears him must kill him immediately, without any need to refer to the iman or sultan (judicial or police authorities)" It says nothing about an arranged killing for a reported insult in an unread book in a far off place, and Khomeini clearly was making law rather than following it.
Iranian authorities decided that since Rushdie would not be extradiated to Iran, the only way to deal with his "crime" was to offer two rewards for Rushdies execution. Khomeini urged any self respecting Muslim to go to England and kill this man in order to avenge Islam, and by the way of reward he promised the delights of paradise for eternity if the assasin himself was killed. For fear lest this be insufficient inducement, a pious Islamic charitable foundation offered a reward of 3 million dollars for any Iranian to execute RUshdie, and 1 million for any non-Iranian.
Mr Rushdie published a novel. The Ayatollah Khomeini, who knew no english an had apparently never read the novel, condemned it and issued a fatwa concerning its author. Issuing a fatwa is not, as is sometimes thought, the Muslim equivalent of the American term "putting out a contract." A fatwa is a juristic ruling, provding an answer to a question on a point of law. In this fatwa Khomeini ruled that it would be appropriate to kill Salman Rushdie, and indicated why and - to some extent- how.
Rushdie was accused of two offenses. One is insulting the prophet. When a muslim insults the prophet it is much more serious, because insulting the prophet is considered tantamount to aposatsy, and aposatasy- that is to say abandoning islam- is a capital crime under any interpretation. The offense, therefore, for which Salman Rushdie was sentenced t odeath was apostasy, being a renegade from Islam.
Crime, judgment, punishment- all these raise serious questions concerning the procedures of adjudication. Any accusation in Shari'a as in any system of law, there had to be an arraignment, a trial, confrontation between the accused and the accuser, judicial consideration, verdict and, if appropriate, sentence. No procedure preceded the death sentence on Rushdie. There is hadith, that is, a saying attributed to the prophet, accepted by Shi'ites, according to which the Prophet said: "If anyone insults me, then any Muslim who hears him must kill him immediately, without any need to refer to the iman or sultan (judicial or police authorities)" It says nothing about an arranged killing for a reported insult in an unread book in a far off place, and Khomeini clearly was making law rather than following it.
Iranian authorities decided that since Rushdie would not be extradiated to Iran, the only way to deal with his "crime" was to offer two rewards for Rushdies execution. Khomeini urged any self respecting Muslim to go to England and kill this man in order to avenge Islam, and by the way of reward he promised the delights of paradise for eternity if the assasin himself was killed. For fear lest this be insufficient inducement, a pious Islamic charitable foundation offered a reward of 3 million dollars for any Iranian to execute RUshdie, and 1 million for any non-Iranian.
Before The Satanic Verses were published, Penguin Publishers had it proof-read by an Indian muslim scholar. He warned that people would take this out of context and that riots would incur. Penguin went ahead anyway, thinking that any press is good press.
Re: the Ayatollah not having read it, that's not entirely true. What happened was that certain mosques (particuarly the ones in Britain) had acquired the book and extracted certain sections that contained anything considered to be "insulting". These pages were translated into Arabic, Hindi, Urdu, etc and distributed around the world to Islamic clerics. I'm sure that the Ayatollah had someone read to him those sections anyway, and obviously, everything was taken out of context.
In the following weeks, there were riots on the streets and people getting killed in several Islamic nations. This is before the fatwa was even issued. Salman Rushdie went into hiding under protection of the British secret service, and it cost taxpayers millions of dollars to keep him in hiding. Of course the UK was not going to extradite him, he was/is a UK citizen. He wasn't seen again until Bono from U2 brought him out on stage during one of their concerts (can't remember which tour).
Rushdie knew what he was getting into. I once read that he had dangled the carrot in his previous books, but this one was the equivalent of "entering the lions cave". I know several people who have read the book, including educated muslims, and to be honest, some people think it's pompous. Regardless of the politics behind it, not everyone thinks it's a fine piece of literature. Most people give up after the first 50 pages.
I'm sure I'll read it one day, but I really do think there is much more to learn about the actual events before I read the fiction that leverages from the historical texts. That's just me though.
Re: the Ayatollah not having read it, that's not entirely true. What happened was that certain mosques (particuarly the ones in Britain) had acquired the book and extracted certain sections that contained anything considered to be "insulting". These pages were translated into Arabic, Hindi, Urdu, etc and distributed around the world to Islamic clerics. I'm sure that the Ayatollah had someone read to him those sections anyway, and obviously, everything was taken out of context.
In the following weeks, there were riots on the streets and people getting killed in several Islamic nations. This is before the fatwa was even issued. Salman Rushdie went into hiding under protection of the British secret service, and it cost taxpayers millions of dollars to keep him in hiding. Of course the UK was not going to extradite him, he was/is a UK citizen. He wasn't seen again until Bono from U2 brought him out on stage during one of their concerts (can't remember which tour).
Rushdie knew what he was getting into. I once read that he had dangled the carrot in his previous books, but this one was the equivalent of "entering the lions cave". I know several people who have read the book, including educated muslims, and to be honest, some people think it's pompous. Regardless of the politics behind it, not everyone thinks it's a fine piece of literature. Most people give up after the first 50 pages.
I'm sure I'll read it one day, but I really do think there is much more to learn about the actual events before I read the fiction that leverages from the historical texts. That's just me though.
NAD
What A Horrible Night To Have A Curse
Keep in mind that the Satanic Verses themselves play a very small role in the book, it's only really discussed during Mahound's little journy. One can argue that Mahound's situation and thoughts carry throughout the book, but I don't think that's correct. To me the book was more about the beast in man.
Calling Rushdie pompous could be valid, but I disagree. He has fun with the language, making up and combining words all the time. In The Moor's Last Sigh there's a character who runs one of the spice businesses and his name is Cashondeliveri. That's not pompous, that's humour!
Also, thank you for that information.
Calling Rushdie pompous could be valid, but I disagree. He has fun with the language, making up and combining words all the time. In The Moor's Last Sigh there's a character who runs one of the spice businesses and his name is Cashondeliveri. That's not pompous, that's humour!
Also, thank you for that information.
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