Oops! Another Jab In The Eye
Salmon Rushdie decided, after all, to re-embrace Islam. Despite his contempt for its hypocritical and radical face, its fanatical interpreters, its theistic charlatans. He decided after all, that Islam embraces his soul. "When I am described as an apostate Muslim, I feel as if I have been concealed behind a false self, as if a shadow has become substance while I have been relegated to the shadows." He does not gainsay the importance of Muslim culture to himself personally; it has shaped who he is.But his earthy, sacrilegious view of Islam and the Prophet Muhammad has tainted him forever in the wider Muslim world : "I knew that stories of Muhammad's doubts, uncertainties, errors, fondness for women abound in and around Muslim tradition....I never doubted Muhammad's greatness nor, I believe, is the 'Mahound' of my novel belittled by being portrayed as human....I knew much about Islam that I admired, and still admire, immensely; I also knew that Islam, like all the world's great religions, had seen terrible things done in its name."
Bless the man, he walketh on upended tacks in bare feet, half drunk. Terrible things done in the name of Islam, in the past tense? But then, he has lived in extremely tense, personal times. But his reward, as a Muslim writer of Indian descent plying his trade in Great Britain has finally descended with great honour. He survived the deadly fatwah issued against him by the great Ayatollah Komenei 18 frantic years ago, to be knighted by Buckingham Palace on the celebration of the Queen's birthday.
Hip, hip, hurrah!
And oops! There we go again. Pakistan is outraged. Iran is beside itself with disbelief at this
signal insult to Islam and the Prophet. Other Islamic countries are lining up behind these two to express their disgust and anger at Western insensibilities to their feelings. It's Danish cartoons redux. "If a blasphemer can be given the title Sir by the West despite the fact he's hurt the feelings of Muslims, then a mujahid who has been fighting for Islam against the Russians, Americans and British must be given the lofty title of Islam, Saifullah," roared Tahir Ashrafi of the Pakistan Ulema Council.
Henceforth, Osama bin Laden is to be acknowledged with the lofty designation of "sword of Allah". Did we ever doubt it?
posted by Pieface @ Friday, June 22, 2007
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