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Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses Controversy

Submitted by admin on Mon, 01/23/2012 - 04:45
Salman Rushdie
Once again Salman Rushdie and his controversial novel has become the hot topic. It all started when Rushdie decided not to attend India's biggest literary festival due to fear of his possible assassination attempts. Such controversies are not new for Salman Rushdie. Way back in 1989, when this novel was published, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the supreme leader of Iran issued a fatwa ordering Muslims to kill Rushdie. 
 
Broadcast on Iranian radio, the judgment read:
 
Khomeini “We are from Allah and to Allah we shall return." (Qoranic verse). I am informing all brave Muslims of the world that the author of The Satanic Verses, a text written, edited, and published against Islam, the Prophet of Islam, and the Koran, along with all the editors and publishers aware of its contents, are condemned to death. I call on all valiant Muslims wherever they may be in the world to kill them without delay, so that no one will dare insult the sacred beliefs of Muslims henceforth. And whoever is killed in this cause will be a martyr, Allah Willing. Meanwhile if someone has access to the author of the book but is incapable of carrying out the execution, he should inform the people so that [Rushdie] is punished for his actions. “
 
 
Let’s see why Muslims hate this novel?
If you carefully see the title, you may realize that the title itself is controversial. It indirectly compares verses of the Quran with Satanic verses. It also suggests that Quran is “the work of devil”. The novel deals with an ancient legend about the Prophet Muhammad, founder of the Islamic religion. Legend has it that Muhammad, who received the Word of God directly from the Archangel Gabriel, was one day tricked by the devil into including satanic verses in the holy book of the Quran.
       Rushdie’s depiction of the Prophet Muhammad, and several other elements of the novel, are also considered highly controversial. Perhaps most offensive to Muslims, in Rushdie’s novel the brothel of the city of Jahilia is staffed by prostitutes who take the names of Muhammad’s wives. Since Muslims believe that the wives of the Prophet are ‘the Mothers of all Believers’, they esteem them.
 
Other issues many Muslims have found offensive include:
1.    Abraham is called a "bastard" for casting Hagar and Ishmael in the desert.
2.    A character in the book named Salman the Persian who serves as one of the Prophet's scribes, an apparent takeoff on the story found in a Tafsir (Anwar al-Tanzil wa Asrar al-Ta'wil) of a Meccan convert by the name of Ibn Abi Sarh, who left Islam after the Prophet failed to notice small changes he had made in the dictation of the Qur'an.[17] Contemporary Muslims argue accounts of the story are unreliable, and in any case Ibn Abi Sarh later reconverted and became a good Muslim again after being captured and was spared the sword for his apostasy.[18] Salman the Persian is also the name of one of the companions of the Prophet, another potential source of offense. In the dreams of one of the central characters (Gibreel Farishta) Salman is seen confiding to the poet Baal (one of the most vehement critics of Mohammed) that he has doubts about the veracity of the Prophet's revelations. Salman's suspicions gather momentum when he subtly changes some of the Prophets' sayings while writing them down, but his acts go unnoticed. Salman is also angry and disappointed when he realises that the Prophets' revelations have started taking on the form of increasingly oppressive rules and that he can sense opportunism in the timing of these revelations.
 
Overall Summary of Satanic Verses:
The novel begins rousingly as the two main characters (Gabreel and Saladin) are falling through the air, victims of the terrorist bombing of a jetliner. They miraculously survive. Gabreel, who had doubts about Islam, develops a halo, and begins to look like the angel Gabriel; Saladin grows horns, hooves, and a tail and looks like Satan. Much of the book tells of their adventures in these forms. Most of the controversy involves Gabreel’s dreams. He dreams of a false prophet called Mahound (historically a derogatory name for Muhammad) who establishes a false religion. He also dreams that prostitutes took on the names of Muhammad’s wives, in order to attract Muslims. In the end, Saladin returns happily to India, and Gabreel loses his faith and commits suicide
 
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