One of my problems during this lockdown has been staying focused. I thought I would read more, but no book has held my attention for very long. I got about halfway through The Satanic Verses before asking myself what is the point of all this?
I was trying to figure out why Rushdie faced a fatwa from Iranian clerics? The only thing I could figure out was his representation of Mohammed as Mahound, a young evangelist trying to convert the king of some giant sand castle to Islam. Apparently, Mahound is a derogatory term for the great prophet. It seems Rushdie had fun with revered Muslim names in general, which didn't make the Ayatollah very happy.
Islam is still off limits when it comes to making caricatures of its principal religious figures, as we learned with Charlie Hebdo. No religion today takes itself more seriously than does this religion, much to the chagrin of Arab comics. You play with its central figures at your own risk. Rushdie spent a great number of years "underground," trying to avoid the long arm of the Ayatollah. He wore it like a red badge of courage, gaining universal recognition and selling a great number of books he probably wouldn't have sold otherwise. The Satanic Verses was one of those books everyone bought, but very few persons actually read.
He was constantly in the news. There were documentaries made about him, any number of journalistic attempts to get to the bottom of this controversy. Then one day the fatwa was lifted. The new Iranian president Mohammad Khatami, a self-described moderate, decided he wanted rapprochement with the West and declared Rushdie a free man in 1998. It helped that the Ayatollah Khomeini was dead.
Fortunately for Rushdie there were still plenty of radical Muslims who wanted him dead, so he was able to continue to milk this fatwa as his writing began to decline. I think the move to the US hurt him worse than the fatwa as he became obsessed with American politics and began to lose his bearings. I suppose all the wild antics of religious conservatives in this country were too tempting to pass up. These guys are every bit as crazy as the Muslim radicals he previously described.
Don't get me wrong, I like Rushdie. Midnight's Children is one of my favorite books. Few books do more to explain the crazy partition of India than does this book in its magical realist way. When my wife and I traveled to India in 2017, we learned that the partition remains a very deep wound, easily broken open at a moment's notice. It is not something you want to talk about either, but Rushdie did it in away that didn't seem to inspire as much hatred as did his depiction of Mohammed.
I think in large part it is because he managed to maintain a respectful distance. Such was not the case with The Satanic Verses, in which he gleefully crossed all the lines. At some point, I hope to finish the book but am afraid I would have to start over again, as I had already lost track of the many characters and timelines in the novel.
I see the current Ayatollah has since renewed the fatwa, leading to the cleric being banned on twitter. How's that for irony! I think this has more to do with Khamenei's contempt for the West than any personal interest in Rushdie.
It seems that whenever Iran tries to turn a corner, as was the case in 1998, and again in 2014, American conservatives demand renewed hostility and elect a succeeding president that will cut off all ties with the reviled country. The US is continually renewing its fatwa with Iran, hoping to bring down the country's leadership, refusing to forget the horrible incidents of 1979, when the Shah was deposed and our embassy held hostage in Tehran. The Ayatollah Khamenei doesn't help matters with his truculence and obsession with Rushdie. Conservatives can say I told you so.
Well, Salman has a renewed sense of purpose. It's been 32 years since this book first came out, and it still is very much in demand with numerous reprints in many languages, including a Farsi edition to rile up Iranian religious conservatives.
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