With all the stuff going on, I was curious about the rioting that came about over Salman Rushdie’s 1988 novel. I picked up a copy, and the objectionable stuff is only reached after a long, boring dialogue between the two main characters. As I see it, it concerns some (allegedly) blasphemous traditions which are revealed in one of the character’s dreams.
As far as I can see, the blasphemous stuff is really secondary to the real topic (that is the dilemma of belonging to two cultures)-which the characters wrestle with.
As I say, to reach this means going through a lot of quite dull (IMHO) writing-how many of the people who protested the novel actually would have read it?
Practically none, I’m sure. How many of the people who protest any work of art actually read or see it first? Most people don’t like to confront stuff that offends them and it’s sort of beside the point. They don’t want to know about the broader artistic context. Almost all of the offended people were taking directions from their imams or other people who found it politically advantageous to be “offended” by the book. They heard it was blasphemous or disrespectful to Islam based on shifty or false descriptions about the content and that was all they needed.
I’m not sure what you mean. There are a number of chapters of the book that follow the life of Muhammad, showing him with various human flaws. Is that what you mean by “one of the character’s dreams”?
I can’t find it now, but I read a good article on it a few weeks ago. Basically, it was bad timing, as the novel out during an unrelated diplomatic spat between Iran and Saudi Arabia. The result was that the Ayatollah and some Clerics in SA launched a “more fundemantalist then thou” contest to see who could be more extreme in condemning the book and show themselves as the leaders of the Muslim world.
One group condemned it, the other condemned it and called for it to be burned, the first countered by calling for all of Rushdie’s works to be burned, till finally they were both calling for the author to be killed.
Not that mullahs wouldn’t have condemned the book in anycase, but the extreme reaction it got was more about the need for a prop to use in internal Muslim world politics then about the book itself.
I haven’t heard that before and it is not mentioned on Wikipedia or in Rushdie’s recent memoir, so I’m skeptical. The book was released in September 1988 and there were some protests in a variety of countries in the months that followed, including the U.K. Those gained steam over time (because of media coverage), and the fatwa calling for Rushdie’s death was issued in February 1989. Khomeini was dying, and the political background as I understand it is that the Iran-Iraq War had just recently ended and it had badly damaged Khomeini’s credibility. He and his people were able to redirect the public’s frustration with them and the war onto the book.
Eschew rejecting the obvious.
I can’t help wondering if the title of the book(which references a real issue: Satanic Verses - Wikipedia ) helped fuel the outrage, with people just assuming it was referring to the Koran as a whole or something.
How many people know about some obscure excised text?
The issue was the way the Muhammad character (Mahound) and Islam (including the Satanic Verses incident) were depicted, not the book title. Although once people had decided to make an issue out of it they probably said whatever they wanted to say about it.
Probably about as many fundamentalist Christians who went crazy over The Last Temptation of Christ went to see that.
Thailand banned the book after it came out. It’s a Buddhist country but still has a fairly significant Muslim minority, especially down South near Malaysia. Just wanted to keep the piece, I guess. My father was still alive back then and mailed me a copy at my request. There’s a special feeling to reading a banned book in a country where it’s banned. I’ve seen it on the shelves of major bookstores in Bangkok since then though, so I guess the ban is off now.
They didn’t. It was just because Khomeinin issued a fathwah after browsing through the book did the noise level go up. Before that, it was just the scholarly muslims who were (peacefully) voicing their objections.
Still not true.
The fatwa was issued on February 14. I’m not aware of Khomeini browsing a copy either. It may have just been described to him. The fatwa was unusual in that it was just issued as a typewritten letter given to a state TV anchor to be read on air. To the extent there is a proper procedure with things like this, it was not followed. I do have to retract what I said to grude earlier, as it sounds like there really were people who managed to interpret the title as suggesting the whole Quran was Satanic.
What I don’t understand-the Muslims who rioted, burned property, etc.: were they worried that non-Muslims would read the book, and get the wrong idea about Islam? Or were they worried that Muslims would read the book and get the wrong idea about Islam?
As I say, the book takes time to read, and nobody who wants to slander something writes a long, rather boring novel to do so. How many people would read a book like “Mein Kampf” today, and use it to promote anti-semitism?
I’ve yet to read the book myself, but wasn’t there also speculation that it was because one of the characters in the story was basically a caricature (obviously an unflattering one) of Khomeni himself?
I can’t figure out how anyone stayed awake to get to any dubious material. 
Seriously, though, SV was one of the more boring books I’ve ever attempted to read (I think I finished it, but this was 20+ years ago).
If they were worried about people getting the wrong idea, I don’t think they would have rioted. The issue was the fact that he “insulted” the religion, so he had to die.
Yes. When I read the book a few years ago I was surprised I hadn’t heard more about that.
The fatwa was issued on Feb. 14th. I bought my copy at Cody’s in Berkeley on the 18th. 10 days later somebody firebombed the place. Evidently people read faster at Cal. 
There is a ban on depicting Mohammed or insulting him in any way. It is not like if someone says your mother is a whore, you get upset because you think people might believe it and start soliciting your mother, you get mad at the insult. They were mad at the insult and wanted revenge and to discourage other people from insulting Mohammed.
The ban you’re talking about refers to visual art. And I believe insults to Islam itself, not just Muhammad, are supposed to be punishable by death.