This recent move to (dis)honor the author Salman Rushdie with the highest British award of Knighthood a bold step which attempts to continue to alienate the Muslims of the world. Since 9/11 the Muslims have been in the cross-hairs of all investigations in any unforeseen mishap in the world, the first thing that the media starts portraying is an potential ‘Muslim angle’ its almost as if to say that the notion of ‘innocence until proven guilty’ does not exist, but instead the opposite is assumed form the outset – Guilty until proven innocent
The name of Salman Rushdie has been a highly controversial name since 1988 when he published the book Satanic Verses a book which had been perceived as an irreverent depiction of the prophet Muhammad. According to it, Muhammad (Mahound in the book) added verses (sura) to the Qur’an accepting three goddesses that used to be worshipped in Mecca as divine beings. According to the legend, Muhammad later revoked the verses, saying the devil tempted him to utter these lines to appease the Meccans (hence the Satanic verses). However, the narrator reveals to the reader that these disputed verses were actually from the mouth of the Archangel Gibreel. The book was banned in many countries with large Muslim communities. [link]
On 14 February 1989, a fatwa was proclaimed on Radio Tehran by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini requiring Rushdie’s execution, calling the book “blasphemous against Islam.” and a head bounty for Rushdie’s life started from around $300,000 (1993) and underwent a number of revisions to reach a pre-knighthood level of $2.8 million (2006), since the announcement a number of sympathizers have increased the head money drastically.
There is little doubt that the British government was not aware of the sensitive nature of this knighthood which was bound to infuriate the 1.6 billion Muslims world over, yet Queen Elizabeth looked past this impeding disaster to confer the stature of Knighthood to Rushdie.
To test the mettle, a simple logical question should be asked if the changed world after 9/11… How would they Americans feel if the Muslims started honoring Osama Bin Laden with the title “Saifullah, or Sword of Allah. Without doubt it would create a catastrophic reaction by the US Government to tame the offending country. Why then do these bureaucracies choose to pay with the Muslim sentiment, unless they want to entice a deliberate reaction, maybe even forcing the Iran issue to ripe in their favor. But the conspiracy theorists are also making their usual round with the passionate few suspecting this to be a Jewish backed tactile ploy!!!!, Could it? it could be…..
One must understand that condemning this action by the British Government to confer the Knighthood upon Rushds does not mean offending the free speech notion. I as an open dialog &/or Free Speech Activist feel that condemning the book, Satanic Verses outright to the extent of banning it achieves nothing, I personally might share my dislike with the book [I remain within my rights] but what irritates me is the deliberate effort by the UK government to dig up a grave which had remained long since buried and dead.
The Pakistani Blog community is abuzz with commentary on the issue as well and you can read them at Jahan Rumi, Cyril Almeida, Not the Whole Truth & Ali Eteraz
Simply said Queen Mather (ack) & Rushdie Sahib ‘Up Yours’
Comments
17 responses to “‘Sir’ Salman Rushdie, Up Yours!!!”
Read this http://www.irf.net/can_you_stomach_the_best_of_rushdie.doc
I wonder why didn’t they “honour” DAn brown, the author of DaVinci Code for his ‘remarkable’ work to abuse Jesus(AS) or all such honours are for *muslims* only?
BTW, rushdie is a christian now 🙂
Thanks for the link Dr. Alvi. I agree with you that it is a very callous attitude on the part of British government “to dig up a grave which had remained long since buried and dead. A conspiracy theory cant be ruled out. Be it a Zionist conspiracy or probably some hardliners within the British government dont want to bridge the differences and promote an interfaith dialogue and harmony. But it would be unfair to compare Osama bin Laden with Salman Rushdie. Bin Laden is responsible for thousands of deaths and indirectly he is also responsible for providing an excuse to the US to invade Afghanistan and Iraq and thus for the deaths and sufferings of millions of Muslims. Rushdie, on the other hand, is an intellectual who may be a good fiction writer but his views on politics, religion and sociology are quite amateurish e.g. He supported the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq. But while supporting the invasion of Iraq his line of argument was that US should invade Iraq not because Iraqs WMDs are a threat to the US but because Saddam Hussains regime is oppressive for his own people and US should liberate them on humanitarian grounds. I am not sure what is the opinion of Rushdie now on this invasion which led to inter-sectarian and inter-ethnic conflicts, massacres, instability and anarchy but such intellectuals can do irreparable damage by providing excuses to the corporate interests of big powers to promote their agenda.
At the one end you can’t speak abt holocaust in west ..on the other they humilated islam by any means..simply hypocracy
Kudos to Aijaz ul Haq, I’m surprised at his strong remarks.
Shame on Benazir Bhutto. How low can she get…
But the Jialas would remail loyal to her. Same goes with all other ethnic parties they are more loyal to their cult leaders than they are to Muhummad (Peace be upon Him).
Sorry, More Kudos for CM of Sindh!
Dr Arbab (NOT AWAB),
Although I don’t support you, but I can’t stop to praise you for returning the medals given to your family by the Imperialists.
May Allah clean your family and all of us from all the evils that we have done., Ameen
Get used to blasphemey.
Any ism that has the courage to present itslef as ultimate solution, should be ready for all kinds of possible verbal attacks.
If u dont have that courage, dont cretae or convey religion. Period.
I guess it is one of the benefits for being an “ALLY” in war on “TERROR”.
I could not more strongly disagree with this post. First of all, even proposing “how would they Americans feel if the Muslims started honoring Osama Bin Laden with the title ‘Saifullah’” is patently offensive. Salman Rushdie did not kill anyone, so to compare him to OBL is completely wrong and offensive.
Second, us Muslims are really making a mountain out of a molehill. So, he is being knighted. Obviously, he is not being knighted for his one book but rather for his body of work, which is very impressive.
So let’s take it easy and calm down. We have more urgent issues to solve in the Muslim world and in Pakistan.
A thousand ap;ologies, but this is nothing but a gratuitous plug for my own (recently setup) blog (where some of my views on the affair have been uploaded).
Someone in an earlier comment wondered how low our precious daughter of the beast could get… well not as low as this, I guess
: )
The whole post is BS.
If ppl surrender to extra sensitivity of Muslims anywhere in the world, then probably every person has to recite “peace be upon him” everytime he/she says “Mushammed”
Im surprised Awab, not like you to take such a position, especially on religion!
Adnan is right, this is just another Dan Brown piece targeted at Muslims, so what if its a conspiracy theory. Why can’t the Muslim response be of dialogue and not of a feeling of being threatened. I can understand the situation in the world has left so much miscommunication and misunderstanding between both the christian and muslim worlds, but calling a strike, denouncing it, or worse, calling anything anti-Islam to be a Jewish Conspiracy? please. Islam will not be respected by other nations/cultures if it continues to act out of retaliation and not out of Peace which it supposedly preaches.
Dr. Awab!
Good post. Indeed.
Some of the people would be happy with your post and some will not.
I don’t have words to support you but I know my prayers will work, since I don’t know you and I respect you sincerely.
May Allah help you, give you honor and respect in this life and hereafter, Ameen.
You act is if there exists some basic human right to never be offended. It does not because it would be totally arbitrary, especially when it comes to religion.
So what if someone publishes images of Mohammed? If you seek to impose your own, again arbitrary, religious rules on everyone, you will be very lonely. Your progress hampered by backwards thinking.
Salman Rushdie is an excellent writer, and a forward thinking muslim, that is what is being acknowledged.
By Muhajir on Jun 23, 2007 | Reply
Kudos to Aijaz ul Haq, Im surprised at his strong remarks.
Shame on Benazir Bhutto. How low can she get
But the Jialas would remail loyal to her. Same goes with all other ethnic parties they are more loyal to their cult leaders than they are to Muhummad (Peace be upon Him).
WELL WRITTEN!!!!!!I CANT AGREE MORE WITH YOU,,ITS TRUTH!
First of all, it is to inform you that whenever any Muslim meet with other Muslim, have to send Salam mean they pray to each other that May Allah bless him in his safty and provide him which he want to get in this world and after this world, whereas if any Muslaim meet another no Muslim so send salam means Allah keep in his Bless,
So all above facts are concern with human being while if we metter any animal weather No Muslaim or Muslaim meet or go to animal, doesn’t send hi becasue he is animal and Animal is animal
Right, under the circumtance i will not say Salam or Hi becasue you are also animal and animal means die in hell, kindly plz die by your self or plz give me chance i will very thankful to you.
becasue my first and final goal to achieve in this world to kill u
plzzzzzzzzzz, bitch
This is what Rushdie writes about the Queen of Britain. “chamcha…..he found himself dreaming of the Queen, of making tender love to the Monarch. She was the body of Britain, the avatar of the State, and he had chosen her, joined with her; she was his Beloved, the moon of his delight.”. Chamcha refers to the character of Rushdiie himself. Amazing, he writes about conjoining with the Queen and the Queen awards him with Knighthood. Amazing!!!