Satanic Verses? What was the offensive stuff there? I’d like to hear from someone who actually read it.
Zara
Not evenworth mentioning zara!
That could be, but if it's not worth mentioning, then why all the ruckus? Has anyone read it?
I should give it to Muslims who propogated a third class fiction (really not worth mentioning, as quoted by Phatan Bhai) to a number 1 best seller in the world.
I started reading that book and after finishing one chapter, I put it down. You just can't stand it. The writing style is so lame and non-professional that one wonders, how this guy (Mr. Rushdie) able to got a publisher to publish his book.
With the though that I might be a little biased, I picked up another of his book (Shame). Man did I prove my point. One of the worst writer I ever read (though I did not read many). What our brothers did was, what marketing people call, word of mouth advertisement, by talking about that book so much that people started buying it out of curiosity. Anyhoo, I wont recommend that book to anyone, be a muslim or non-muslim. It woould be complete waste of money and time.
'shame' is by Taslima Nasreen. ('Lojja' in Bangla)
ZZ...."Shame" is by Rushdie and "Lajja" is by Tasleema Nasreen....two diff books...
Mulka-e-Aliya ko Surdar ka bara sa AADAAB!!!
I have also started reading the book at this point. The style is kind of modern, I guess, very non-linear, stream of consciousness, etc. The style does not strike me as bad (yet, anyway). It reminds me of a Russian novel, Master and Margarita, which is actually one of my favorite novels. In fact, I think that Rushdie must have really gotten a lot of his inspiration from it. Master and Margarita retells the interactions of Jesus and Pontius Pilate, making them both more human, and giving an interpretation of what their conversations might have been like. I guess Satanic Verses is focusing in on Muhammed and Gibreel.
Anyway, no one has answered my question yet. Has anyone read it, or does anyone know what the offensive elements are?
Zara
Zara, here's a brief outline on SATANIC VERSES.
The book SATANIC VERSES – a whimsical tale revolves around two central characters: Gibreel Farishta & Saladin Chamcha, both Indian actors -- find themselves falling out of the sky as their jetliner bound for London is blown to bits by terrorists.
The two middle-aged actors have an animated conversation as they hurtle toward earth. They somehow land safely, but then their troubles begin anew. Gibreel dreams himself into the persona of the archangel Gabriel; Chamcha grows horns and hooves and temporarily turns into the devil.
Along the way, the author explores the roots of his Muslim faith and retells some legends of the Prophet Muhammed in whimsical and outrageous ways, taking care to offer up these sequences as dreams or even dreams within dreams by characters who may or may not be mad. Some of the most congested sequences in the book are those describing the birth of a religion that looks very much like Islam.
These events, dreamed by Gibreel in the course of a drawn-out mental breakdown, are derived form traditional accounts of Muhammed's life, but Rushdie spins them into fantasy and embroiders them with irreverent touches of sex, humor and politics.
Rushdie's fictional prophet is called Mahound, the name that 19th century Christian missionaries mockingly used in the medieval religious plays for a satanic version of Muhammed.
His passages satirize/ridicule a belief at the heart of Islam, that the Koran is the word of God revealed to Muhammed by the archangel Gabriel.
Another of Rushdie's bitterly disputed passages deals with the famous Satanic Verses from which the novel takes its title describing verses of the Quran as satanic and revealed by the Devil. Her Mahound is tempted by Gibreel to cut a deal with the enemies of his embryonic faith and tolerate the worship of three of their goddesses alongside the one God. Gibreel later tells Mahound the idea came from Satan and the prophet orders acceptance of the rival deities to be stricken from the holy text.
Perhaps the most sensational episode takes place in a brothel and bestows on prostitutes the names of Muhammed's wives. This is outrageous to Muslims since they revere their prophet's spouses as "mothers of all believers." Rushdie does not present Mahound's wives as fallen women, though; rather, the prostitutes borrow the names and gradually take on the identities of the wives to mock Mahound.
The book also mocks the British and Blacks in equal rascist candour.
Zara,
will you read it now?
Adbul,
Yep, I will read it. I've actually already made my way into it quite a bit and am a little confused, but I'm still plodding through. Thanks for posting the info for me, that will help :).
So is this the first time someone has written something disrespectful about the prophet, don't think so. There has been plenty of stuff written about Christ, as far as I have heard. What about that movie, The Last Temptation of Christ? Didn't he sleep with Mary Magdalene in that version of things?
I'm still wondering why this book became such a big deal. I have friends who don't even know what's in it, but who are ready to wring that guy's (Rushdie) neck on sight. Any ideas?
Zara
There have been others who followed in Rushdie's footstep, notably, Taslima Nasreen of B/Desh, Anvar Shaikh of Britain - they have both recd the death fatwa for allegedly blaspheming Islam!
The book became such a big deal because both Quran & Hadiths, condemn in very strong terms any slur against Islam and its messanger with penalty of death being the decree! And, Rushdie, allegedly, made fun of the Prophet, his wives and the Quran being the word of God; and, ergo the Fatwa of Death in accordance with the Quran.
Sure, there have been lots written about Jesus - deemed blasphemous and, the writers would have surely met the fate of Rushdie, had it taken place in the middle ages.
I guess with us it's still the Middle Ages.
Yep, Zara! With cruelty to match plus more !