Sherry Jones emailed me the prologue of her book The Jewel of Medina to share with you all. I’ve read it, and I sent it to shewhohashope to gain her perspective, as she and I are of different faiths and cultures, and have differing views of the prologue and the book that it introduces. Obviously, sweeping judgments based on the prologue are as frail as sweeping judgments based on not having read the book at all, but hey, what is our site without some randomly sweeping judgments, right?
If you’d like to download the prologue and read it for yourself, a PDF is available here (please right click and download, thanks). All contents of the prologue are copyright Sherry Jones.
My reactions are from the perspective of a reader, and someone who is, due to this controversy, very curious about Islam, Aisha, Mohammed, and this book itself. Shewhohashope, a 22 year-old student of Anthropology living in London, England, is a Sunni Muslim and rabid Heyer fan.
My reaction: would this prologue make me continue reading? Yup. It’s half dishy and half history (which therein lies a problem, yo) and almost reads as a hybrid of YA, historical fiction, and historical romance. Aisha, in the prologue, is 14, and is returning to her caravan after they traveled without her. She arrives in camp with a man named Safwan ibn Al-Muattal, and upon her return is accused of adultery with Safwan. Muhammad later receives a vision or revelation that Aisha was not unfaithful to him, and her accusers were punished.
My initial impressions were that the tone was melodramatic, and that the heroine seemed very, very young, more like a modern 14 year old than what I would presume at 14 year old would be like at that time. Nowadays, a 14 year old is in middle school, and, if it’s a 14 year old girl, likely given to impulsive behavior and, in some instances, a hormonal overdrive that causes them to act like pubescent minions of evil. 14 year old girls can be MEAN like DAMN.
The biggest contention from those who would read this and be upset would be the depiction of Aisha as possibly having been tempted, and certainly having taken deliberate steps to sneak behind Mohammed’s back. Aisha is very, very human and young-acting, since she’s 14 and driven by some impulse in the prologue. A 14 year old then might have more presence of mind to resist impulse than a 14 year old today. I would figure a 14 year old at that time, who was married to a leader, who genuinely cared for him, who had been married for awhile, and who had, in context, a much shorter lifespan than we have now, would be in some ways more mature and less impulsive. But then, this is a supposition that could easily be flawed on my part, or addressed by the rest of the narrative.
However, the prologue sets up the narrative tension very quickly: what is Aisha feeling guilty about? She mentions that she and Safwan crafted a story on the ride to the caravan so that their stories would match, but she also mentions that she remained faithful to Mohammed. She has something about which she is ashamed, and there is a deliberate reason she allowed the caravan to leave her behind, but that tension and guilt betray her to those who accuse her of much, much worse, so she’s defending herself while she feels guilty and ashamed.
As I wrote to shewhohashope, the conflict about this book is as much about faith as it is understanding what someone of another culture and another faith holds sacred and what is, frankly, a “big deal.” It is, I’ve learned, a big deal to humanize and portray as tempted and flawed one of the four matriarchs within Islam. It’s a very big deal to hint at adultery for Aisha. And it’s a huge honking big hopping deal to portray as human the prophet Mohammed.
So that’s why it’s offensive to the part of alarming and upsetting people. I completely understand that. I still want to read the rest of the book.
However, in my mind that does not give any one person the right to make such a big stink that a publisher decides for the rest of us that reading the book is too dangerous for all involved. I’m disappointed that I won’t get the opportunity to read the entire book and decide for myself, and I’m disappointed that more people won’t have the opportunity to read something that’s become salacious and notorious, because if other readers are like me, they’d be curious about Mohammed, his wives, and their role in shaping the future of Islam and do more research (like I did – hello, internet! mwah!) to learn more.
When I asked shewhohashope if she’d be willing to read the prologue and share her reaction, she agreed. She writes:
Just from the prologue, the part I could see becoming contentious is that Jones’ Aisha ran away with another man with the intent to commit adultery, when this is specifically denied in the Qur’an. And the depiction of several of the sahaba in their treatment of Aisha, although that has basis within Islamic historical records (and within the Qur’an).
I don’t know. Considering that this is a fictionalised account of the Prophet’s (saws) [wife’s] life, offence-wise anything else is icing on the cake, so it’s not as important.
But I wouldn’t want to give the impression that there aren’t differences of opinion between Muslims as well, there is definitely a difference between how Aisha is perceived within the Muslim community. She is revered by Sunni Muslims and following the political incidents that caused the split between Sunni and Shia, Aisha is regarded as a much less reliable source within the Shiah tradition of Islamic scholarship.
I am no Islamic scholar (please add this disclaimer to everything I’ve said) but I assume that they would be better than the average woman (say me) and I can’t quite countenance the thought of committing adultery.
It’s mentioned in the Quran right after ‘don’t kill your children’, and right before ‘life is sacred’.
Kill not your children for fear of want: We shall provide sustenance for them as well as for you. Verily the killing of them is a great sin.
Nor come nigh to adultery: for it is a shameful (deed) and an evil, opening the road (to other evils)
Nor take life – which Allah has made sacred – except for just cause. And if anyone is slain wrongfully, we have given his heir authority (to demand qisas or to forgive): but let him not exceed bounds in the matter of taking life; for he is helped (by the Law).
[17:33]
It’s not so much the humanising of the Prophet either. There are plenty of biographies and hadith about the Prophet’s (saws) daily life. It’s the fictionalisation aspect that is worrying, not so much because of this particular book, this is something that has built up from when the hadith themselves were an oral tradition. Consider the danger of having historical fiction someone wrote about Mohamed (saws) floating about when our main sources for what the Prophet’s (saws) life was like are based on what people said about him. And for Sunni’s at least this makes up the second highest religious authority we have.
I’d have to read more to be able to anything substantial about it as a literary work, but it’s more controversial than I though it’d be already. [Aisha] seems younger than I think she’d be for her age, but that’s not an important issue within context. And it’s not even how she was tempted towards adultery as much as it’s that fact that that goes directly against something that is in the Qu’ran. Not to mention that Aisha in Islamic tradition (or sunni tradition) is one of the four perfect women who are held up as what all Muslim women should aim to be as wel as one of the Mothers of the Faith (along with Khadijah, Mary, and Asiya (ra)). Plus, it strikes me personally as a misrepresentation of who she was. Adultery in general is just a huge deal (even more so then, and even more so for a public figure, and even more so for her) it doesn’t strike me as plausible that she’d have a moment of weakness in this manner unless she was having a crisis of faith as well as whatever personal issues she’s supposed to be dealing with, because it is such a huge, huge thing to slip up on.
There are a slew of ways to evaluate the prologue: does it tease you to read more? Does the writing style please your readerly brain? Do the contents shock you? Does the characterization offend you deeply? Does the fiction make the idea of Mohammed and his life more or less accessible to you as a reader? Did you like it? And what about Brett Farve going to the Jets? No, sorry, that’s a different discussion.
I’m curious what you think of the prologue, so please share your thoughts. Thank you to Sherry Jones for sharing her work, and to shewhohashope for sharing her opinion and her time.
This raises the issue of the accuracy of the “historical record”—which, in general, is more full of gaps and conflicting academic speculation the further back in history one goes. That record becomes additionally clouded (and let’s be brutally honest about this) when religious belief is applied to it.
How much, really, is known, beyond the shadow of any doubt, about the lives of the figures portrayed in Ms. Jones’s book? Or about any person, for that matter?
There’s a fascinating book called Cows, Pigs, Wars and Witches: The Riddles of Culture (1974) by anthropologist Marvin Harris that attempts to untangle taken-for-granted matters of faith from historical likelihood and cultural reality. Ashley Montagu liked the book. That, and the title, were enough to make me dive in. It was very thought-provoking and informative.
To Victoria Dahl: Actually adultery is a big Oops in the Bible.
Adultery is defined as the commission of voluntary sexual intercourse between a married person (man or woman) and someone who is NOT his or her spouse (regardless of whether that person is married or not). It’s prohibited because it is a breach of the promise between that man and woman, and, in broader terms, a breach of the promise made towards (if not literally to) the spouse’s family and the promise to the community, whose stability relies upon its members to live by the group’s agreed-upon mores and faith.
The same voluntary sexual intercourse between two people who are NOT married (to each other, or to other individuals) is only an affair, and does not pose the same threat to the community, and as such, historically (anthropologically?) speaking it has been frowned upon, discouraged, but not as villified.
Agreed!!! *g*
I’m not a muslim, but I am a middle eastern studies major, which made me sit up and pay attention not only at the subject matter of the book but the controversy surrounding it.
It was interesting to read the various takes on it, and I can appreciate why it would be uncomfortable and controversial for muslims. Still, I think it deserves to be published. And to be read in its entirety and judged then, and not be censored—yes, censored, because of fear of violent outrage against it. That’s just wrong, and the publisher should reconsider.
Of course, I just love historical fiction, especially that written from a first person POV, because that is my favorite to read and write in. The language was powerful, and I just enjoyed it.
I can find out true history for myself, that’s not the reason I read historical fiction. Heck, even nonfiction can be historically inaccurate and factually biased; I believe it falls upon us as individuals to investigate the truth and history. Besides, I believe something like this provides fodder to discuss such history, and how or if it should be written about.
I am so disappointed that this book won’t be going on sale. I really do want to read the rest of it. I hope the author finds another (and better) publisher, stat, or releases it as an ebook, or self-publishes if need be—because I’d be the first to queue up and buy!
Hi, everybody!
I just wanted to take a second and express my admiration for the way everybody’s been commenting. I think it’s terrific that everybody is expressing their opinions, explaining their reasoning, and respectfully disagreeing with other people if they do in fact disagree. It’s very heartening to read.
Rational, respectful discussions! The Internet can has them!
JD
ARRRRGGH. It’s not censorship for a private enterprise not to publish something when it returns the rights to the author. She’ll find someone to publish it, of that you can be without doubt, but no one should force Random House to do it.
Should Random House have done it this far into the process? No, not really, but they should have sent it to a specialist in the field before it got to this point. They were sloppy and ignorant at the start of the process, not at the end of it.
There are ways they could have stopped it from seeing print, they didn’t take any of them.
I agree entirely. Except.. For me the *attempt* at censorship is not on the part of Random House, but on the groups demanding that the book not be published. Does a censor have to have institutional power for it to be censorship? I’m asking that question honestly, because I’m not sure.
For me (as an American *g*) there is a big difference between a group trying to keep people from buying a book and a group trying to keep a book from even being published.
No book “deserves” to be published. Publishing is a business, not a charity. What’s at issue here isn’t where Jones’ book “deserves” to be published, but whether a company should change their mind about publishing a specific work based on threats and intimidation, and I’ll go to the mattress that Jones’ and her book have been treated in a manner that I find despicable.
Spider: I think we all know what adultery is. So, when Victoria D. wrote:
She was taking the long way ‘round to say, “Adultery is a big oops in the bible.”
And on that, we can all agree.
Also, I totally agree with TeggyPig:
And the end of Victoria’s comment.
In my book, yes, they have to have some form of institutional power. Otherwise everyone who expresses an opinion against a piece of media is a censor. Did Paris Hilton’s parents censor John McCain for saying they were offended by the recent political ads and asking that they not be aired again?
To Kalen Hughes: I think you’ve struck on something here. I think this reaction (which is certainly NOT held by all: consider those who wish to ban Harry Potter, The Golden Compass, The Color Purple, just to name a few off the top of my head) does stem from the way our (majority? bulk-pop-?) culture has developed through history, and leans towards the individual’s right (for himself or dependents) to decide on how to live and keeps faith a personal/private matter, separate from one’s public life.
So, if we look at the background of the Founding Fathers- the kind of religious persecution which they faced, the kind of governmental persecution which they faced led to the development of a very particular national ideal. (Heck, you can go further back to the Reformation in Europe and beyond, just not in this post. It’s too long already.)
When considering the history of the cultures predating the Muslim expansion (ca. 650 CE) as well as subsequent histories of the countries which became predominantly (or entirely) Muslim, the cultural perspective developed completely differently. Understanding how might give us more answers as to the why, but I don’t think it is necessarily going to create Empathy.
I think we can only offer Sympathy because we do not fully understand. And, even our sympathy, IMO, comes from our particular live-and-let-live view.
Sarah, I’m glad you asked for her reaction and gave her the inches to explain. As someone who has a faith most prefer to deliberately misunderstand, I appreciate it. Too, I like the insights she gave into her faith.
Yes. But having shewhohashope’s explanation in mind makes me view it more as midrash along the lines of The Red Tent and thus, take its historicity with a grain of salt.
Yes.
No. I’m all about combining faith with doubt and angst about sexuality versus religious culture. I need more examples of such a struggle.
No. It probably would if I were Muslim, but again, my faith and its leaders have been ridiculed for so long (ah, including Cross Cuntry) that I’m just used to it. Water. Duck. You know the drill.
I never thought much about Mohammed. Now I’m intrigued to study more.
Yes.
I guess what I don’t understand is the feeling I get that if non-Muslims read it and are NOT offended, that we have sinned. Am I reading that correctly or are my internet goggles just not working properly?
History is not the same as fact. The historical record is no more than surviving people’s subjective accounts of events they experienced or were told about, and can’t be considered to be any more accurate than any number of conflicting eyewitness accounts of contemporary events. A historical work based entirely on information generally accepted as factual may in fact be just as inaccurate as any historical novel.
Religion is notorious for taking “facts” and skewing them for its own purpose—e.g., the fact Christmas is celebrated on December 25, when in reality Christ’s birthdate has never been reliably substantiated. So religious history should be viewed with even more skepticism than secular.
To Rebecca:
The internets ate my comment, but the gist was: I totally got longwinded. I get frustrated at the confusion of adultery with all extramarital sex, and I wasn’t trying to call anybody out!
*eyebrow raised* The “Founding Fathers” did not face religious persecution. The Puritans might have, but the “Founding Fathers” were born half a century later, and most of them were extremely privileged individuals.
And Deists, which so often gets overlooked in American history.
Katherine, you can’t seriously be calling one professor’s attempt to quash publication of a NOVEL “commenting within their field of expertise”? “Commenting” is saying, “I found this book disrespectful of its sources, inaccurate, and potentially offensive. I have been in contact with graduate students who have expressed an interest in seeing this book and ask the author for an apology for her depiction of holy figures.”
Academic freedom should not be limited—but it goes more than one way. I may hate—and I do mean HATE—David Horowitz and his cronies with their books filled with filthy lies, and yet you don’t see me rallying the troops to get them silenced by having their publishing contracts revoked, do you? Even though their message could corrupt my own?
If you find something offensive, make your argument against it stronger. Speak louder. Don’t silence the other person.
(And, by the way, I would say that Random House’s actions do amount to a kind of temporary censorship. They have institutional power over the publication of that novel, and they opted to revoke their publication of it due to external pressure. Until Ms. Jones finds another publisher, the novel has, in effect, been censored.)
Why, exactly? Again, I think we’re confusing people’s expectation that their rights not be infringed with their displeasure at being offended.
I think my reaction boils down to:
(1) I am not a Muslim, but I appreciate that the content and implications of this book offend Muslims.
(2) I absolutely despise historical fiction that distorts historical record because it’s easier to write the story the author wants when the author tweaks a bit of truth to fit his/her plotlines.
(3) I probably would not find the rest of this book enjoyable for that reason.
(4) The book was pulled for cowardly reasons and ought to have been published as originally planned. In that event, the people who disliked it would have been free to express their dislike, and the people who liked it would have been free to enjoy it.
“The bigger your market, Montag, the less you handle controversy, remember that! All the minor minor minorities with their navels to be kept clean. Authors, full of evil thoughts, lock up your typewriters! They did. Magazines became a nice blend of vanilla tapioca. Books, so the damned snobbish critics said, were dishwater. No wonder books stopped selling, the critics said. … It didn’t come from the Government down. There was no dictum, no declaration, no censorship, to start with, no! Technology, mass exploitation, and minority pressure carried the trick, thank God.
….
“Colored people don’t like Little Black Sambo. Burn it. White people don’t feel good about Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Burn it. Someone’s written a book on tobacco and cancer of the lungs? The cigarette people are weeping? Burn the book. Serenity, Montag. Peace, Montag. Take your fight outside. Better yet, into the incinerator.”
—from Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury, 1953. With apologies for potentially offensive language and the implication that cultural sensitivity is always bad, it is nevertheless a passage that always haunts me in discussions like these.
Actually, yes, I can. Especially when the novel is historical fiction set in what is the bulk of the reading public unfamiliar territory. Fiction is used as a method of teaching history all the time. Students in universities today are being asked to read and write papers on the Kite Runner. The fact that is a novel does not exclude it from historical discussion.
She is, by every definition I can moster, one of the worlds leading experts on the subject matter covered by this novel. If it’s not her field of expertise, I don’t know whose it would be.
As for the demands it not be published? Lots of people make demands. The professor didn’t put a gun to Random Houses head. She pointed out a fact that should have been ragingly obvious to them from the start. She thought the offense so great that Random House shouldn’t publish it. It’s her opinion. That shouldn’t be any less valid because you disagree with her than the authors is for thinking she shouldn’t be held to the standards of historical fact.
V. Dahl
My problem with this kind of righteous indignation, in this particular situation is that, as far as I know, there is no slope in existence to make us credibly worried about anything slippery. Random House has not supplied any evidence of death threats only the likelihood on them occurring; an evaluation they got from anonymous sources that are described as “credible”. The only real *threats* to clearly manifest themselves is some protesting grad students who put together a bullet list. Ooooooo, scary.
– Kristen S
Shit, it sure is tough being a minority. Others are so much quicker to judge you in relation to whatever group you represent to them rather than recognise what is more unique (and therefore illuminating and probably relevant) about your situation. Ambassador work 24/7 with no pay. 🙁
Am I the only one seeing some serious idealization of American culture going on here? Seems to me a lot of Americans have no problem looking at behavior they don’t approve of based on their Judeo-Christian morality and creating laws that make it illegal (abortion and homosexual relationships come to mind). They might believe in a separation of church and state, but that certainly doesn’t seem to apply to the legal system.
And the FCC likely would take issue with the second statement (aren’t “Jesus Christ!” and “goddamn” still forbidden on network television?).
We are not nearly as tolerant some of these comments would make us seem. When my partner recently had surgery, I had to provide all manner of legal paperwork before hospital staff could even tell me she was a patient, let alone allow me to visit her.
Because the American media willfully and sometimes with blissful ignorance paints with a very wide brush. The injustices done to both Arabs and Muslims are so great that they have, IMO, a moral obligation to make sure they do not needlessly offend.
Might want to check out a book called Reel Bad Arabs by Jack Shaheen. it’s about Hollywood, but I think the indictment is against western media in general.
Off topic, but: why not silence them? If you were in charge of a publishing company, and in your judgement David Horowitz (don’t know who he is, but still) wrote lies, why would you publish his writings? I can’t see why the more moral course would be to promulgate untruths.
My problem with this kind of righteous indignation,
Eh, I’m pretty sure I wasn’t even indignant, much less righteously so.
So basically you’re saying that any text depicting Arabs and/or Muslims should be run through a vigorous screening process to make sure we don’t offend anyone.
While we’re at it, can we do that for books/movies depicting Native Americans/Amerindians/First Nations peoples? Because they’ve gotten an incredibly nasty rap from Hollywood and mass media, too.
Oh, and come to think of it, shouldn’t someone do something about the depiction of African Americans in media?
Get a fucking grip. We all offend each other all the time. NO ONE HAS THE RIGHT NOT TO BE OFFENDED. We can do our best to be culturally sensitive, to be aware, etc., but censorship is absolutely NOT the way to do it. The best way is to talk, talk, talk, talk, until such images are widely recognized as negative and inappropriate.
And, again, I maintain that Spellberg was doing far more than “commenting” on the book. It is NOT in the realm of an academic to go around shutting down books they disagree with. And using a novel to teach history is LAZY TEACHING. You can use a novel to SUPPLEMENT the teaching of history, but history does not equal literature.
Ok, you can scratch that if you like, but the rest of my comment about the slippery slope being, at this point, a very weak illusion still stands. Unless grad students are particularly feisty on your side of the border.
Personally, I think this is all part of Random House’s genius plan to cut their own PR budget for the book after they publish some token apology and give whoever came up with the idea a huge promotion/bonus.
snarkhunter
Whoa whoa whoa! She typed “needlessly offend”. “Needlessly”! Big change in meaning there. I’m going to tag this as another fit of needless righteous indignation ;).
Edit: And what kind of “vigorous screening process” is “send book to specialist in the field earlier in the book deal process”? This is the only recommendation Katherine made, far as I can see. (Although I don’t agree, from what we’ve read so far, that the academic’s entire response was a responsible one.)
No, actually, I’m saying text about the life of the Prophet should be run by experts. That’s a no brainer to me, not just for reasons of cultural balance, but for basic fact checking. If you are going to go down this path in this climate, you better have a defensible position.
Well, for one thing, my claim that he writes “lies” is largely based on interpretation. I believe with every fiber of my being that he’s wrong about just about everything (he’s a big deal in anti-peace studies, anti-women’s studies, etc.), but I believe he has every right to be out there saying these things. He’s an American. So am I. In the United States, his right to be full of shit and to stand around saying it is something that I hold absolutely sacred. Because once we start supressing speech for being offensive or wrong, where does it end? Much of what I say can be offensive to a person who believes a woman should learn in silence. Why should that opinion have greater sway over my voice than I do?
Now, were I a publisher, and his books went against my stated mandate? Then, no, I wouldn’t publish them. But I also would never contract a book with him and then reject it based on vague threats and one person’s opinion.
Random House has the right to publish whateverthehell they want to publish. If they want to only publish books about purple pandas, more power to them. But they also have a duty, in my opnion, to fulfill their contracts, and not be swayed by vague threats and the opinion of a single individual, no matter how powerful she is within her field. If nothing else, they should’ve run the book by a panel of experts.
Did you look at Jones’s 29-page bibliography? She did her research. And the book is not meant to be used as or taught as fact. Why is this so hard? Fact is not fiction. Fiction is not fact. I understand why Muslims are distressed by this book, but this is something that Ms. Jones should not back down on. She wrote a novel in what appears to be an attempt to celebrate A’isha. You can disagree with that or with her method, but why in the world should every book on sensitive subjects have to be approved by a panel of “experts”? I mean that—why?
You’re at the top of a very scary slope here. Are we seriously going to cower in fear because of a few extremists? Are we going to edit every single thing we write, fiction or non, because it might offend some loons with guns? It’s ridiculous, and by catering to such behavior, we only encourage people to use threats to get what they want.
And even I don’t think her entire response was responsible. I’ve said a couple of times I didn’t think her tone was helpful, but that doesn’t mean her entire response was irrational and without merit.
And why exactly is that? Why should the Prophet be given that much consideration by a non-Muslim? It would be nice if he was, but it is not a requirement for a non-Muslim who wishes to write a book about him. Nor should it be.
As a writer I highly disapprove of anybody telling me what I should or shouldn’t do in order to write the story that I want to tell.
As has been said above, nobody in America has the right to not be offended whether they be Muslim, gay, Pagan, or purple men from the planet Zool.
Yes, basic facts should be checked, but anybody can do that without have their work analyzed by an expert. Especially if you have a 29 page bibliography like Ms. Jones does.
Okay, fair enough. I did miss that word. My point was that her comment about the injustices done to Arabs and Muslims can be said about many, many other ethnic and religious groups, and yet people aren’t falling all over themselves to make sure there’s “accuracy” in their depictions, particularly in fiction. And why is that, do you suppose? Is it because people think those minority groups don’t matter? Or is it because they’re not afraid of those minority groups? I suspect a combination of both.
As an academic myself, I believe Spellberg overstepped her bounds. She had every right to comment on the book and to preach against it in her classrooms. She could pick it apart to death with her grad students or whomever she wanted to talk about it with. But she had no right to stop its publication in the manner she did.
A 29-page bibliography does not mean that the book is well researched. Have I inspected the bibliogrpahy in question? No. I will say that I have taken enough middle eastern history and religious studies classes in my life to see a lot of problems with Jones’ entire attitude. That makes me question the validity of the book.
You want to say fiction is fiction. Fine. We’ll agree to disagree on that subject. I am of the opinion that fiction is neither written nor read in a vacuum.
To Snarkhunter: Poor word choice on my part. I should have reworked/clarified by saying that I think that religious persecution was a consideration in developing the government.
Because we live in a world where the response by a lot of people to this controversy is to equate a single academic and a listserv of grad students with a power point presentation and a petition to a mob of terrorists.
Because we keep telling the world we are not in a cultural war with Islam while we throw hand grenades over the wall at them.
Of course it’s not. But censoring one’s self out of fear creates an enviroment in which I do not want to live. And given your comments about “this climate,” it seems to me that that’s where your comments lead.
Anaquana said it better than I did. In the United States (and I will only speak for that country, as it is an American author and an American publisher in question), no one has the right to not be offended. No one.
To take it out of the realm of this particular book and into the realm of the hypothetical/historical, do you also think that Rushdie should have withdrawn The Satanic Verses and had it pulped? Why/why not? How is that different? (Although Rushdie, having grown up Muslim, may have more cultural authority to speak, I think the issue of cultural appropriation is actually a bit of a red herring here, only b/c I wonder why people are so up in arms about *this* instance of it, but not the 80000 others we can see every day.)
Bingo.
So we cave in. And where else do we give in to the demands of other faiths? Shall I start wearing a headscarf (no offense intended to those who do) while going about my regular life, because I may offend a conservative Muslim man whose path crosses mine?
It’s been said a number of times, but WOW: great discussion everyone. I have completely forgotten anything and everything I was going to add because I’m all caught up in trying to untangle the ins and outs of all of this.
I can’t seem to come to terms with myself at all. …so rambling ahoy:
I generally enjoy historical fiction. I like “interpretations” of stories. For example, I like to pick through various versions of Anne Boleyn to see the moments from history that may have prompted the author to make a particular character decision.
Someone above, apologies for the lack of direct quote, remarked about westerners liking their leaders humanized, and I can connect with that. (Unapologetic Humanist here.) Everybody is, or was, a flesh and blood, eating, walking, breathing entity at one point with wonderful flaws and/or nobility to be explored. (And…strangely, THIS is where I could make a connection to Brett Favre…agh. *is such a nerd* The sixteen-year-old that watched him win a Super Bowl feels crushed and betrayed. Anyway….) Historical fiction need not be 100% representative of What Actually Happened for me to like it.
This being said, I also think that one should be really careful before writing in a culture that one is not part of and really take pains to make the setting as Spot On as possible. (I could write about icy stadiums and cheese hats, but not hooligans in rival football club hangouts in Glasgow). In this particular case, though effort was certainly made, I just wasn’t being sold on the cultural details which may possibly make the situation that much more touchy. Culture needs to bleed through the pages to make characters older than a 20th century brain feel like people that did not come OUT of a 20th century brain. (I will grant that all we had was a prologue.)
I can certainly appreciate the intent in writing… to express personal fascination with the historical events and to make people interested in finding out more.
We (the US) do still have a Muslim-maligning problem, and anything to further understanding is a Good Thing, but umm….iffy subject matter to dive into. At least we’re discussing here. Hurrah! (And I’ve learned some things! Thanks more educated posters!)
On the flip side, my sensibilities are somewhat offended by the removal of the book from circulation. This conversation is good, but it’s such SPECULATIVE conversation. If the book had been out there and circulating, just think of the dialogue!
I feel like, NOT having the book out there makes this more a conversation about whether or not there was censorship or if there was overreaction, and not as much a conversation about the issues that cause the offense. (Everyone above has done a fab job talking about issues of historical accuracy and representation of important religious figs though.)
End in sight, I swear.
Personally, I can sympathize with people who would be offended by the subject matter, even if I don’t (from my very agnostic perspective) understand what it’s like to live so thoroughly in a religion that the fictional presentation of its characters is Not Cool. …though I think I just realized that, though I am agnostic now, this lack of understanding comes in equal amount from my Christian upbringing. Christians are SO used to seeing their holy folk acted out and represented (for hundreds of years), that this sort of thing is baffling. Eek. Nothing like a revelation “in public.”
Done. Sorry for the disorder. I tried to think it through. Probably failed.
Thanks for sharing everyone. This sort of thing takes nads.
Shit. I screwed up my last comment. I should’ve said that I felt Katherine was actually making that equation herself, based on her comments about “climate,” and then gone forward.
The “bingo” was unnecessarily snarky, and I tried to edit it out, only to be stymied by the computer. Sorry. 🙁
At this point I’m just waiting for more detailed reporting on what actually went down. I have quite a few Muslim friends who are immigrants or only first-born generation and are therefore a bit closer to an environment or a general philosophy in which an entire society is more reverential towards a deity. I think it’s why I get less het up when I hear or read about different Muslims groups actively demanding (on printed paper!) that any particular product relating to Muhammed not be published/aired. For them it’s not a virtue that Christians have become so lax—this is how some would see it—that any and every sort of blasphemy can be spread (fictional or otherwise) and nothing much can be done about it. And I’m sure that a lot of Christians envy at least this aspect of how Islam has developed in their countries.
I am no more congenial to the idea of acquiescing to their demands I just get where they’re coming from.