Rushdie Haunted by his unholy Ghosts — Page 137
Rushdie: Haunted By His Unholy Ghosts 137 by The Satanic Verses; it requires a long period of intense reading. It’s a quarter of a million words. ’ This smug assumption is as futile as it is unjustified. It would not be long before he would have to come up with better explanations to pacify the volatile situation that he would fi nd himself in. When asked about the controversy about acting and playing on the historic text of the Qur’an, he clearly admits that it was almost entirely based on historical fact. For example, he says : ‘Almost everything in those sections - the dream sequences - starts from an historical or quasi-historical basis, though one can’t really speak with absolute certainty about history when you talk about that period of Mohammed’s life. . . . The interesting thing about Mohammed is that there is objective information about him other than the sacred text. ’ Rushdie then goes on to say that the reason for the book was to explore themes that would answer two questions. ‘When an idea (like Islam) comes into the world, its faced with two big tests: when you’re weak, do you compromise; when you’re strong, are you tol- erant ?’ He clearly talks about Muhammad(sa) in answering these questions : ‘as far as we can tell about Mohammed’s life. . . there seems to have been a brief flirtation with a possible compromise- about monotheism - which was very rapidly rejected. ’ How audacious and impertinent of Rushdie to keep insisting that this work can be deemed fictional when he clearly admits that it was Muhammad(sa) that he was writing about; and the fact that ‘Mahound’ is used to refer to Muhammad(sa) is a clear indication of the deliberate attempt to provoke Muslims. ( An edited extract was published in The Guardian, 15 February 1989 ). Rushdie contends that ‘Mahound’ is not the Prophet Muhammad(sa) but a figment of his character Gibreel’s sleep- ing mind. Even were this so, Rushdie’s defence breaks down on