Rushdie Haunted by his unholy Ghosts — Page 60
60 Mohamed Arshad Ahmedi SI M I L A R AT TAC K S In trying to sway the argument in his favour, he acts no differ- ently to the other Christian scholars who found the ‘easy way out’ by attacking the Holy Prophet(sa) of Islam with great untruths and twisted accounts and narrations. For example, in the space of a short paragraph, he sums up the age-old accusations levelled against Muhammad(sa) with regard to him being licentious and cruel. Dr. Ali writes : ‘The whole pattern of Muhammad’s life was thoroughly Arab: his plurality of wives, his concubines, his raiding (razzia) of lad- en caravans in times of poverty, his unpredictable cruelty as well as his sudden generosity. . . . all these were deeply ingrained into Muhammad’s character. ’ (p. 24). Dr. Ali is also in unison with the other Western scholars and attributes satanic thoughts to Muhammad(sa) : ‘(This may account for his original acceptance of the goddesses Lat, Manat and ‘Uzza as intercessors with Allah. He said later that this verse had been inspired by Satan, and changed it!)’ (p. 25). The author continues on the offensive against the character of the Holy Prophet(sa) : ‘the disturbing thing is that Muhammad married eleven wives in violation of the very revelation which he claimed to have received’, and again, ‘the famous saying about the prophet that he loved three things: prayer, perfume and women!’ (pp. 32-33). There is a lot of other material of the same kind that can be found throughout the book, and as it is painful enough to quote even one of them, I do not think that I should tarry any longer in this direc- tion. It suffices to say, that this work by Dr. Ali had ‘deja-vu’ written all over it, but as far as the spiteful plan of the West was concerned, this work was not nearly strong enough nor damaging enough to