Rushdie Haunted by his unholy Ghosts — Page 174
174 Mohamed Arshad Ahmedi The negatives and positives come from both corners; there are the likes of the hierarchy of the western media who are unrepent- ant of what has been allowed to happen while hiding behind the mask of freedom of speech and still giving the likes of Rushdie a free hand in making merry of basic sentiments that are held dearly to Muslims, and from the Muslim world we have the worryingly increasing number of so called “defenders of the faith” who have resorted to violent and unacceptable levels of demonstrations to express their views. So much so that on 14 February 2006 Iran’s Martyrs Foundation confirmed, “Imam Khomeini’s fatwa on the apostate Salman Rushdie will remain in force for eternity. ” Ayat- ollah Ruhollah Khomeini, former leader of Iran’s Islamic revolution, affirmed the edict of the fatwa on Salman Rushdie, in 1989, with a $2. 8 million bounty on his head On the positives, we have those sections of the media in Great Britain who have refused to depict the cartoons in their newspapers and Prince Charles who criticized the depicted cartoons while on a Middle East tour with his wife, Camilla, the Duchess of York. While in Egypt, Prince Charles expressed concerns over the “failure to listen and to respect what is precious and sacred to others”. He was addressing more than 800 Islamic scholars at Cairo’s al-Azhar University, the world’s oldest university on the topic of “ Unity in Faith” and called for greater tolerance between different religions - especially the three great “Abrahamic faiths”: Christianity, Judaism and Islam. “The roots of the faith that we share in the One God, the God of Abraham, give us enduring values,” he said. “We need the cour- age to speak of them and affirm them again and again to a world troubled by dissension. ” The Prince continued to say: “The recent ghastly strife and anger over the Danish cartoons shows the danger that comes of our failure to listen and to respect what is precious and sacred to others. In my view, the true mark of a civilised society is the respect it pays to minorities and to strangers. ”