Rushdie Haunted by his unholy Ghosts — Page 54
54 Mohamed Arshad Ahmedi it, and holding a Qur’an in the left hand, with the words lex et alcoranus written on it : this is the mythical image that has been portrayed by the enemies of Islam. There are also talismans hanging from the collar of Muhammad(sa), implying that he was a sorcerer and an exorcist who used his magic spell to convert people ! If this was not enough, Dr. Daniel has the audacity and effron- tery to suggest that the ‘treatment is dignified’! One shudders to think that if this was a ‘dignified’ portrayal of Muhammad(sa), then what would be the result if an undignified depiction was really undertaken ! SI M I L A R I T Y OF T H E OR I E N TA L ISTS It seems that the real motive of the Orientalists to study Islam and, in particular, the life of Muhammad(sa), has been to present a distorted image as has been too plain to see. Almost all the writers seem to have banded together using the same limited sources which they have exploited time and again, so much so that they are begin- ning to sound like worn-out records. The way that they have presented the background of Muhammad’s life, the Arabia into which he was born, his own early life, his call to Prophethood and the circumstances of his death, were all presented as demonstrating that he was human, fallible and subject to every discreditable misfortune. (In fact, this is exactly the method employed by Salman Rushdie in his infamous novel). The Orientalists over the years had the habit of quoting former authorities on the same topics, so limited was their source. As Dr. Daniel himself quotes from a book by Reland, a French Orientalist, called De Religione Mohammedica [The religion of Mohammad] (1705) : ‘If ever any Religion was perverted by Adversarys, it was this Religion (Islam); it was the custom to send a young man fir’d with a generous Ardor of understanding the Mahometan Religion to