Rushdie Haunted by his unholy Ghosts — Page 22
22 C H A P T E R F O U R : L i t e r a r y A t t a c k s O n I s l a m The noteworthy attacks on Islam by Christian scholars started in medieval Europe, especially through the writings of the Byzantine theologians from 8th to the 13th centuries. These have been studied by Adel-Theodore Khoury, a Christian Arab who is professor at the University of Munster in Germany. The book is entitled Polemique Byzantine Contre L’Islam [Byzantine Polemics Against Islam] (VIIIe- XIIIeS) Leiden:Brill, 1972, pp. 359-365. In these writings Islam is portrayed as a false religion tending towards idolatry. Muhammad(sa) is depicted as a false prophet, an emissary of the devil, inspired by the ‘father of lies’, and is indeed himself the Anti-Christ. Much is made, too, of what are held to be his moral lapses. The Qur’an is regarded as a false scripture, in which Muhammad(sa) not only included true material from the Old and New Testaments, but also added other material from her- etics, such as Manichaeans, and inventions of his own. Islam was thus portrayed as a harmful religion of diabolic inspiration, and the Christian theologians would dearly have loved to bring about its destruction. The defamatory and calumnious work was carried further by other scholars like Peter the Venerable, Ricoldo da Monte Croce and especially Thomas Aquinas. They produced books like Disputations against the Saracens and the Qur’an, which dealt with Islam, and al- though some of the material was true and sound, they still managed to portray an image of Islam which was fourfold : 1. Islam is false and a deliberate perversion of truth, asserting that Muhammad mixed truth with falsehood. 2. Islam is a religion which spreads by force and violence and by the sword.