Rushdie Haunted by his unholy Ghosts — Page 50
50 Mohamed Arshad Ahmedi tant disproof of all. To this end writers believed and wished to show that Muhammad was a low-born and pagan upstart, who schemed himself into power, who maintained it by pretended revelations, and who spread it both by violence and by permitting to others the same lascivious practices as he indulged in himself. ’ ( p. 79). For all Dr. Daniel’s attempts to delineate the deformed image of Islam through the works of other Western Orientalists, he himself has fallen prey to the dogmas of the Christian Church, and this is clearly manifested when he implies in his writing that there must be some truth in the allegations against Muhammad(sa) if everyone else is making the same insinuations : ‘In all the accounts of Muhammad’s life which have some rela- tion to reality, but omitting the wholly fabulous, two consistent themes dominate all that is said. Muhammad was violent; he levied war and ordered assassinations unscrupulously for private ends, for plunder, and even more for ambition. Secondly, he was subject to human frailty; he had his ups and downs, a history which revealed the ordinary fluctuations of fortune. ’ (p. 96). Daniel also follows the path of previous Orientalists when he alleges lasciviousness to the character of Muhammad(sa). Several pages are expended in pursuit of this, but I shall quote just one ex- ample, which is hurtful enough to relate, but which will no doubt, give the reader a sample of the malicious and vindictive writing of the author : ‘Probably the favourite mediaeval story of Muhammad was that of his marriage to Zaynab bint Jahsh after her divorce from Zayd ibn Haritha. The story has popular appeal of a police-court char- acter. . . : the all but incestuous adultery with the wife of an adopted son; Muhammad’s inability to resist fleshly temptation; the use of a special revelation to justify what he had done. ’ (p. 97). So with all these accusations and assertions by the Christian polemic of that period, it came as no surprise when the medieval Christians came to the conclusion that Muhammad’s (alleged) be-