Rushdie Haunted by his unholy Ghosts — Page 80
80 Mohamed Arshad Ahmedi wagon. But Rushdie, as usual, oversteps the mark by adding his own ‘fictional’ ingredients. The Qur’anic verses are: ‘Therein will be maidens, good and beautiful - Fair maidens with lovely black eyes, well-guarded in pavilions - Which, then, of the favours of your Lord will you twain deny? Whom neither man nor Jinn will have touched before them. ’ (Surah Al-Rahman, verses 71-75). Rushdie treats the subject most irreverently by adding,. . . and the women, four equally virile males! This is certainly meant to titilate the reader and to take away the sanctity and piety of the righteous people who are promised noble partners in the Hereafter. But it is Muhammad(sa) who has been meted out the vilest of abuses. In fact, Rushdie even has the audacity to make cutting com- parisons with himself, suggesting mockingly that he too has had revelations in his mind to produce his own works. Part of a chapter in the book has to be read in its entirety to per- ceive the rancour and venom in his pen and where the concept of revelation is ridiculed to the extreme. I shall just quote a few lines to present the bitterness to the reader : ‘On Mount Sinai, the prophet Musa or Moses heard disembod- ied commandments; on Mount Hira, the prophet Muhammad (also known as Mohammed, Mahomet, the Last-But-One, and Mahound) spoke to the Archangel (Gabriel or Jibreel, as you please. ). . . . . but like Musa or Moses, like Muhammad the Penultimate, I heard voices on a hill. . . . Gabriel or Jibreel told Muhammad: ‘Recite!’ And then began The Recitation, known in Arabic as Al-Qur’an. . . That was on Mount Hira outside Mecca Sharif; on a two-storey hillock opposite Breach Candy Pools, voices also instructed me to recite. ’ (pp. 161-162). In the same way that Muhammad(sa) went to his wife Khadija to express his moving experience of his first revelation, so Salman Rushdie mockingly relates his fictional revelations by rushing to his parents thus :