Rushdie Haunted by his unholy Ghosts — Page 89
Rushdie: Haunted By His Unholy Ghosts 89 was granted that his would become a house-hold name, but all for the wrong reasons. T H E SATA N IC V E R SE S It has been strongly argued by Salman Rushdie and his support- ers that The Satanic Verses was a fictitious novel and that no one had the right to restrict his imagination. On examining the novel in greater detail, the reader can be left in no doubt that many of the characters depicted are anything but imaginary. Rushdie continues to stress that the story he has concocted in the novel is entirely imaginary in that it has no bearing on reality whatsoever. However, whilst the story may be unreal and indeed imaginary, the tale is woven around very real and well-known people. Usually, in any work of fiction, there is a disclaimer to the effect that ‘all the events and characters in the book are entirely fictitious, and are not intended to represent any actual event or real person, either living or dead. ’ Interestingly enough Rushdie, makes no such declaration in his novel. By way of example I shall quote just a few extracts from the novel to let the reader decide for himself the untenable and flimsy defence of the author. Perhaps, to the Western readers, due to their lack of knowledge of Islamic history and unfamiliarity with the names of Prophet Muhammad’s companions, the connotations and inferences implied by some of the passages go unnoticed and they would thus regard the novel as fictitious, but to the thousands of millions of Muslims all around the globe who hold the holy person- ages of Islam in the greatest of reverence, this was nothing more than a deliberate and concerted effort to injure their feelings for no apparent reason. It is not my intention to relate all the blasphemous language in the book nor to relate all the hurtful inferences to the noble person- ages of Islam, for this would run into several hundreds of pages.