Rushdie Haunted by his unholy Ghosts — Page 138
138 Mohamed Arshad Ahmedi theological grounds. As Professor Yaqub Zaki points out that ‘the Prophet is the one creature in the whole of creation God does not allow the Devil to impersonate; therefore, when you have a dream of the Prophet you know it must be true. ’ (The Times, 28 February 1989). Zaki makes another interesting point that exposes Rushdie’s guile in choosing the title name of the book : Rushdie’s use of the name of the devil responsible for the fraud is intended to indicate that the whole Koran is fraudulent and Muhammad a mean impostor: not a question of two verses spotted as such but all the 6,236 verses making up the entire book. In other words the title is a ‘double entendre’ ( Yaqub Zaki, formerly James Dickie, is a British Muslim author and a visiting professor at Harvard University). RUSH DI E ISSU E S STAT E M E N T It is also evident from Rushdie’s begrudging statement that he issued that his ploy had worked in achieving what he had set out to do. Note also the hollow and hypocritical tone of the statement, the full text of which is : ‘As author of The Satanic Verses I recognise that Muslims in many parts of the world are genuinely distressed by the publication of my novel. I profoundly regret the distress that publication has occasioned to sincere followers of Islam. Living as we do in a world of many faiths this experience has served to remind us that we must all be conscious of the sensibilities of others. ’ (The Times, 20 February 1989). This statement was made only a few days after the author is on record as having said : ‘Frankly I wish I’d written a more critical book. . . it seems that Islamic fundamentalism could do with a little criticism right now. ’ (The Washington Times, 15 February 1989).