Rushdie Haunted by his unholy Ghosts — Page 16
16 Mohamed Arshad Ahmedi complete forgiveness, such utter beneficence, on so large a scale. ’ (Zafrullah Khan, ‘Muhammad - Seal of The Prophets’ pp. 235-236). This beneficence and generosity was later displayed by the Khalifas of Islam and subsequent leaders, like the legendary Saladin, who has been given the highest of praises even by the Western his- torians. The great French writer, Voltaire, named Saladin as one of his heroes : ‘The great enemy of the crusaders, Saladin, who having beaten the Christians in battle, bequeathed his wealth impartially to the Moslem, Jewish and Christian poor. ’ (R of CE, p 104). The romantic novelist Sir Walter Scott also admired the virtues of Saladin which he associated with those of a noble European sovereign, and at the same time was also aware of the cruelty and violence of his hero, Richard the Lionheart. In his introduction to his tale of the Crusades, The Talisman, he writes : ‘The period relating more immediately to the Crusades. . . was that at which the warlike character of Richard I, wild and generous, a pattern of chivalry, with all its extravagant virtues, and its no less absurd errors, was opposed to that of Saladin, in which the Christian and English monarch showed all the cruelty and violence (supposed to characterise an Eastern ruler); and Saladin on the other hand, displayed the deep policy and prudence of a European sovereign. ’ (M-C Encounters, pp. 79/80). The same contrasting behaviour is seen in Spain where the com- ing of Islam completely transformed Spain from a living hell to a paradise on earth, and this is summed up in the words of the writer Stanley Lane-Poole: ‘. . . Never was Andalusia so mildly, justly, and wisely governed as by her Arab conquerors. . . . the people were on the whole contented - as contented as any people can be whose rulers are of a separate race and creed, - and far better pleased than they had been when their sovereigns belonged to the same religion as that which they nominally professed. . . ’(The Moors in Spain)