Rushdie Haunted by his unholy Ghosts — Page 17
Rushdie: Haunted By His Unholy Ghosts 17 The Muslims allowed the conquered people freedom to fol- low their religious faith whatever it might be. (Albert & E Vail - Transforming Light). The manner in which the Muslims governed this mixture of peoples and faith is explained by Stanley Lane-Poole as follows: ‘The subject peoples ‘were permitted to retain their own laws and judges;. . . they had even gained the right which had never been permitted them by Gothic kings; they could alienate their lands. In religious toleration they had nothing to regret. Instead of perse- cuting them and forcing upon them a compulsory conversion, as the Goths had upon the Jews, the Arabs left them free to worship whom or what they pleased. . . . the best proof of the satisfaction of the Christians with their new rules is the fact that there was not a single religious revolt during the eighth century. ’ In Rodney Castleden’s World History (Parragon 1994) there is mention after mention of the sufferings of the Jewish subjects at the hands of other races but not a single reference to their wanton large-scale persecution by the Muslims. The truth of the matter is that the Muslims have always dis- played noble characteristics but the majority of the Christian writ- ers have never had the fair-play attitude to extol the virtues of their adversaries. The method that they had employed to immunise Christians against competing belief systems like Islam was to slan- der the competition by any means.