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The Return Of The Satanic Verses By Rudolf Ogoo Okonkwo

Salman Rushdie is back. The author of Midnight’s Children, The Satanic Verses and other works is out there promoting his memoir called Joseph Anton. The book tells the story of his years in hiding following a 1989 Fatwa issued by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini over his novel, The Satanic Verses.

Salman Rushdie is back. The author of Midnight’s Children, The Satanic Verses and other works is out there promoting his memoir called Joseph Anton. The book tells the story of his years in hiding following a 1989 Fatwa issued by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini over his novel, The Satanic Verses.

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Few days ago, Ayatollah Hassan Saneli’s religious foundation in Iran raised the bounty on Rushdie from $2.8 million to $3.3 million. But this time Rushdie is not alone. Calling for the death of people who offended Prophet Muhammad has become routine. From the Danish cartoonist to the makers of the film, Innocence of Muslims, the world has become accustomed to such reactions and the riots that follow and the deaths and the pause until another offence and round and round we go.

Despite the sense of fear and uneasiness, the world is not backing down. Neither is Rushdie. In an interview with the US National Public Radio, NPR, Rushdie lamented about what had happened to the Muslim world. “I feel that something has gone wrong inside the Muslim world, because I can remember – within my living memory- when some of these now- beleaguered, embattled cities like Beirut, Tehran, Damascus, Baghdad, when these were cosmopolitan, outward looking, cultured cities which were interested in the rest of the world and were much more like open societies.”

Rushdie continued, “And the fact that, in the last half-century, these cultures seem to have slid backwards into medievalism and repression is one of the - I think it's one of the great self-inflicted wounds. And out of that comes the rise of this new, much harsher Islam, come all these phenomena that you're talking about: the thin-skinnedness, the paranoia, the ease with which violence is engaged in, the readiness to believe that it's OK to kill people if you declare yourself offended by something. This is the mindset of the fanatic, the mindset of the tyrant. And it's a real shame that it seems to have spread so widely across the Muslim world.”

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Last week, while Muslims around the world were still protesting the making of the Innocence of Muslims, Louvre Museum in France opened a new wing dedicated to Islamic art. The $130 million dollar project displayed the largest collection of Islamic art in Europe, works that highlight the contribution of Islam to world civilization.

Louvre, the largest and most visited museum in the world, hopes the collection will help reduce the clash of cultures between the West and the Muslim world. Prince Waleed Bin Talal of Saudi Arabia donated $20 million dollars for the building of the extension. In an interview with the BBC he said, “Since 9/11, it is the duty of all Muslims to explain to the West what real Islam is like and how peaceful the religion is.”
This French embrace of peaceful Islam is contrary to the tension in France over the niqab and French identity in the midst of over 5 million Muslims in the country. To top it off, French satirical weekly magazine, Charlie Hebdo, two weeks ago published cartoons of a naked Prophet Muhammad.

Prince Talal had no problem with the ban of the veil. He said that such dressing “had nothing to do with Islam.” Pressed by the BBC reporter on the oppression of Christians in Saudi Arabia, especially Christians’ inability to establish places of worship in the Kingdom, Prince Talal argued that expecting a church in Saudi Arabia is like expecting a mosque in the Vatican. Prince Talal acknowledged the need for reforms in Islam saying that women not being allowed to drive in the kingdom is backward and had no basis in Islam. He also noted that women in the days of Prophet Muhammad were freer than women in many Muslim societies. Talal called the countries protesting against the anti-Islam film unstable countries many of which had gone through traumatic changes in recent times.

“The best weapons for fighting fanaticism that claims to be coming from Islam are found in Islam itself,” French President Francois Hollande said at the opening ceremony of the Islamic art museum. “What more beautiful message than that demonstrated here by these works?”

Amongst the collections on display are images of Muhammad. A 16th century manuscript had him as a veiled character. There were also multimedia projections of Muhammad’s image. Displaying the image of Prophet Muhammad is something erstwhile frowned at.  

While many have cast the current conflict between the West and the Muslim world as a clash of cultures and civilizations, it is also, in some ways, about the image of Prophet Muhammad. To a large extent the Muslim world left it for others to define the image of Prophet Muhammad. Unfortunately, they do not like what is being projected out there. And for many in the Muslim world the reaction of choice is violent protests. They behave like Gibreel, a character in Salman Rushdie’s novel, The Satanic Verses, whose girlfriend Allie concluded that, “The worst thing about him … was his genius for thinking himself slighted, belittled, under attack. It became almost impossible to mention anything to him, no matter how reasonable, no matter how gently put.”

The sole reason for the worldwide Muslim condemnation of The Satanic Verses was Rushdie’s suggestion through a dream sequence that Prophet Muhammad might have played with polytheism. Religious extremists of all stripes, Rushdie noted, attack people who criticize other beliefs. The other day, Pakistan banned a TV channel that broadcast an interview with Rushdie. And after a Day of Love for Prophet Muhammad turned violent, the Pakistan’s Railways Minister Ghulam Ahmed Bilour offered $100,000 to anyone willing to kill the film maker who produced Innocence of Muslims.

When a religious man advocates the destruction of God’s ultimate creature – man, that person is a disgrace to God. The war dance of religion is most adorable to those who cannot stand the true letters of its principles. If your life does not espouse the beauty and grace of your religion, you have essentially betrayed that religion you hold so high. The pertinent questions for religious people to ask themselves are: Is God seen on your face? Will God fear to step into your heart? What is your truth? What is your beauty? Can you stand along others without feeling insecure? Can your prophet withstand ridicule? Can you? “If the concept of God has any validity or any use,” James Baldwin wrote, “it can only be to make us larger, freer, and more loving. If God cannot do this, then it is time we got rid of Him.”

During the 11th, 12th, and 13th centuries, the Roman Catholic Church launched series of crusades that started out with the goal of restoring access to Jerusalem and to free persecuted Christians. The brutal activities of the crusaders caused moral outrage and set the stage for the Reformation that came after. The reforms separated the church from the state, sowed the seed for free speech and freedom of religion, and restricted the power of the Pope to a small corner of Italy called the Vatican.

Maybe when the reforms that Prince Waleed Talal talked about occur in Muslim world, the mosque will be separated from the state, free speech and freedom of religion will be tolerated and the influence of the religious leaders in Saudi Arabia will be restricted to Mecca so that churches can be built in Riyadh and elsewhere in the Kingdom.

In our interconnected world, someone somewhere will, at one point or another, say something that may be seen as irresponsible to another person’s belief. There is no universal value system or global authority that will control what anyone anywhere says- and there should not be. If freedom of speech means anything, it means the rights of our enemies to have their say too, because tomorrow, we may be the enemy.

In the meantime, the lid keeping the Satanic verses under locks is off. It is back. And this time, the return is permanently recurring. We have no option but to live with it. We have to get more and more accustomed to the riots and the deaths and the pause until another offence and round and round we go -until the spirit of a new reformation permeates the very core of all religious extremists of all stripes.  
 

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