Iran says Rushdie fatwa still stands

How ironic!

On this day that honors a great Christian saint and true martyr for the love of God and others; the Iranian government still have a fatwa on the head of Salman Rushdie. No love to be found in that fatwa!

I made it a point to read _The Satanic Verses_. There's much in the book that the reader probably won't "get" unless he's British of South Asian (preferably Muslim) extraction; however, it is clear that Rushdie was raising questions and criticisms concerning his ancestral faith. The response to this from Iran should've been the wake-up for all lovers of freedom of speech way back when; but, too many liberals being what they are, no wake up occurred.

Let me also make a two-cheers plug for Jean Bethke Elshtain's _Just War Against Terror_. It is a defense of the Bush administration's response to 9/11 (which I still see as pitched just a tad too high), but includes some good discussion of the Christian just war doctrine.

Kepha

Can someone tell me what Rushdie said/did 17 years ago?

I echo Avatar's curiosity. What was it that Rushdie wrote? A friend of mine who claimed to read the book said there was nothing big and that the so called blasphemy/heresy was hyped up. I guess that had a part in the book sales.
Tasleema Nasreen's Lajja is another controversial book from recent times.

Old Imam's never die, they continue to terrorize.

I wonder what goes through George and Condi's minds when they hear this sort of thing?

Do they understand the background? Do they understand why the fatwa isn't being rescinded? Do they understand that it is rooted in Islamic belief? Do the folks on their respective staffs understand these things?

Will they ever 'get it'?

Avatar, Mohd Is Satan

Here is a link to what Salman Rushdie did back in 1988

http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/anglophone/satanic_verses/

When is a fatwa not a fatwa?

When it's a hukm:

The brand of Islam practiced in Iran distinguishes between two types of religious pronouncements, a fatwa and a hukm. The former remains valid only during the lifetime of the religious authority who issues it; the latter continues in effect beyond his death. Despite the Western habit of referring to the edict against Rushdie as a fatwa, Iranian spokesmen have universally regarded it as a hukm. Thus, Ayatollah Abdallah Javadi-Amoli in February 1997: "This is not a fatwa which died with the death of the religious leader who issued it.... It is a hukm which is permanent and it will stay in place until it is carried out."

I'm imagining little fatwas written in Arabic on those Valentine's candy hearts...

As for the origins of the Rushdie controversy:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satanic_Verses

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Satanic_Verses_%28novel%29

I read Satanic verses some years ago. I do not recommend it (sorry Rushdie). It is difficult reading. The parts that offended the poor Ayatollah were adaptations of the story of Muhammad's early prophetic period. The "Satanic verses" refer to a revelation where Muhammad seemed to water down the strict monotheism of Islam to appeal to the polytheistic Arabs. He later recanted this; Satan is blamed for deceiving him.

http://answering-islam.org.uk/Hahn/satanicverses.htm

Rushdie blatantly imitated the Quran, a terrible offense in Islam. Ironically, his depiction of Muhammad was not at all disrespectful, as far as I could tell. Then again, I thought the Last Temptation of Christ was brilliant; it made me interested in the story of Jesus.

Another section of the book is fantasy-mileiu story of Ayatollah Khomeni and his death cult, with which he seduced so many young men to willingly throw away their lives. The force that opposed Khomeni in this section is Al-Lat, a goddess in pagan Arab mythology. From this story I gathered Rushdie was commenting on the repression of women being necessary to fuel the death cult. He has spoken about the need for Muslim women to have a voice in other forums so this makes sense to me. No doubt this part made Khomeni quite angry as well.

My disclaimer about all this is that I read the book years ago, it was very difficult to understand as it was steeped in cultural referents of which I do not have a deep understanding, and I'm not exactly an expert on pre-Islamic Arab mythos. But there you have it.

Quijybo

Given the outrage, destruction, and violence caused by the cartoons, wouldnt it seem an appropriate campaign to letter-bomb Tehran with millions of Valentines Day Cards each with caricatures of the Ayatollah in a Bugs-Buggy styled grin holding a big heart bearing "I LOVE YOU!". Maybe a comic pose of Ahmadinejad with the Ayatollah saying "Be Mine"?

Oh the sweet irony of such a campaign would certainly be a story that we'd tell our grandchildren.

$2.8 million on Rushdies head and $50 million on Bin Ladens....HMMMMM me thinks the Mooslimbs can't add very well. Give me the $50 million any old day.

mikemontana - the Thai's had a similar thought. They dropped tons of little origami birds on the Muslim south. Suffice it to say, the Muslims were completely unmoved, as their stepped up attacks on the Buddhists has demonstrated:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4069471.stm

Avatar

It is pretty hush-hush among the Muslims if they know at all -

Salman Rushdie poked a little fun or created a story around the fact that Allah had three daughters - before he become this ‘ONE GOD’.
_____________
These are the daughter’s names here.

Have you thought of al-Lat and al-'Uzza and Manat the third, the other
(Sura 53, 19-20)
_____________
Although they are all mentioned in the Koran, it is forbidden to say that they are actually Allah's daughters.
If you look in the Encyclopedia Britannica - Islam page 105 ‘top right’ - it has a little piece in their about Allah's daughters or The Three Desert Goddesses ~ as they were once better known as.
_______
This is what they want to kill Salman Rushdie for.
_______

Here is an entry for Allah [see for yourself]-

http://www.pantheon.org/articles/a/allah.html

_________
A Little Islamic History
__________________
Mohammed's father was named Abdullah or servant of Allah - but this Allah had three daughters. So when they say 'There is no God but Allah' this is what they are trying to get rid off - the extra three daughters.

The names for the daughters vary - al' means 'the ~ so when we say al-Lat ~ this means the Goddesses and could it be spelled Lato/Latu. These gods were ‘big time’ popular during the day - and so as a part of ‘Mohammed's rise to power - was the elimination of the temples which these Goddesses were worshiped in.

He pretty much chopped people up and then proclaimed that Islam will only die when these women [the Goddesses] wiggle their asses again in the temples. [Nice guy]

And it gets worst - the Arabic Latu was borrowed by the Greeks and become Leto mother of Apollo.

Allah and his daughters were Moon gods of fertility and wealth and so on.
_________

The problem is that once you get the daughters in the picture - the whole Biblical history of the Koran gets knocked on its head.
It seems the real history of Islam is centered on the Kaaba [or black cube] at Mecca and the gods which Mohammed’s father worshiped there.
The Hajj for example was a pre-Islamic practice but instead of one god they worshipped 360 gods there - with Allah as the chief deity, marked as a moon figure above the Kaaba.
The significance of the Kaaba was that Mohammed’s family was the caretakers of the Kaaba going back hundreds of years.
Mohammed’s family was called the Quraish [look this word up in the dictionary], to create Islam the Mohammed excluded the three daughters – and the other lesser gods – and proclaimed Allah - the chief deity of his family – as the ONE TRUE GOD.
______

Maybe if more Muslims knew this they wouldn't be so crazy - Yeah it's got a few problems - but we still like to believe in ~ some of it!

MikeMontana and Caroline,

Better would be a bombing campaign dropping
Mohammad caricatures.

Best would be a bombing campaign dropping bombs.

I issued a little-known fatwa against Ayatollah Khomeini in 1987.

Now who is still alive?

Rushdie or Khomeini?

So much for their fatwas.

I think a fatwa against Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is in order.

Here goes:

-May a camel kick him in the face, the sepsis spread, and let him join his spiritual pimp-daddy the late, malevolent Ayatollah K. ASAP.

Avatar & Mohd is Satan-

Rushdie's crime was [in] the title of his book.

The "Satanic Verses" prove Mohammad's fallibility.

And, if he was not "perfect", Islam crumbles like a house of marked cards.

The ayatollahs could not allow this fatal revision to be mentioned, much less mocked.

Rushdie was saying: -if Mohmmad was mistaken about that sura, why not EVERY sura?

How can we trust anything he said?

This is heresy in Islam.

Thus, the fatwa against the heretic Salman.

The basic story of the recinded "satanic verses" is: "Allah" first told the "prophet" in a 'revelation' to "accept polytheism in Mecca" (a cunning business move since the town was a lucrative camel carvan route where the souvenirs of 'the many gods' brought in big bucks for the local huckers).

But, later, Mohammad got a "new revelation" from Allah and announced that the "gods" would have to go (annoying the Arab salesmen of the polytheistic "religious trinkets", and leading to 'holy' war).

(Rushdie also mocked the Iranian mullahs in the book, adding impertinent icing to his intolerable skepticism.)

The novel is an over-rich mix of metaphors, but worth the read... if just to annoy the imams.

(Its paperback first printing was published by a secret group of book companies, so afraid of Islamic death threats themselves that they created a front group called "The Consortium" to put it out. Something unheard of since the Inquisition era.)