Musharraf: "Islam Bad" (no, call off the beheading -- it's a typo)

One of the most exciting and frustrating days in any author's life is the day the book arrives. After all the toil, tears, and sweat (if not blood), here are the fruits of one's labors. But no matter how superbly eagle-eyed and indefatigable editors proofreaders are (and the ones at my publisher, Regnery Publishing, are second to none in the entire industry), a few errors inevitably slip by. In The Truth About Muhammad, Ibn Sa'd inadvertently appears with his apostrophe turned toward the a instead of toward the d -- which will no doubt be about the only thing negative reviewers (if any don't just ignore the book) will be able to seize upon as an inaccuracy. And I will give a free "We are all Danes now" t-shirt (courtesy Christopher at Pantelope) to the first five people who can find the paragraph in which I am quoting someone else but because it is not set in as a blockquote, it looks as if I am the one speaking, and have been possessed by the ghost of Edward Said. Tell me the page number on which that happens and I'll send you one of these nifty anti-dhimmi shirts.

But anyway, Pervez Musharraf, who is, of course, not a Regnery author, has much larger troubles. Actually, contrary to my tongue-in-cheek headline to this post, the "Islam Bad" typo is less likely to get Musharraf in hot water than it is to fuel conspiracy paranoia in Pakistan -- as this article notes. Those sneaky Zionists. They've done it again.

"Musharraf's book full of typos, factual errors," from Indo-Asian News Service, with thanks to Cindy:

Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf's much-discussed book In the Line of Fire is full of typos with the Pakistani capital spelt as "Islam Bad" and the Indian prime minister as "Manmo Ham Singh".

There are other factual errors galore and dates and events are mixed up, even as fury over facts and figures and their appropriateness and objectivity continues at home and abroad.

Apparently, the computers at Musharraf's publishers, Simon and Schuster, went haywire between Asian names and their American spell-alikes.

The publishers have not spared the Pakistan prime minister either. Shaukat Aziz has been spelt variously as "Shuakat" and "Shaukut", published twice on the cover jacket.

Nor for that matter Pakistan's great friend and neighbour China, that is spelt with a small "c" in the caption that shows the visiting Chinese head of the state taking the salute.

Right under Musharraf's signature, the capital from where he rules Pakistan has been spelt "Islam Bad".

This may end up reinforcing the "Western conspiracy" theory among the conservatives in Pakistan.

Posted by Robert at October 6, 2006 5:38 PM
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