Date: Fri, 26 Jan 1996 20:35:33 -0800 (PST) From: Suresht Bald <sbald-AT-willamette.edu> Subject: Re: the Rushdie fatwa Austin, In which country was this mosque located? Suresht Bald On Fri, 26 Jan 1996, Austin Meredith wrote: > > What made Rushdie's novels offensive to Muslims was his defaming of the > > holy, the sacred.... I think the "left" wing can also be equally > > capable of declaring its own fatwa of sorts.... > > I'd like to help problematize the case of Rushdie and the fatwa against > him, by supplying some overlooked middle ground. Or, a reality check: > > I was last year visiting a mosque (masjed) and while the people I was with > were saying their prayers in the central room, I was at loose ends and > happened to wander into the library room of that mosque. Most of the books > on the shelves were opaque to me since they were in Arabic script, but > here and there were a few books in various of the European languages, the > titles of which I could make out. Well-thumbed books on learning English, > elementary textbooks of the sciences, etc. It amused me to see what sorts > of Western literature had worked its way into a mosque library, especially > in a mosque which by my observation had a congregation made up mostly of > working-class, marginally educated persons. Well, what should I see on the > shelf but a copy of Rushdie's infamous slandrous THE SATANIC VERSES > itself! And, taking this tome down from the shelf, I noticed also that it > was well thumbed throughout, and I noticed in addition that there were > _not_ egregious underlinings and that the margins did _not_ contain the > sort of hot scribblings which a reader of our press might have been > expecting to discover there. > > Does this factoid not offer an interesting contrast with what we have been > hearing by way of the press? If the situation really is as it is being > reported to us, what was such a book doing in such a library, especially > lying there on an open low shelf available to Moslem children etc? > > \s\ Austin Meredith <r2chow-AT-uci.edu>, "Stack of the Artist of Kouroo" Project > > > --- from list postcolonial-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu --- > --- from list postcolonial-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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