05-30-2004, 08:03 PM
This is a belated response to an old thread, but:
I read Satanic Verses some years ago and in fact wrote an extensive paper on Rushdie and and his writing based on that and a few other of his books that I have read.
Rushdie is a good writer; he uses language well and crafts his sentences, his stories, and his characters with skill. However, he is also a pretentious monkey. I say this not simply based on the Satanic Verses, but on other things that he has written, not all having to do with Islam. In one, an anthology that he edited of the best 20th century fiction of the Indian Subcontinent, he only includes stories written in English and Urdu. Not surprisingly, he speaks both these languages. He explains that the other languages of India are unimportant and not part of "world dialogue," and therefore that nothing written in those tongues is worth reading or mentioning, or at least not of the same "caliber" that the English pieces are.
Much of this same snyde, condescending tone permeates Satanic Verses. He even has a character -- Salman the Persian -- who goes so far as to say that he takes grains of truth and he adds lies to them, and finds that he can pervert facts this way and make people believe falsehoods. This is basically what Rushdie himself does throughout the Satanic Verses. A couple of other things: there is a brothel in Mecca where the prostitutes bear the names of the Prophet's wives, he names the brothel Hijab, which is of course ironic because the concept of hijab represents codes of decency. He further compares trips to the brothel with pilgrimages to the Kaaba, and the only two decent Muslims in the book are named Sufyan and Hinda. Sufyan was one of the merchant kings of Mecca who tried to destroy the Muslims, and Hind was his wife, who had one of the Prophet's uncles murdered and ate his liver. So he pretty much spends the whole book disparaging Islam and trying to make profane all of Islam's sacred symbols. <i>Nauzobillah.</i>
I don't think this warrants a death sentence, but the man really is an ass.
Anyway, those are some of my thoughts. I can go on about this at some length, but I hope that gives you some answer to your question.
peace