From: arromdee@jyusenkyou.cs.jhu.edu (Ken Arromdee)
Subject: Re: Jihad in Islam (was Re:Islam Revealed #1
Organization: Johns Hopkins University CS Dept.
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1993 21:45:25 GMT

In article <1993Jan12.144820.10361@kth.se> d89-gsk@nada.kth.se (Gani Skepi) writes:
>A Muslim Scholar by the name Ahmed Deedad (may the doors of Paradise 
>always be open to him) told NBC and ABC in the US that if he was given 
>*ONLY* 5 min to explain about the *TRUE* case with Rushdie he would give 
>them 50 000 $.
>They *REFUSED*!!!!!!!

Doesn't this prove that they're _not_ greedy, instead of that they _are_
greedy?

>So which is the case with Rushdie?
>First of all Rushdie was given 800 000 $ by the publisher Viking/Penguin 
>in "advance money" *BEFORE* he wrote the Book.
>Nothing wrong with giving anyone advance money but *800 000 $* that 
>is alot of money...
>Why would anyone give a Z-level writer 800 000 $ in advance??? You don't 
>have to be Sherlock Holmes to understand that it smells fishy.

This was not Rushdie's first book.  He was well-established as a writer.
Naturally he would get large advances.

>Salman knew exactly what he did. He knew that his book would cause alot
>of reaction and it was because of that he wrote it. There is actually 
>*nothing* of value in his book but it is instead only written for insults.

How do you know this?  Because you couldn't find anything of value in the book,
you say that there is nothing of value in the book?  Perhaps your judgment of
value isn't perfect.  Perhaps, even, people disagree on whether the book has
value, and Rushdie was writing the book for those other people who did see
value in it.

>You are insult-
>ing the wives of the Prophet which God in the Holy Quran says is like our
>own mothers and you tell me it is only fiction. Call your own mother whore 
>but leave the wives of the Prophet alone. They are as our mothers.

So he's insulting your prophet's wives.  So?  Is that a reason to *kill* him?

>In the name of God, Most Gracious, Most Merciful.
>(33:6)"The Prophet is closer to the believers than they are themselves, 
>and his wives are (as) their mothers; "

And the Koran also adds after that, "therefore, you get to kill someone who
insults them."

Not.

The Koran may actually say that your prophet's wives should not be insulted.
But the Koran does not go on to say that if someone does insult them, that
person should be killed.  The "kill" part does not come from the Koran, it
comes from you, and so you can't use Koran quotes to support it.

>Btw the "death penalty " wasn't given at once.
>6 months *BEFORE* Saudi-, Egyptian-, Algerian-, Jordanian, and other 
>newspapers told Rushdie that he should take that book back, several of 
>times.

You react as though it should make the least bit of difference that Rushdie
was given a chance to repent first.  You don't get it.  To us, killing someone
because of a book is *wrong*.  There is no excuse for it.  It doesn't matter
how big the insult is, and it doesn't matter that they didn't take it back when
they had a chance to--killing someone for writing a book is wrong, regardless.
These things make no difference; there is no point in trying to convince me
that it was a really, _really_, bad insult, because convincing me that the
insult is a really bad one would not convince me that it is right to kill.
--
"On the first day after Christmas my truelove served to me...  Leftover Turkey!
On the second day after Christmas my truelove served to me...  Turkey Casserole
    that she made from Leftover Turkey.
[days 3-4 deleted] ...  Flaming Turkey Wings! ...
   -- Pizza Hut commercial (and M*tlu/A*gic bait)

Ken Arromdee (arromdee@jyusenkyou.cs.jhu.edu, arromdee@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu)
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc