From: ghouse@gauss.cs.jhu.edu (Mujtaba Ghouse)
Subject: Re: Anti-Arab racism on the net
Keywords: Equality, Fairness, Same Standards?
Organization: Johns Hopkins Computer Science Department, Baltimore, MD
Date: Thu, 8 Oct 1992 17:27:54 GMT

dave@frackit.UUCP (Dave Ratcliffe) writes:
> In article <1992Sep30.040641.25843@news.columbia.edu>, ia4@cunixa.cc.columbia.edu (Imran Anwar) writes:
> > THAT is exactly the kind of attitude that we are discussing.  Your branding
> > the entire spectrum of the Islamic world based upon the decision of the
> > Iranians.  
> > Face it: the Western world has some catching up to do about
> > understanding Islam
>Is this the same Islam that believes Christians are the enemy and as
>non-believers should be converted to Islam or destroyed? 
>Or is there some other Islam to which you refer?

Given that the Islam to which *you* refer exists only in the minds of
Westerners, it must be some other Islam.  Indeed, your remark is an
illustration of Imran's point.

Even though this is rec.arts.books :-) I'd like to recommend a book by a
(non-muslim) scholar:
             John Esposito's "Islam: The Straight Path"

(Esposito is Professor of Religion at the College of the Holy Cross)

Incidentally, Esposito's book contains one of the best analyses of 
political movements within the muslim world that I've read.

Followups, other than discussion of Esposito's book, really should be
to soc.religion.islam.

There have been several other points I've wanted to respond to on this
thread, so I'll get these out of the way now:

a) Someone asked why no Islamic organizations condemned the fatwa against
   Rushdie: several did, such as ISNA (the Islamic Society of North America),
   and a conference of 'ulema (Islamic scholars) that was held in Saudi 
   around that time.  However, these opinions were not regarded as newsworthy
   by the media in general (although I did see a representative of ISNA on
   MacNeil/Lehrer) so most people remained unaware of them.

b) while it is impossible to know whether Rushdie intended TSV to be offensive,
   there is at least one place in the text that implies he knew it would
   be: the film of Gibreel's dream "hit every possible reef of religious 
   opposition" (this may not be an exact quote as it's from memory), 

   I was struck by one other place in the dream sequence, namely 
   when the (completely fictional poet) Baal is asked about the brothel
   incident, which is the single most notorious part of TSV, Baal is 
   questioned: "... (why) this oblique, this most byzantine of insults.
   `I am Baal,' he announced. `I recognize no jurisdiction except that of
   my muse;...'"  My reading is that this is the author explaining himself,
   that Baal and Salman within the book represent Rushdie.

c) Noone has mentioned an extra level of indirection in TSV.  Mike Godwin
   did say that the dreams were of a man going insane, but in addition to
   this, the book was narrated (as far as I could tell) by Satan, who claimed
   that he sent the visions to Gibreel.  The Father of Lies is, almost by 
   definition, an unreliable narrator...

peace

-Mujtaba Ghouse
"Somewhere else, the tea is getting cold."


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