From: RBNXHS@rohvm1.bitnet
Newsgroups: alt.atheism.moderated
Subject: Prof. Mazrui's public lecture on Islam and Rushdie, paraphrased
Date: 13 Aug 92   12:29 EDT
Distribution: world

In this part of Muslim response (#2), I shall paraphrase what
Prof. Mazrui (University of Michigan, Ann Arbor) said in the
Public Lecture, given at the Cornell University on March 1, 1989,
in NO particular order (his actual speech is about 18 pages long):
----
Central to the crisis of mutual incomprehension (between the West
and the Muslim world) was indeed the concept of treason. The
western world does understand the concept of treason to the state.
What the West does not understand is the idea of treason to what
Islam calls the Ummah, the religious community, treason to the faith.

English law does not always distinguish between the state and the
Royal family. Treason in England has included violating the King's
consort, or raping the monarch's eldest unmarried daughter, as well
as sexual violation of the wife of the eldest son and heir. To the
present day treason under English law includes polluting the
Royal bloodline or obscuring it.

In Islam there is no sharp demarcation between the church and the
state. The concept of treason is often indistinguishable from
apostasy. The supreme penalty of treason to the Ummah, or the
religious community, was often death.

Islam is not unique in regarding attack on religion as a threat to
the state. Scottish law until the 18th century made blasphemy not
only a crime but also a capital offense. In Britain blasphemy is no
longer a capital crime - but it is still both a statutory and common
law offense (since the 17th century). But then again, blasphemy in
Britain is only applicable to Christianity, not for Judaism, Islam
and other religions. A related difficulty also concerns the fact that
western law provides very little protection against libel for those
who are already dead. As such, how can one file a suit against Rushdie
for libelling Muslim characters who have been dead for 14 centuries?

A real equivalent of comparative blasphemy would be in portraying
the Virgin Mary as a prostitute, and Jesus as the son of one of her
sexual clients (na' wudhu' billah). Also comparable would be any
novel based on the thesis that the 12 disciples were Jesus's
homosexual lovers, and the Last Supper was their last sexual orgy
together. It would be very interesting to speculate which one of
the leading western, *civilized* writers would march in procession
in defense of the rights of such a novelist.

For his novel the Satanic Verses, Rushdie was perceived by many
Muslims as being guilty of 'cultural treason.' Perhaps the most
fundamental blasphemy in Rushdie's novel concerns the very title
of his novel, 'The Satanic Verses.' To explain the issue to the
western world let us first place the Qur'an in the context of
world literature. It is not just Rushdie's book which should
concern western historians of literature. It is also the Qur'an
itself as a work of art - the book which Rushdie virtually abuses
by calling it "The Satanic Verses."

The Qur'an is the most widely read book in its *original* language
in human history. The Qur'an is in a class by itself as a book
which is recited by millions of believers, five times a day, in
the very language in which it was first written - by the bus stop
in Indonesia, in the grain field in Nigeria, at school in Turkey
as well as in the mosque in Syria (from Fizi to Nigeria). The
Qur'an has had a stabilizing effect on the 'Arabic' language. It
has combined the doctrine of inimitability with the magnet of
attempted imitation. It is viewed by more than one billion human
beings as the 'direct' word of God (not the gospel 'according' to
Mark, Matthew, etc.).

For Muslims the literary and spiritual genius of the Qur'an could
more easily be explained. No other Arab of Muhammad's day has been
put forward as the "real" author of the Qur'an. To Muslims, the
secret of the miracle is quite simply, that it is the word of God.
The Qur'an is the ultimate constitution of the community of
believers. Muslims expect all the believers to be ready to defend
the Qur'an as their own ultimate fundamental law. (Just as, American
political morality expects its citizens to be ready to "uphold,
protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.")

Rushdie not only casts doubt on the authenticity of the source of
that fundamental law. He satirized its rules and attributed
fictitious dicta to it. Rusdie's blasphemy does not lie in his
saying that the Qur'an is the work of Muhammad. The blasphemy lies
more in Rushdie's suggestion that it is the work of Devil. Indeed,
Rushdie gives the Prophet a name which Rushdie himself describes
as the "Devil's synonym". In Medieval Europe the ultimate religious
symbol of the devil on earth was Muhammad. The ultimate 'racial
symbol' of the devil on earth was the black man. Islam was the
ultimate religious distance away from 'godliness'. Blackness was
the ultimate racial distance away from 'humanness.'

If Hitler hurt the Jews, and Rushdie hurt the Muslims, did both
dislike the 'Blacks' as well? There is no doubt about Hitler's
Negrophobia. But are there elements of Negrophobia in Rushdie's
Satanic Verses, as well?
Rushdie calls Bilal, the first Black Muslim in history, as nothing
more than a 'trash', 'scum', 'black monster'. Bilal was one of the
great companions of the Prophet. Bilal was a slave in the hands
of non-Muslims. Muhammad bought him and right away set him free.
Bilal became the first Muad'dhin (caller to prayer) in the history
of Islam, a position next to the Imam (a person who leads prayer).

Rushdie does not give either Bilal or Islam the explicit credit of
being a multi-racial religion from so early a stage. Bilal set
the grand precedent of Islamic multi-racialism - 14 centuries
before President Jimmy Carter tried to persuade his own church
in Georgia to go multi-racial. Rushdie cannot resist certain
ephithets against the Black man, which are so racist and dehumanizing.

Motives of writer Rushdie hardly interest Western political
speculators. On the other hand, Muslims are more mystified by the
author's motives than by the motives of the demonstrators in the
streets. Westerners find it hard to understand the anger of the
demonstrators and of the governmental bans (e.g. in India). Muslims
find it hard to understand what they regard as the author's
cultural treachery (in conspiracy with the enemy).
===================================================
Prof. Ali Mazrui ended his talk by asking the Muslims to forget and
forgive the author as a fellow human being and to appeal to Imam
Khomeini to lift the 'fatwa' of death sentence (in absentia) on
Rushdie. He ended his speech by reciting the first revealed verses
from the Qur'an:
      Read in the name of thy Lord, who creates you from a clot.
      Read, for your Lord is Most Gracious.
      It is He who teaches by means of pen.
      Teaches man what he does not know.
      However, man acts as arrogant,
      for he considers he is self-sufficient.
      Yet, to your Lord will be the return. (Surah al-Alaq.)
Islam is a religion born out of the imperative to read. Muslims
should respond by celebrating the written word in the spirit of
that first revealed verse (READ).
===========================================================

--- to be continued with an article written by Prof. Esposito,
    a non-Muslim Scholar (who has written several books on
    Islam) to present a non-Muslim view on this subject.
    This would be in response to a request on the Net for
    providing such information.  - H. Siddiqui.