Talk:The Satanic Verses/Archive 1

message: Satanic Verses is just a pathetic attempt to push sales by an average writer. Its frankly bloody boring. It has characters mocking Islamic celebrities as well as non-Islamic celebrities like Gandhi and Nehru. A dog is named Gandhi and a cat is named Nehru!
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People seem to think that Rushdie's novel is somehow about Islam. Yes, he uses negatively (supposedly ---  Rushdie initially denied it) imagery of prophet as one character in his novel,  but the novel has nothing to say  about Islam. 
Read these 162 customers review on amazon.con 
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0312270828/qid=1100370442
Even though not all these reviews can be trusted, it will give some general idea about the book. 
Now to the second point about apostates. Rushdie is a self proclaimed apostate, but he is not anti-religious like Ibn Warraq. From the interviews that I have seen, he seems more like anti-fundamentalist. 
For example, he claims,  "Many commentators have spoken of the need for a Reformation in the Muslim world."
Reformation? Anti-religious author like Ibn Warraq (or Taslima Nasreen) claims Islam can't be reformed, and that religion in general is bad. Reformation is not possible, period. So that's a clear distinction between Rushdie and other anti-religious apostates. OneGuy 18:42, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: What about others?

message: OK, I've removed the stuff tagged as inaccurate, and added the text and time of the fatwa. I think there's still a lot more to be said to make this a real encyclopedia article, but this is at least a temporary fix. Zora 18:31, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Temporary fix 

message: Alright, I can't *prove* this. All I can say is - read the book [start at page one and end at the end!] and judge for yourself. (I have read it 5 times in 12 years; and in fact I have read all of Rushdie's [published] novels more than once.) [his first two novels never got published, as he wrote somewhere - Grimus was the 3rd.] And he does *not* use negative imagery of the Prophet [easy exercise to the first-time reader of the novel - locate the sentence *in the novel* that explicitly says so. hint: snatching insulting terms from the hegemon and using it with pride [i.e. Identity politics]]
And that's right, the book is not primarily about religion, though one of its important themes is the nature of Revelation [in one of his essays, SR describes this current of the novel as an attampt to tackle the question - if Revelation does not really reveal God or anything like that, and yet is an authentic experience, then what the hell is it all about? [not verbatim at all - this is a paraphrase, and I read the essay more than 10 years ago.] 
Except Midnight's Children [arguably], Haroun, The Moor's Last Sigh, and The Ground Beneath Her Feet [arguably], all other Rushdie novels are Greco-Shakespearean Tragedies. Fury most clearly so. Also Fury is his only novel to date which uses neither magic-realist nor science-fiction techniques. [Rushdie was never really magic-realism proper, only used magic-realist techniques - as well as others - he was not bound by one technique. Hence the *limitations* of magic realism didn't limit SR's work [not that his work has no limitations, though!]] 
It seems none of you have read the book at all! otherwise I wouldn't have bothered to type all this at all, getting increasingly dyslexic with slowly creeping Alzhmeier's and all that. But it is irritating to find people waxing eloquent about something they haven't read.
--- a cosmic citizen, technically from Calcutta India ---
: Dear cosmic citizen, it's true that I haven't read the novel. I don't *like* Rushdie's work (though I adore Vikram Seth's). I just tidied the article as an interim measure. Instead of telling us we're all wrong, why don't you add some material to the article? Then we'll copyedit you <g> Zora 06:58, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Khomeini is in fact portrayed rather sympathetically 

message: An anon editor changed several occurrences of 'many Muslims' to 'most Muslims'. I changed it back. There's no way to prove that 'most' Muslims would agree on this. There were certainly lots of NOISY Muslims protesting the novel, but they were outnumbered by the ones who stayed home and said nothing. Since we don't know how the ones who stayed home would have felt,  it seems to me that it's a dishonest rhetorical ploy to say that 'most' Muslims felt this way. That's a way of implying that Muslims should agree with the criticisms of the novel. Zora 01:44, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Many or most? 

message: The article currently reads:
 "...first published in 1988 and..."  in the first line; and
 "...upon publication in 1989..."  in the second line.
My hardcover first edition copy says:
Published in 1989 by Viking Penguin Inc.
Copyright © Salman Rushdie, 1988
All rights reserved
So it's obvious where the confusion arised.  Should the article be changed to reflect this, and how?  Jp media 04:48, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Date of publication 

message: The article on the Muhammand drawings asserts that William Nygaard was shot in 1993 - does this imply a second, successful assassination attempt after the first in 1991? Toby Douglass 17:30, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  William Nygaard murderd? 

message: This article doesn't seem to deal with the plotline very much at all when compared to other articles on novels. To be honest you get more from the blurb on the back.
Should we not be focussing more on the books content and less on the controversy surrounding it??
: It wouldn't be a notable book if it weren't for the controversy. I don't think anyone believes that it is a classic of world literature. Zora 09:19, 11 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: We may as well drop the spoilers

message: satanic verses redirects here and there's no mention of a disambig page. should i move page? Frenchman113 01:44, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Satanic verses should NOT redirect here. There's a separate article on the supposed Satanic verses removed from the Qur'an. Could someone have been playing tricks? I'll check. Zora 02:44, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  NO, it's alright. You type in Satanic Verses and you get the article re the Qur'an. You have to click on the top to get here. Zora 02:46, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  redundant title? 

message: I looked at the title you gave the section and just assumed that it was a general attack. When I looked at your revert, I saw that it was indeed a timeline of events related to the novel. I apologize for being tired and cranky and not reading thoroughly. I did change the section title, however -- just call it Timeline. Readers can infer censorship, and probably will. Zora 10:29, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sorry, Nunhunh 

message: Hi all.  Can someone who has read this book please include specific examples as to why this book was offensive to Muslims?  The article is completely void of this.  Thanks.  Monkeyman(talk) 17:52, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Improvements needed please 

message: Move to The Satanic Verses to move the (novel). No other The Satanic Verses. Skinnyweed 21:34, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, but there is Satanic Verses. I think the (novel) tag is crucial. Zora 15:10, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: But Satanic Verses and The Satanic Verses are completely different in both content and, more importantly, name. And also, The Satanic Verses redirects to The Satanic Verses (novel) anyway.  Skinnyweed 20:25, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Possible move? 

message: i propose to take out the whole controversy section out of the rushdie article, only leaving a short summary and link to this article. most of the information is included in the timeline. obviously i also want to remove the link in this article's intro. 
i think it's into this article that all that belongs. one thing that is missing in the timeline but mentioned in the rushdie article is cat stevens alleged support for the fatwa. i would like to add that to the timeline with a link to cat stevens article, where it is explained in more detail.
btw do  we really need links for words like japanese, muslim, 1988, myth, blasphemous, norway? or should we stick to the words that are central to the article (like fatwa, ...)
trueblood 11:08, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Um, I don't think that's a good idea. It's hard to understand why there was a controversy if you don't know what the novel was about. It's as if I suggested that we divide the Osama bin Laden article into an article about Osama and an article about the controversies that surround Osama. Plesae DON'T! Zora 13:46, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

text: Makes sense to me. Zora, maybe there was a misunderstanding? Fut.Perf. ☼ 20:25, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The thing is, if another event like this happened in 2006, an article dedicated to it would be created in no time. It's only the fact that it happened several years ago that the event doesn't get its own article. Skinnyweed 20:28, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Maybe. But that's not really a compelling reason, is it? I think the public perception of both the novel and (to a lesser degree) of Rushdie himself is so  inseparably intertwined with the controversy that it really makes more sense to have the controversy topic within one of those articles (preferably the novel) than in a separate article. Fut.Perf. ☼ 20:36, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  satanic verses controversy 

message: the novel is not just about the namegiving satanic verses episode but presents a version of the early years of islam. are you saying that rushdie based all of this on the writings by ibn ishaq (could well be), did rushdie say so or are you just guessing?
--trueblood 06:51, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  ibn ishaq 

message: what about the satanic verses in quran in i think 50th chapter.
and Where has the section on satanic verses(novel) controversy moved.nids 17:18, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  satanic verses in quran 

message: "As usual, Singapore was the first country and India the second country to ban the book." Is Singapore usualy first to ban books? Does India make a hibit of it? Even if they do, I'm not sure this is common knowledge, nor do I see why "As usual" is necessary for the reader's understanding of the controversy.67.70.1.171 17:47, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  "As usual..." 

message: I have started an article on The Satanic Verses controversy copying a good deal of the original The Satanic Verses story. Stay tuned.--BoogaLouie 16:52, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Shouldn't there be a link from this article to the controversy article? --Splette :) How's my driving? 11:01, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: New article is up and running and some links have been changed from the novel article to it.  --BoogaLouie 22:14, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: New article on The Satanic Verses controversy

message: Anyone object if I delete the timeline and trim some of the text now that there is a satanic verses controversy article? --BoogaLouie 00:21, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Trimming text

message: There is now a Satanic Verses article on the Quranic ayat issue, a The Satanic Verses article on the Rushdie novel and an The Satanic Verses controversy article on the fatwa against the novel and related issues. 
I propose creating a Disambiguation page. I think this will mean changing the article on the novel back to Satanic Verses (novel) title. --BoogaLouie 17:23, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Proposed Disambiguation page

message: Ever since the creation of a stand alone page on the The Satanic Verses controversy was created the timeline on this page looks to be a mere copy of the one on that page. If no one objects we should compare one against the other to insure that if there is any uniquely sourced info on this page is transferred there and then delete the timeline here replacing it with a sentence or two and a link to the timeline on that page.--Wowaconia 10:13, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Checked timeline and deleted it. --BoogaLouie 14:59, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Timeline should go 

message: I removed this link becuase it failed under the wikipedia guidelines against using info from a non-expert at a self-published site. I did think it was interesting enough to move it here as it sees the whole Rushdie affair as an anti-Islamic conspiracy.
:http://www.alislam.org/books/rushdie/RUSHDIE_Haunted_by_his_unholy_ghosts.pdf
::--Wowaconia 04:16, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Intersting link posted but it was removed as it was from self-published non-expert 

message: i instituted some changes to tighten up the text in the lead and remove some plain redundancies, but they were reverted for the ambiguous reason that they made the text 'worse.' i see no problem with the changes made apart from the sole issue raised, which i shall rectify accordingly. other than that, i think it's for anyone who disagrees with the changes to explain in detail as to why. ITAQALLAH 15:06, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Please avoid bad style by using the passive voice. You have a habit of removing the subject of the sentence where that subject is Muhammad. This is bad style. The "some" early biographies implies that there are some that don't include it. Considering that Ibn Hisham is a redacted version of Ibn Ishaq, and the evidence strongly suggests that Ibn Ishaq included it (he circulated version of the story that made it into Waqidi and Tabari, scholars have concluded it was in Ibn Ishaq, etc), the "some" is misleading. Hopefully this is unintentional. It's not clear why you're removing the sentence desribing which versions Rushdie based his version on. "Redundancy" doesn't excuse it. One sentence is saying it occurs in Muslim biographies of Muhammad, the other says which specific narratives Rushdie based his retelling on. Arrow740 08:46, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: i assume your comment on passive voice refers to this passage: "... which were then later retracted at the behest of the archangel Gabriel." - which you replaced with this: "Muhammad later retracted them, saying the angel Jibreel had told him to do so." - i am sure my version can be fixed by changing 'were then' > 'he'. your change disjoints the sentence from attribution to traditional biographies, thereby necessitating redundancies such as Muhammad 'saying'. the apparent story according to Tabari et al. is that certain verses were forwarded by Satan and then Gabriel came to nullify it. either attribution of this to Muhammad replaces attribution to the biographies right at the beginning, or we don't supplement additional attributions later (not present in the narrative itself) to imply doubt. ITAQALLAH 11:09, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: lead changes

message: I have made edits moving paragraphs on "the controversy" from the lead to the Controversy section (which had no text, only a link to the The Satanic Verses controversy article), and trimmed the controversy paragraph in the lead which was a bit long. --BoogaLouie (talk) 20:41, 24 March 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: lead changes about controversy

message: He is named by Time magazine as one of the world’s 100 most influential people in 2005 and by Prospect magazine as one of the most influential intellectuals in the world in 2008. Source
--Kazemita1 (talk) 05:58, 12 June 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: It still doesn't belong in the "literary criticism" section, because that isn't what it is. It might fit into the "controversy" section, but for that you'd have to show not merely that it's technically a reliable source, but that it's an opinion more prominent than the thousands and thousands of other published authors who have commented on the book at some time. Our coverage is not an indiscriminate list of each and every published opinion on the book, so what is special about this one? Finally, your summary of his position, "and differentiates it from the subject of freedom of speech" doesn't even make sense. What does "it" refer to in that sentence? The novel? What does it mean to "differentiate" a book from a subject? Fut.Perf. ☼ 06:12, 12 June 2012 (UTC)
replies: text:  Will transfer it to the "controversy" section per your explanation. And yes, being among the Time magazine's 100 most influential people does make him more prominent that thousands and thousands of other published authors.--Kazemita1 (talk) 13:03, 12 June 2012 (UTC)
replies: text:  Uhm, no, it doesn't. This article currently doesn't contain any list of quotes of individual writers' opinions, and very rightly so, because otherwise it would be a quote farm. So why would we have this person's opinion? If there was a largish list, then maybe we could fit this person in, as one among the more prominent voices in the debate (reserving my judgment on whether he really is such a prominent voice, which I'm also not convinced of yet). But the way you have it now, you are making it seem as if he alone, out of the six billion people on earth, had produced a comment deserving of notice. That's just ridiculous. Fut.Perf. ☼ 13:39, 12 June 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: [[Abdolkarim Soroush]]'s Notability

message: I've added  to the top of this talk page, due to the book's history of censorship and free speech related controversies. 0x0077BE [talk/contrib] 17:54, 17 February 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wikiproject Freedom of Speech 

message: Are there any reviews of the novel that are mostly or completely negative (outside of the infamous controversy)? Love to help Wikipedia (talk) 05:16, 26 October 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Criticism of the novel 

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: "Farishta's transformation can partly be read on a realistic level as the symptom of the protagonist's developing schizophrenia. "
This is not grammatically correct. I am not familiar with the plot so I do not know if this is trying to refer to multiple characters having schizophrenia or one person. Either way it is not possessive in that use case.
Spidermanshotuncle (talk) 05:02, 12 October 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: Hmm, sorry but I'm not quite sure what you find ungrammatical about the sentence. I still find it quite clear, though maybe not worded optimally. Farishta develops schizophrenia. His apparent transformation can be read as a symptom of that, i.e. as his own delusional state of mind. But only partly so, because some of these episodes are also narrated in a way that implies he really has transformed, in the eyes of the narrator and of other characters. Can you suggest a better phrasing? Fut.Perf. ☼ 07:23, 12 October 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Incoherent Sentence 

message: Toward the end of the article, the stabbing is described (almost) verbatim as in the BBC article, with attribution. This seems unnecessary, as it has been widely reported on. I suggest changing it to Wikipedia's own voice and wording. 2A02:A467:F771:1:215D:2CD5:204F:1CD8 (talk) 18:55, 12 August 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  "BBC reported" 

message: The second paragraph of the Controversy section does not sufficiently establish notability. Why should we care about seminars by two British organizations? Why should Fay Waldon have been invited? Why do we care what McSmith thinks about it?
I don't have access to the source, so I honestly don't know whether it's notable or should just be removed. 2A02:A467:F771:1:215D:2CD5:204F:1CD8 (talk) 19:00, 12 August 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Seminars 

message: For clarity and detail from the existing citations, please change...
The book was banned in India as hate speech directed toward Muslims.
To:
The book was banned for import though not declared as forfeiture in India for potentially offending the religious sensitivities of Muslims. 70.71.82.43 (talk) 15:39, 13 August 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: in  --*Fehufangą (✉ Talk · ✎ Contribs) 23:34, 13 August 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Semi-protected edit request on 13 August 2022 

message: Can one have two protagonists?  Deipnosophista (talk) 10:38, 14 August 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  drafting 

message: Any comments on changing the name back to  The Satanic Verses (novel)? --BoogaLouie
:Support. It only adds clarity. Seeing no detractors, I will change it. DenverCoder9 (talk) 04:43, 15 August 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposed name change

message: Not sure about including material on the recent attack on Rushdie yet. I don't believe a motive has been established, and the article presents no references as to a direct connection. Ribbet32 (talk) 16:11, 14 August 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: The motive has been established in several reputable sources. The article should be written for the distance future, however, and give equal weight to all the horrific violence of reactions to the book. DenverCoder9 (talk) 05:42, 15 August 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Stabbing incident 

message: ISBN listed is for the American hardcover published by Viking, but photo shows the British 1st edition. 96.37.118.231 (talk) 17:39, 17 August 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wrong ISBN 

message: Trying to use the link under external links
https://archive.org/download/TheSatanicVerses/Salman_Rushdie-Satanic_Verses.pdf
resulted a/o 2022-08-15:
 Item not available
 The item is not available due to issues with the item's content. 
It would be highly interesting when and why the pdf has been removed from the archive as this is may affect the future use of archive.org regarding the suitability and reliablility there.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.246.210.6 (talk) 10:26, 15 August 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: If that was supposed to be a link to the full text of the novel, then it should never have existed on archive.org and never be linked to from here in the first place, as it would obviously be a copyright violation. Fut.Perf. ☼ 11:28, 15 August 2022 (UTC)

text: The link to GoogleBooks is here (not all of the book is available to read online there though, alas). --Overlordnat1 (talk) 00:26, 17 November 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  The pdf is no more available at archive.org 

message: We should mention the fact that the fictional club called ‘Club Hot Wax’ appears in this novel, where wax effigies of various right-wingers such as Margaret Thatcher were melted in front of baying crowds. There are also other other things that should be mentioned such as the ‘granny ripper’ serial killer and the fact that the main reason that Ayeesha was considered to be a prophetess by the inhabitants of her native town of Titlipur (literally ‘butterfly city’ in Hindi) is that butterflies were attracted to her. In fact, for most of the pages of the book where she appears she’s naked, covered only in a coat of butterflies, and actually has an exclusively Lepidoptera diet - they sacrifice themselves by voluntarily flying into her mouth! --Overlordnat1 (talk) 00:26, 17 November 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think any of this should be in the plot summary, no. The plot summary needs to be kept short and neat. This is particularly difficult with a novel like this, with its dozens of sub-plots and its incredible wealth of narrative detail. If we wanted to account for all of them, the article would become unreadably long. The details you mention are not important enough for the overall structure of the plot to be in need of mentioning. Fut.Perf. ☼ 11:22, 18 November 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Club Hot Wax