This Really Pisses Me Off as Well!

You Still Can't Write About Muhammad
By ASRA Q. NOMANIAugust 6, 2008; Page A15

in 2002, Spokane, Wash., journalist Sherry Jones toiled weekends on a racy historical novel about Aisha, the young wife of the prophet Muhammad. Ms. Jones learned Arabic, studied scholarly works about Aisha's life, and came to admire her protagonist as a woman of courage. When Random House bought her novel last year in a $100,000, two-book deal, she was ecstatic. This past spring, she began plans for an eight-city book tour after the Aug. 12 publication date of "The Jewel of Medina" -- a tale of lust, love and intrigue in the prophet's harem.
It's not going to happen: In May, Random House abruptly called off publication of the book. The series of events that torpedoed this novel are a window into how quickly fear stunts intelligent discourse about the Muslim world.
Random House feared the book would become a new "Satanic Verses," the Salman Rushdie novel of 1988 that led to death threats, riots and the murder of the book's Japanese translator, among other horrors. In an interview about Ms. Jones's novel, Thomas Perry, deputy publisher at Random House Publishing Group, said that it "disturbs us that we feel we cannot publish it right now." He said that after sending out advance copies of the novel, the company received "from credible and unrelated sources, cautionary advice not only that the publication of this book might be offensive to some in the Muslim community, but also that it could incite acts of violence by a small, radical segment."
After consulting security experts and Islam scholars, Mr. Perry said the company decided "to postpone publication for the safety of the author, employees of Random House, booksellers and anyone else who would be involved in distribution and sale of the novel."
This saga upsets me as a Muslim -- and as a writer who believes that fiction can bring Islamic history to life in a uniquely captivating and humanizing way. "I'm devastated," Ms. Jones told me after the book got spiked, adding, "I wanted to honor Aisha and all the wives of Muhammad by giving voice to them, remarkable women whose crucial roles in the shaping of Islam have so often been ignored -- silenced -- by historians." Last month, Ms. Jones signed a termination agreement with Random House, so her literary agent could shop the book to other publishers.
This time, the instigator of the trouble wasn't a radical Muslim cleric, but an American academic. In April, looking for endorsements, Random House sent galleys to writers and scholars, including Denise Spellberg, an associate professor of Islamic history at the University of Texas in Austin. Ms. Jones put her on the list because she read Ms. Spellberg's book, "Politics, Gender, and the Islamic Past: The Legacy of 'A'isha Bint Abi Bakr."
But Ms. Spellberg wasn't a fan of Ms. Jones's book. On April 30, Shahed Amanullah, a guest lecturer in Ms. Spellberg's classes and the editor of a popular Muslim Web site, got a frantic call from her. "She was upset," Mr. Amanullah recalls. He says Ms. Spellberg told him the novel "made fun of Muslims and their history," and asked him to warn Muslims.
In an interview, Ms. Spellberg told me the novel is a "very ugly, stupid piece of work." The novel, for example, includes a scene on the night when Muhammad consummated his marriage with Aisha: "the pain of consummation soon melted away. Muhammad was so gentle. I hardly felt the scorpion's sting. To be in his arms, skin to skin, was the bliss I had longed for all my life." Says Ms. Spellberg: "I walked through a metal detector to see 'Last Temptation of Christ,'" the controversial 1980s film adaptation of a novel that depicted a relationship between Jesus and Mary Magdalene. "I don't have a problem with historical fiction. I do have a problem with the deliberate misinterpretation of history. You can't play with a sacred history and turn it into soft core pornography."
After he got the call from Ms. Spellberg, Mr. Amanullah dashed off an email to a listserv of Middle East and Islamic studies graduate students, acknowledging he didn't "know anything about it [the book]," but telling them, "Just got a frantic call from a professor who got an advance copy of the forthcoming novel, 'Jewel of Medina' -- she said she found it incredibly offensive." He added a write-up about the book from the Publishers Marketplace, an industry publication.
The next day, a blogger known as Shahid Pradhan posted Mr. Amanullah's email on a Web site for Shiite Muslims -- "Hussaini Youth" -- under a headline, "upcoming book, 'Jewel of Medina': A new attempt to slander the Prophet of Islam." Two hours and 28 minutes after that, another person by the name of Ali Hemani proposed a seven-point strategy to ensure "the writer withdraws this book from the stores and apologise all the muslims across the world."
Meanwhile back in New York City, Jane Garrett, an editor at Random House's Knopf imprint, dispatched an email on May 1 to Knopf executives, telling them she got a phone call the evening before from Ms. Spellberg (who happens to be under contract with Knopf to write "Thomas Jefferson's Qur'an.")
"She thinks there is a very real possibility of major danger for the building and staff and widespread violence," Ms. Garrett wrote. "Denise says it is 'a declaration of war . . . explosive stuff . . . a national security issue.' Thinks it will be far more controversial than the satanic verses and the Danish cartoons. Does not know if the author and Ballantine folks are clueless or calculating, but thinks the book should be withdrawn ASAP." ("The Jewel of Medina" was to be published by Random House's Ballantine Books.) That day, the email spread like wildfire through Random House, which also received a letter from Ms. Spellberg and her attorney, saying she would sue the publisher if her name was associated with the novel. On May 2, a Ballantine editor told Ms. Jones's agent the company decided to possibly postpone publication of the book.
On a May 21 conference call, Random House executive Elizabeth McGuire told the author and her agent that the publishing house had decided to indefinitely postpone publication of the novel for "fear of a possible terrorist threat from extremist Muslims" and concern for "the safety and security of the Random House building and employees."
All this saddens me. Literature moves civilizations forward, and Islam is no exception. There is in fact a tradition of historical fiction in Islam, including such works as "The Adventures of Amir Hamza," an epic on the life of Muhammad's uncle. Last year a 948-page English translation was published, ironically, by Random House. And, for all those who believe the life of the prophet Muhammad can't include stories of lust, anger and doubt, we need only read the Quran (18:110) where, it's said, God instructed Muhammad to tell others: "I am only a mortal like you."
Ms. Nomani, a former Wall Street Journal reporter, is the author of "Standing Alone: An American Woman's Struggle for the Soul of Islam" (HarperOne, 2006)

I replied:

how long are we gonna let extremists and radicals dictate what we say and do? to bow down to them, to not publish stuff that they find offense, is to let them win, to let them have so much control over our lives that we can't even say or think what is really on our minds. if we start to cower like this then the war on terror is already lost and the terrorists have won, if they force us to take away our freedom of speech. we must be willing to stand up for what we believe in, despite the threat of death. this is just really sad to me and i believe, is more of a victory for the extremists than any bombs they can ever drop.

sara replied:

i agree with maynard, in a way. i agree in principal, i agree in the abstract, and i agree when we are thinking about thinkgs from far away. However, if i worked at the company, and was worried about my OWN life because of this, i can;t say i would move forward with the publishing. i can say that we should be ABLE to publish a book without worrying about it, but since they ARE worried about it i can;t say that any person should do something where they feel they might be killed because of it jut because i think a boiok should be published. so this is sad, and they should be able to publish the book, but i can;t say they should publish it.

marie replied:

How can this woman say that The Last Temptation of Christ isn't the same thing as this book? 4. That's the difference I've been saying about Christians and Muslims. I'm sure that there was outrage by Christians when The Last Temptation of Christ came out, but it wasn't not released because people were gonna die because of it.

sara replied:

in regards to number 4 i dont think its the difference between muslims and christians, i think it is partially a difference in perception. there were death threats over the last temptation of christ, but people didnt take them as seriously as they take threats from muslims. not all muslims who deliver death threats will or would follow through on them same as christians. but right now, we are in a world where muslims have killed people, so we see all muslims as killing people. but if a christian dedlviered a death threat over something i was doing i would take it JUST as seriously as if a muslim did. because in both religions you dont know who the crazies are.

marie replied:

But isn't everything perception? (Thanks Jason.) No one would be scared if it wasn't something perceived to be scary in the first place, right? You weren't scared cause you knew that there wasn't anything to be afraid of. Which again, is my point. People are scared because there is something to be afraid of. And no one is saying that ALL Muslims are going to blow up people. But there seems to be a big understanding that the ones that would, will.

sara replied:

if you threaten to kill me no im not scared. if i get a letter in the mail saying im a christian i am going to kill you you godless heathen i would be terrified. ebcause there are christians who are crazies. and i think you ignore that a lot.

I replied:

i think we should just say this and acknowledge it and not try to make excuses anymore. the fact is that muslim extremists are more extreme in their extremism than christian extremists and the fact is that there are more of these muslim extremists than christian extremists. but i think the thing we fail to recognize is that this extremism, and especially the number of extremists, have nothing to do with the particulars of the religion. if i want to be an extremist and kill people to prove a political point, i can use anything from sacred scriptures to beatles songs to hollywood movies to a picture of christ on a piece of toast to cartoons of muhammad to justify my extremism. i'm gonna be extreme regardless because it's not the justification which is motivating the extremism, but the politics and socio-economic conditions behind my extremism which is it's true motivation.

thus, i think it all has to do with politics and the socio-economic status of the world in which these extremists live. there aren't as many christian extremists because christians weren't forced off their land with american weapons in 1948, and there are more muslim extremists in the middle east than there are christian extremists in america because, simply put, there are a lot more jobs and economic opportunities here in the usa than in the middle east and we are not as repressed over here as much as they are over there. i think that these factors contribute a lot more to extremism than people realize and explain why there are more muslim extremists than christian extremists.

sara replied:

and i agree with Jason about this. but i do not agree when people try and say that there are no christians who are like that. thats the part i disagree with.

david replied:

Its all relative, right. Christians making death threats in northern Ireland are perceived real. I bet death threats by Christians in medieval times were looked at with a second glance as well.

I replied:

i think that's a great point david, it all depends on the times and places we are living in. Rome sure took the death threats of Jewish extremists in the first century as real because they remembered the Maccabean revolt a few decades earlier. they took the threats as real so much so that they destroyed israel and the temple in 70 AD because of it. and if we lived in ireland, we would be much more scared of christian death threats than muslim death threats, because christians have bombed people there and muslims haven't. it's vice versa though for us here in the states because of 9/11. people in india take threats from hindu's and muslims as real because they've been bombing each other for a few years now. and people in japan take threats from those crazy buddhist sects as real because they killed people with that poison gas attack a few years ago. and of course, the one thing that links all of these attacks together is not necessarily religion, but politics. i think that all terrorism is political terrorism, regardless of what label we attach to it or what ideology these terrorists say they represent.

David replied:

Admittedly, it was probably the way I was saying this years ago. But ya’ll seemed pretty intent that I was representing a shallow mindset regarding this topic. Even Maher tended to agree that radical Islamic fanaticism was more dangerous then its Christian counterpart. Just an observation. Now it seems most are recognizing the extreme factions within the Muslims is more dangerous then the radical Christians. Because everytime I would bitch about Islamic extremism ya’ll would bring up Ralph reed or falwell or the abortion bombers.
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