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Daniel Pipes - The Rushdie Affair : The Novel the Ayatollah and the West
Posted by Michael Sympson on 18/10/2001, 3:07:59
It was January 1989. Muslims living in Bradford, England, decided to show their anger about
"The Satanic Verses," Salman Rushdie's new novel because it includes passages
supposed to make fun of the Prophet Muhammad. They purchased a copy of the novel, took it
to a public square, attached it to a stake, and set it on fire. Scandalized British media and
television news splashed pictures of this auto-da-f· across the screens and tabloids for
days. It became a topic of discussion throughout the country.
The Muslim immigrants had mostly come from Pakistan. There, after a month's buildup, a
mob of some 10,000 anti-Rushdie protesters took to the streets of the capital city of
Islamabad. Marching to the American Cultural Center (a fact significant in itself), they
employed all their energies, to set the fortified building on fire. But with no success. Six
people died in the violence, many more were injured. Pakistan's university-campuses are
still the breeding ground for Islamic conservatives and Islamic extremists. It's where the
These events, in turn, caught the attention of Ayatollah Khomeini, the revolutionary leader of
Iran. On February 14, 1989, he called upon "all zealous Muslims quickly to execute" not just
Salman Rushdie as the author of "The Satanic Verses" but "all those involved in its
publication who were aware of its content." This led to emergency measures in England to
protect Rushdie's person, and for weeks and months the world's politicians and intellectuals
debated issues of freedom of speech and blasphemy.
Obviously this, our world, has a problem, and it is not, as politicians like us to think, a minority issue. These days there is a broad consensus, predominantly in the Islamic world, which is in the process of becoming an Islamic block, but also shared by the religious camps of the Christian Right, the Vatican, and certain political parties who seem to have forgotten that they owe their very existence to the separation of state and church and secular values, a consensus which steers towards a return to the dark ages.
By looking at the fruits of two millennia, it is hard to find something positive to say about
religions in general and the three religions from the Middle East in particular. All of them
seem to be on an insane race to get first to the darkest place in the Universe - the mind of a
religious fanatic. The best that could be said about religion in general, is, that it is a symptom
for mental and intellectual adolescence. Naturally it won't loosen its grip on the human mind
just like that. But it is time for the human race to grow up, and stop gorging on the old
Personally I must say Salman Rushdie's novel didn't make much of an impression on me. I
found absolutely nothing in the book that could have been even remotely offensive to anyone
who is in the habit of reading fiction and has a sense of humor. But that exactly is the
problem, isn't it? Laughter and Biblical or Koranic religion just don't pair very well. The lack
of humor in both faiths is of extragalactic proportions. But as far as Rushdie is concerned he
was merely a designated scapegoat, the fatwa's patsy, because he is a soft target.
And considering the height of learning and civilization already achieved under pagan
laissez-faire, before the world "grew grey in the breath of the Galilean" and bloodshot in the
eyes of the man from Mecca, I wonder whether the madness of the last 2,000 years really was
merely a symptom for the pains of adolescence. Coming to think of the losses in culture,
learning, and art - it seems more of an epidemic, a clinical case of mental regression; a point
we already seemed to have had passed, before even paganism jumped on the bandwagon
Coming to think of it, it was probably initiated by the same doomsday club we see at work
today, and for the same reason: anxiety of what future may have in store for us. Naked fear
that the happiness of decent people who don't share this preoccupation and are quite
content with living a better life BEFORE death, may erode the shamanistic awe before the
hallowed uncertainty AFTER death, and with it the despotic leverage over the conscience by
the functionaries of organized religion and disintegrating state power. An incapacity to
comprehend ethics beyond the pattern of divine sanction and retribution.
People who like to point out the historic achievements in Bagdad and Cordoba, when Islamic
culture had kept the flame alive, while Europe huddled in wattle huts around the ruins of a past greatness, conveniently overlook, that this flame depended on the rediscovery of Hellenistic learning, science and art, which once had already been around and flourished before it was deliberately destroyed by Christian posses on the trail of "heresies" and pagans.
No question, the Islamic honeymoon was beautiful - but brief. Then the same kind of forces as in the Christian world began to act on their (justified) suspicion that all this knowledge and all
this science can only corrupt the mind of the faithful. The urge to live in the dark became
overwhelming. Daniel Pipes provides a thorough exposition on the root causes of Islamic
fundamentalism. He also provides a breakdown of Rushdie's work, and explains the
difficulties for translators which may have added to misunderstandings about the book's
In the light of recent events, Daniel Pipes' book is a must read and urgently in need of a
reprint. Even back in 1990, it didn't come out a moment too soon - yet nobody took heed:
shortly after, the Japanese translator of the "Satanic Verses" was murdered.
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