Arise sir Rushdie.

[qarnos]

It seems some people aren't happy about Salmon Rushdie's knighthood.

Pakistan's Parliament Joins Iran In Condemning Queen Elizabeth's Decision To Knight Author Salmon Rushdie (http://news.google.com.au/news/url?sa=t&ct=au/0-0&fp=46765002dea252b6&ei=sfd2Rp-4JoH2qgOlo5Um&url=http%3A//www.allheadlinenews.com/articles/7007676963&cid=1117314715)

In Pakistan's eastern city of Multan, Muslim students burned effigies of both the Queen and Rushdie while 100 students chanted, "Kill him! Kill him!"

If only us atheists had morals...

[andyandy]

more disturbing is what the government's own religious minister says....

In a later address to the parliament Pakistan's religious affairs minister Mohammed Ijaz ul-Haq, urged Muslim nations to break diplomatic ties with Britain, among other things.

"This is an occasion for the 1.5 billion Muslims to look at the seriousness of this decision," ul-Haq said, according to Guardian Unlimited reports. "The west is accusing Muslims of extremism and terrorism. If someone exploded a bomb on his (Rushdie's) body he would be right to do so unless the British government apologizes and withdraws the 'sir' title."

According to AP reports, ul-Haq also said, "If Muslims do not unite, the situation will get worse and Salman Rushdie may get a seat in the British parliament."

having never read Rushdie's Satanic verses could someone explain what all the fuss is about? It's a novel, which i presume was not glowing in its representation of Islam? Is that it?

[c4ts]

Part of it suggests Mohammed was high on pot when he came up with Islam.

[andyandy]

Part of it suggests Mohammed was high on pot when he came up with Islam.

really? :D

The question as to why there is such Muslim hyper-sensitivity on issues of religion is fascinating.....

Terry Pratchett's Small Gods, for example is a complete take off of religion in general - and Christianity in particular - and yet there's never been any death theats, political strife and murders carried out as a result of its publication....

[Jekyll]

having never read Rushdie's Satanic verses could someone explain what all the fuss is about? It's a novel, which i presume was not glowing in its representation of Islam? Is that it?
If you were to take the novel as literal* truth then;

It explicitly portrays the writing of the Koran as being deliberately distorted by the scribes who wrote down Mohammed's words. It accuses Mohammed of making up proclamations of the angle Gabriel to suit his needs. It has a brothel in it in which every one of the whores takes the name of a wife of Mohammed, who is mocked in verse by the pimp.

One of the main characters becomes an apparent incarnation of the angle Gabriel, while remaining vain, petulant and destructively short sighted in his egomania. Satan is largely portrayed much more sympathetically.

On the other hand I really enjoyed it, and despite what I've written (I only covered the bad half), as a novel, it is deliberately ambiguous about the truth of Islam, and I wouldn't say hostile towards it.

I recommend it.

*Most of it blurs the line between hallucination and reality.

[PixyMisa]

There was (or may have been; this is disputed) a section of the Koran that was more than a little at odds with the main theme of the book, to a degree that it's been seriously suggested by some Islamic theologians that it was Satan rather than Gabriel who was dictating to Mohammed at this point. Other theologians just deny that the verses in question ever existed. That's what the "Satanic Verses" are.

It sounds like the novel (which I haven't read) is a fictionalised version of the real history and theology surrounding the Koran, some of which is pretty weird.

[PixyMisa]

And yeesh, it's Sir Salman Rushdie, or Sir Salman.

[DOC]

If you were to take the novel as literal* truth then;

It explicitly portrays the writing of the Koran as being deliberately distorted by the scribes who wrote down Mohammed's words. It accuses Mohammed of making up proclamations of the angle Gabriel to suit his needs. It has a brothel in it in which every one of the whores takes the name of a wife of Mohammed, who is mocked in verse by the pimp.

One of the main characters becomes an apparent incarnation of the angle Gabriel, while remaining vain, petulant and destructively short sighted in his egomania. Satan is largely portrayed much more sympathetically.


If what you said is accurate, I personally believe the queen is crazy for knighting him. It puts all British citizens and Westerners in general in much more danger then they already are. Its one thing to talk honestly about history and issues like the pope did but deliberately offending the religion of a billion people (especially Muslims) is just asking for it. Maybe that's why comedians and even skeptics go after Christians more than Muslims -- it's a lot safer.

[Big Les]

I think it shows a nice degree of testicular fortitude on the part of the British "establishment" and government. If objectively he's deemed to be deserving of a knighthood, he should have one, fundy cretins be damned.

[brodski]

And yeesh, it's Sir Salman Rushdie, or Sir Salman.

Nope, it's Sir Ahmed.
Salman is his middle name.

[PixyMisa]

If what you said is accurate, I personally believe the queen is crazy for knighting him. It puts all British citizens and Westerners in general in much more danger then they already are. Its one thing to talk honestly about history and issues like the pope did but deliberately offending the religion of a billion people (especially Muslims) is just asking for it.
The crazy ones who want to kill us already want to kill us. They will always take offense at something as an excuse - or if nothing conveniently appears, make something up.

[PixyMisa]

Nope, it's Sir Ahmed.
Salman is his middle name.
Okey dokey. Point stands; details corrected. ;)

[Jekyll]

If what you said is accurate, I personally believe the queen is crazy for knighting him. It puts all British citizens and Westerners in general in much more danger then they already are.
Because clearly, crazed extremists would only try to blow us up if we knight one of our most famous and well respected authors.

I wouldn't expect a staunchly conservative American like yourself to suggest that we given in to terrorist threats. Maybe we should pull out of Iraq and take all the Jews out of Israel, before we worry about little things like Salman Rushdie's knighthood.
Its one thing to talk honestly about history and issues like the pope did but deliberately offending the religion of a billion people (especially Muslims) is just asking for it. Maybe that's why comedians and even skeptics go after Christians more than Muslims -- it's a lot safer.
:hypnotize

As I said, the book is not actually hostile to Muslims or Islam, criticism of its offensiveness is, by and large, always going to come from people who haven't actually read it.

[DOC]

I think it shows a nice degree of testicular fortitude on the part of the British "establishment" and government.

Now if Harry and William were on the front lines in Iraq, that would be testicular fortitude.

[sackett]

The Satanic Verses is about a lot of things, Salman Rushdie among them, but it's no anti-Islamic screed; I'd say that only a Muslim could have written the Mohammed scenes.

As literature, I rank it behind Midnight's Children, which was about Indira Gandhi and didn't ruffle a single Muslim feather -- or a Hindu feather, as far as I know.

Rushdie is the sort of author you read while on vacation, and I confess that I lack the background, literary and historical, to follow all his paths. But if the tough readers of the British establishment want to knight him, then good for them. And ul-Haq can smell my shoes.

ETA: Jekyll, are we the only two guys here who've actually slogged through TSV?

[Aurelian]

And for Pete's sake, The Satanic Verses is far from the only book he wrote. Midnight's Children was a better novel, and Haroun and the Sea of Stories was fun. He has a great sense of humor, though I haven't read all of his books.

[Darat]

There is a fantastic double-think quote from the First Deputy Speaker in Iran:


Iranian conservatives on Tuesday criticised Britain's Queen Elizabeth over the decision to confer a knighthood on Mr Rushdie.

"Salman Rushdie has turned into a hated corpse which cannot be resurrected by any action," First Deputy Speaker Mohammad Reza Bahonar told Iran's parliament.

"The action by the British Queen in knighting Salman Rushdie, the apostate, is an unwise one," he said to loud applause from MPs.

"The British monarch lives under this illusion that Britain is still a 19th Century superpower and that bestowing titles is something still deemed important."



Wonderful - so it's not something important but it's worthy of issuing statements and protests about it...? :D

[Hourglassmemory]

I wonder why the Queen chose him...
Could someone clarify me?

It is certainly not JUST because of the Satanic verses, is it?
Is it because he is a great writer?

[Darat]

...snip...

ETA: Jekyll, are we the only two guys here who've actually slogged through TSV?

No - I read it years ago and will have a copy of it somewhere on my shelves.

My memoery of my opinion of it is that it was crap and pretentious (which sums up much of hs work that I've read) and if there hadn't been the uproar about it it would have quickly faded away and hardly been remembered today. He certainly has written better books since.

[Darat]

I wonder why the Queen chose him...
Could someone clarify me?

It is certainly not JUST because of the Satanic verses, is it?
Is it because he is a great writer?

The Queen didn't (see: http://www.honours.gov.uk/ for more details).

As for why he was chosen I suspect because he has a reputation of being a leading writer in the "literary circles" of this country, which is often based on who you know rather than the quality of your work.

[JonWhite]

Her Madge also gave away an OBE to a celebrity hairdresser (Nicky Clarke) for Dog's sake, yet the fundies still take the honours system seriously???

:rolleyes:

[andyandy]

Her Madge also gave away an OBE to a celebrity hairdresser (Nicky Clarke) for Dog's sake, yet the fundies still take the honours system seriously???

:rolleyes:

even Teddy Sherringham's got one.....:D

it's just people looking for an excuse to justify their persecution complex.....

[Ducky]

Now if Harry and William were on the front lines in Iraq, that would be testicular fortitude.

Interesting (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?p=2603029&highlight=testicular#post2603029) choice (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?p=2602951&highlight=testicular#post2602951) of words (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?p=2562788&highlight=testicular#post2562788).


I guess that means you do read posts, but don't have the testicular fortitude to respond.

[gorillapaws]

I've not read the novel, so my comment is based only on the summaries I've read here. From what's been said about this novel it sounds like a deliberate attempt to offend the Islamic faith. There's nothing wrong with bringing up flaws in a religious ideology or questioning other aspects of someone's faith (I think that is a good and healthy behavior) but doing it in a way that's designed to be intentionally insulting and inflammatory, is less about arriving at a truth and more about disrespecting other's beliefs. As such, I cannot condone this action by the British Prime Minsiter. If I'm mischaracterizing Rushdie's work then I apologize in advance.

[Tanstaafl]

I tried reading the Satanic Verses. I got about 50 pages into it before I had to give up on it.

It seems that nearly every sentence had non-English words in it that I had to figure out from context. It just got to be way too much work. I got the impression he was just making them up as he went along, but that was just a guess.

Maybe he just uses a different dictionary than mine, although I have enough of a vocabulary that I don't think I should have to use it for every f***ing sentence anyway.

[JayT]

I wonder why the Queen chose him...
Could someone clarify me?

It is certainly not JUST because of the Satanic verses, is it?
Is it because he is a great writer?


It was an April Fool joke, but the numerous bureaucratic delays and red tape held up its final approval until now. I guess the Queen has a wry sense of humour after all!

Infidels 1: The Other Guys: 0




It ain't over until they let the air out of the fat lady.

[Jekyll]

I've not read the novel, so my comment is based only on the summaries I've read here. From what's been said about this novel it sounds like a deliberate attempt to offend the Islamic faith.
Really?
There have been 3 comments on what the book is like, two of us said it wasn't hostile to Islam, and Darat said he didn't like the author :p .
How did you go from that to "a deliberate attempt to offend the Islamic faith"?

[Darat]

Really?
There have been 3 comments on what the book is like, two of us said it wasn't hostile to Islam, and Darat said he didn't like the author :p .
How did you go from that to "a deliberate attempt to offend the Islamic faith"?

No my comments were about the book, not him i.e. pretentious crap. :)

[Jekyll]

I tried reading the Satanic Verses. I got about 50 pages into it before I had to give up on it.

It seems that nearly every sentence had non-English words in it that I had to figure out from context. It just got to be way too much work. I got the impression he was just making them up as he went along, but that was just a guess.

Maybe he just uses a different dictionary than mine, although I have enough of a vocabulary that I don't think I should have to use it for every f***ing sentence anyway.
I have better luck reading Rushdie at speed and accepting the missing words as texture to what's going on. If it bugs me enough I'll go back and fill in the details later, but I can't really remember any problems with the satanic verses.

[Jekyll]

No my comments were about the book, not him i.e. pretentious crap. :)

Whoops. :p

[gorillapaws]

Really?
There have been 3 comments on what the book is like, two of us said it wasn't hostile to Islam, and Darat said he didn't like the author :p .
How did you go from that to "a deliberate attempt to offend the Islamic faith"?

"It has a brothel in it in which every one of the whores takes the name of a wife of Mohammed, who is mocked in verse by the pimp." This would be an example of the type of insulting/inflamatory content that would constitute a deliberate attempt to offend the Islamic faith.

[Darth Rotor]

"It has a brothel in it in which every one of the whores takes the name of a wife of Mohammed, who is mocked in verse by the pimp." This would be an example of the type of insulting/inflamatory content that would constitute a deliberate attempt to offend the Islamic faith.
In one of the three other threads on this same topic, I noted that I read the book and found it wanting. If his other literary work is noteworthy, fine. Darat shares my distaste for Satanic Verses and notes the other work as poor, so I'll toss in my lot with Darat on the side that finds Rushdie's qualities as of dubious worth vis a vis the Honours.

DR

[Jekyll]

"It has a brothel in it in which every one of the whores takes the name of a wife of Mohammed, who is mocked in verse by the pimp." This would be an example of the type of insulting/inflamatory content that would constitute a deliberate attempt to offend the Islamic faith.

I knew people would end up taking it that way, which is why I put the disclaimer at the end.
There were mitigating circumstances, the brothel had recently become illegal as Mohammed had taken over the town and the women assumed names to protect themselves to some degree.The pimp was a famous satirical poet,who had mocked Mohammed decades before, initially just hiding in the brothel after Mohammed took power.

The whole thing comes off as these people being screwed over in the most surreal fashion by the whims of fate, rather than "Ahaha, let's all laugh at Islam."

[lightcreatedlife@hom]

Now if Harry and William were on the front lines in Iraq, that would be testicular fortitude.
Very good point. Hold back your favorites, and piss them off at those who are there. The man was in hiding for ten years for pissing them off in the first place, but then pissing them off is what helped his book to sell. The queen (which is tied to the government) should have known better. What happened to that thing about "supporting their troops"?

[mhaze]

more disturbing is what the government's own religious minister says....



having never read Rushdie's Satanic verses could someone explain what all the fuss is about? It's a novel, which i presume was not glowing in its representation of Islam? Is that it?

Let's say it is very clever poetry, on the order of Shakespeare in some ways.

As Shakespeare did, Rushbie shows the essential human spirit, and it's nature, albeit within the confines of the cultural morass that it finds itself within. Keeping this single and consistent view, Rushbie proceeds to rip open all the thin veneers that cover sacred beliefs. To a Muslim, then, he rapes of all they consider pure. To others, he writes poetry, comedy, a light and friendly prose; his characters are gentle and caring people.

Rushbie rocks.

[Jon.]

Let's say it is very clever poetry, on the order of Shakespeare in some ways.

As Shakespeare did, Rushbie shows the essential human spirit, and it's nature, albeit within the confines of the cultural morass that it finds itself within. Keeping this single and consistent view, Rushbie proceeds to rip open all the thin veneers that cover sacred beliefs. To a Muslim, then, he rapes of all they consider pure. To others, he writes poetry, comedy, a light and friendly prose; his characters are gentle and caring people.

Rushbie rocks.

I must admit, I would have found your endorsement of Rushdie's work more persuasive if you had spelled his name correctly.

[The Grave]

All 3 are a pile of crap! Yes 3! They don't make sense, so why should I?

If I knew more about the koran-curan hybrid I'd slag it off just as good...infact I think of it as a kiddies version of the bible [a bit like the book of moron] in that it is a follow-up to a pile of crap, it IS a pile of crap and it's read by clowns and idiots.

{the views of the above author bear no ill intentions and are not associated in any way with Griff, the moderate one, who would like to point out that he is peace loving and good natured}

No, really... the curan-koran sucks big dick ... like the bible, only it has nicer art work.

Got it yet?

Oh:-

I wonder if this will get me death threats...?

Or if they'll bomb the JREF web site... if the dumb asses can find it!

Joke....

What do call a man with a greasy rasher of bacon on his head ?


Hamed.

What do you call him when he's got the whole packet on his head ?

Mo-Hamed.

What do you call him when he lives in a small shack between 2 houses?

Mo-hamed-alley....



It's only a name... it's only a joke..... so why do they want to blow us up... cause some of them are MAD!

If there was no religion there'd be no hate-wars based on it.

I have friends of all types black white rich poor muslims christians man utd fans {they're the worst}....

It's a shame the rational followers of these religions don't come out of the woodwork and stand up for what they preach... They are gutless... amoral.

Griff... Hope I didn't offend any one... not.

PS you have the right to offend me back... but I doubt you can because I don't really care... you should try that sometime... I mean not being offended by simple jibes and jokes.

Jack Sparrow:"Sticks'n stones luv."

Oh I'm Welsh-British-Male-Bald-Crippled---anyone know any good jokes about me???

Wise up!

[The Grave]

Here's one... I have half a foot [born with it don't you know]... so people reading this will know me! Come and get me guys... Bring a big bomb, I take a lot of killing...

Years ago I used to get called "Kunta Kinte" ... the black slave who had his foot chopped off to prevent him escaping...

2/10. Can't say I found it that funny either. But I wasn't offended.

Griff...