At my daughters birthday party, I was forced to listen to my uncle’s future wife extoll the virtues of Islam

What virtues?

Charles, Sufi-lite.

Unfortunately, Islamofascists worldwide don’t think so. Worse, they’re using this now as a justification for suicide bombings, and worse:…

Could Charles be any weirder?

profitsbeard on June 19, 2007 at 6:44 PM

No doubt! All the older fatwa issuing imams were set to die soon and the younger generation didn’t really know who he was. Now he’s back on the radar (for a silly title).

Unless he got tired of letting all the other ‘infidels’ have all the fun. :)

Is Rushdie married? Perhaps he’s hoping a renewed fatwa will allow him to get closer to the perfect combo (looker/thinker) Hirsi Ali.

JadeNYU on June 19, 2007 at 5:51 PM

I read that account as well. If you follow the root stories it seems that early Muslim writers quote the satanic verses as actual quotes written by mohammed about his early beliefs in some pagan goddesses. Later these writtings were attacked as anti Muslim propaganda because it make Mohammed seem like a hypocrite when he destroyed some pagan religeons and not others.

The final thing is that Rushdies book is a fictional work. he never states this is what Mohammed believed just that he used the quotes from those early Muslim writers to create a ficitonal story. but like the cartoon Jihad even suggesting anything wrong with Mohammaed is evil.

I admit as a christian Im upset when Christ is portraited in a negative way. I certianly dont like it at all. But neither do I call for the deaths of those that do this nor do I riot when these things happen.

Just as he was finally becoming semi-anonymous, again, to the Muslim masses, the Brits have now repainted the Big Target on Salman’s back, -and front.

No garter or title will compensate for the threat of a renewed suicide bomber following you around for the rest of your life.

I’ll bet Salman’s first real reaction was:

God-almighty, are these Brits nuts! The jihadists had nearly forgotten me! And now this! Thanks a whole helluva lot you malicious twits!

William Amos on June 19, 2007 at 5:13PM

Hey William, I haven’t read it myself, but I did look up some info about “The Satanic Verses”.

Apparently, it’s a novel with some scenes that are reinterpretations of things that had happened/were written about Mohommed.

This is from Wikipedia:

Embedded in this story is a series of half-magic dream vision narratives, ascribed to the disturbed mind of Gibreel Farishta. They are linked together by many thematic details as well as by the common motif of divine revelation, religious faith and fanaticism, and doubt.

One of these sequences contains most of the elements that have been criticized as offensive to Muslims. It is a transformed re-narration of the life of the prophet Muhammad (called “Mahound” or “the Messenger” in the novel) in Mecca (“Jahilia”). At its centre is the episode of the “Satanic Verses”, in which the prophet first pronounces a revelation in favour of the old polytheistic deities in order to win over the population, but later renounces this revelation as an error induced by Shaitan. There are also two fictional opponents of the “Messenger”: a demonic heathen priestess, Hind, and an irreverent skeptic and satirical poet, Baal. When the prophet returns to the city in triumph, Baal organises an underground brothel where the prostitutes assume the identities of the prophet’s wives. Also, one of the prophet’s companions claims that he, doubting the “Messenger”‘s authenticity, has subtly altered portions of the Qur’an as they were dictated to him.

The second sequence tells the story of Ayesha, an Indian peasant girl who claims to be receiving revelations from the Archangel Gibreel. She entices all her village community to embark on a foot pilgrimage to Mecca, claiming that they will be able to walk on foot across the Arabian Sea. The pilgrimage ends in a catastrophic climax as the believers all walk into the water and disappear, amid disturbingly conflicting testimonies from observers about whether they just drowned or were in fact miraculously able to cross the sea.

A third dream sequence presents the figure of a fanatic expatriate religious leader, the “Imam”, set again in a late-20th-century setting. This figure is a transparent allusion to the life of Ayatollah Khomeini in his Parisian exile, but it is also linked through various recurrent narrative motifs to the figure of the “Messenger”.

Supposedly Mohammaed had these really weird dreams or pronouncements and later it was simply suggested that he was “possessed by the devil” at the time he made them hence the term “satanic verses”.

The Satanic verses are an embassasment to Muslims so they utterly attack anyone who tries to explain them.

After all, they killed a bunch of people and rioted over some cartoons about that uneducated pedophile that they worship….

Tim Burton on June 19, 2007 at 4:52 PM

Sorry about the typo.

Break diplomatic relations over a symbolic knighthood? This gives the term “overreaction” a whole new dimension.

Isn’t it common for Muslims to over-react? After all, they killed a bunch of people and rioted over some cartoons over that uneducated pedophile that they worship….

You can call me Iya
You can call me Tolla
But don’t be an Assahola

I’m surprised I can remember back that far and up so late on a school night .

So, now, I’ll read the book.

“The 21st century began with a battle of ideas, and this battle is about the values of the West versus those of Islam. Tony Blair and the Pope should not be embarrassed in saying it, and you [the American/Western press] should stop self-censoring. Islam and liberal democracy are incompatible; cultures and religions are not equal. And perhaps most important of all, Muslims are not half-wits who can respond only in violence. The Koran is not a great book; it is reactionary and full of misogyny. The Byzantine emperor’s analysis of Muhammad was correct: he spread his faith by the sword.”

interfaith understanding

Ms. Aslam, I understand the convert-or-die aspect of Islam quite well, thank you very much.

This gives the term “overreaction” a whole new dimension.

Shoot, when one is looking for any excuse to kill, even a hangnail would do the trick.

/sarcasm off

“Choke on it, turban-boy!”