Replies

From what I understand, cymbeline, it wasn’t the sexual passages that offended Muslims. If they were, there would be a fatwa on nearly every modern novelist on the planet.

It was the fact that he revealed some very unpleasant and contradictory verses that appear in the Koran.

These verses are so embarrassing to Islam that the claim is that Satan somehow snuck them into the text.

THOSE are “The Satanic Verses”. The offense was in getting the rest of the world “in on” it. Most translations redact these verses because they are embarrassing.

The pornographic nature of the verses is not nearly as offensive as the fact that the West found out about them.

There are atheist authors who try to debunk our own Bible by pointing out some incidents (especially in the Book of Judges) that are embarrassing to Christians. We, however, do not put deadly fatwas on such people. We struggle with the passages, and later see as we continue reading, that the Bible is a holistic matrix of different authors, with different personalities, written at different times in history. But ALL of it holds together because it is inspired by the Holy Spirit. We understand the embarrassing stories because they depict the depravity of humans in need of a Savior.

The Koran is not like that. The first half was written in Mecca, where Muslims were a minority. It emphasizes living in peace with one’s neighbors. The Second part, written in Medina, was composed when Islam was “on the March” to conquer territory. The more recent Medina verses, if in contradiction to previous passages, are said to “subrogate” the earlier words. In other words, the later warlike verses replace the earlier, peaceful ones.

Rushdie is worse, to the Muslim mind, than an infidel. He is seen as an apostate and a traitor, because he has pulled back the veil.

Somebody had to do it eventually. In our modern world, with instant translation and electronic publishing it was bound to come out. Rushdie just happeneed to be the first.