Why Believers Are Outraged

By Richard N. Ostling

There is a character in The Satanic Verses, a scribe named Salman, who commits an unthinkable sin. His job is to write down the revelations of God as recited by Mahound, Rushdie's fictional prophet. But the mischievous scribe repeatedly changes Mahound's words. When the prophet finally realizes that Salman has corrupted the text of his holy book, he explodes, "Your blasphemy can't be forgiven." The proper punishment for Salman's crime is death, but Mahound is merciful and spares his life.

Rushdie, whose first name is also Salman, seems to share the character's skepticism about the authenticity of God's revealed word. But the real-life author will be lucky if he enjoys the same clemency as his fictional counterpart. His literary twisting of the Koran is the central transgression for which the Ayatullah Khomeini has condemned him to death. Explains Indian- born writer Mihir Bose: "Every Muslim, whether fundamentalist or liberal, believes the Koran is literally the very word of God, preserved in heaven and transmitted by the angel Gabriel through Muhammad." The Prophet himself, although not considered divine, is revered by Muslims as the model of sinless human perfection.

Though Rushdie denies that his convoluted novel is meant to be antireligious, its profane and satirical treatment of Islam's origins is guaranteed to offend any true Muslim. Rushdie points out that his work is fictional and the two most offensive chapters merely recount the demented dreams of one of its characters. But in the eyes of believers, both historical and religious truth have come under an unprecedented assault. Their reaction is especially harsh because Rushdie was raised a Muslim. Says Professor Georges Sabagh, director of the center for Near Eastern studies at UCLA: "He's engaged in the worst kind of blasphemy. He's a renegade, an apostate."

One of Rushdie's most bitterly disputed passages deals with the famous Satanic verses from which the novel takes its title. Here Mahound is tempted by Gibreel (obviously a reference to the angel Gabriel) to cut a deal with the enemies of his embryonic faith and tolerate worship of three of their goddesses alongside the one God. Gibreel later tells Mahound that the idea came from Satan, and the prophet orders acceptance of the rival deities to be stricken from his holy text.

Actually, this passage did not spring from Rushdie's imagination: similar accounts of Muhammad's temptation were recorded a millennium ago by Ibn Sa'd, al-Tabari and other authoritative Muslim historians. Today's Islamic scholars, however, do not consider the story authentic. Like the section dealing with the scribe Salman, this episode is seen by Rushdie's critics as a blatant attempt to undermine the Koran as the word of God.

What makes the story of the goddesses particularly offensive to Muslims is the fact that it was a standard argument hurled against Islam by 19th century Christian missionaries. Similarly, the name that Rushdie gives his prophet, Mahound, is one that Christians mockingly used in their medieval religious plays for a satanic version of Muhammad. (Rushdie's character explains that he has purposely adopted the name "to turn insults into strengths.") Some Muslims were similarly upset that Rushdie gave the holy city of Mecca the name Jahilia, meaning darkness, but the author seems to use the word to signify the spiritual ignorance that reigned there before the Koran was revealed to Muhammad. Believers are also angry because Rushdie ridicules various rules of daily life that the faith in fact never taught.

The most sensational episode of Satanic Verses takes place in a brothel and bestows on prostitutes the names of Muhammad's wives. This is outrageous to Muslims, since they revere the Prophet's spouses as the "mothers of all believers." Contrary to many press reports on the book, Rushdie does not present Mahound's wives as fallen women. Rather, the prostitutes borrow the names and then gradually take on the identities of the wives to mock Mahound. Nonetheless, Hasan Abdul-Hakim, a British Muslim convert, likens this episode to "presenting the Virgin Mary as a whore." Nor did Rushdie endear himself to Islamic readers by naming his brothel Hijab, the Arab term referring to the modest veiling of Muslim women.

Defenders of the book point out that, as in the brothel scene, scurrilous material is often not Rushdie's own characterization of Muhammad and his followers. Instead, it is the calumny of the idolaters whom the prophet was seeking to overthrow. The pagans, for example, call the prophet's companions "scum" and Ibrahim (Abraham) a "bastard."

Even if Muhammad had been portrayed with more respect, explains Amir Taheri, a Paris-based Iranian journalist, the mere fact of making him a fictional character would strike Muslims as a transgression against hodud -- the limits of propriety. "Islam does not recognize unlimited freedom of expression," says Taheri. "Most Muslims are prepared to be broad-minded about most things but never about anything that even remotely touches on their faith." In ignoring that fact, Rushdie has made himself the bane of Islamic society -- and the target of Khomeini's death squads.

With reporting by Amany Radwan/Cairo and Peter Shaw/London