Last weekend, Salman Rushdie was honored by the Queen of England for outstanding literary achievement; the Queen had over 900 people on her Birthday Honours list which received an honorific title. Only Mr. -now Sir - Rushdie's knighthood has lead to international protests.
On the following Monday (June 18th), Pakistan's national parliament passed a resolution condemning the award. Pakistani Religious Affairs Minister Ejaz-ul-Haq went so far as to intimate that Rushdie's knighthood was justification for suicide bombings; he argued that actions like Rushdie's knighting are the root cause of terrorism. He also advocated for all Muslim countries should cut off open dialogue with Great Britain if they didn't rescind the honor. Ul-Haq later took the floor and told the parliament that his statement was not promoting or justifying suicide attacks. The British envoy in Islamabad was told that the knighting of Rushdie was contrary to attempts by Pakistan and Britain to build "mutual understanding" and it showed an "utter lack of sensitivity" by the British government.
Iran has called the knighthood "a provocative act" on the part of the Queen and the UK, and claimed the honor was evidence of "Islamophobia" within the British government.The Iranian Foreign Ministry Director for Europe, Ibrahim Rahimpour, stated that the title given to Rushdie was an "obvious example of fighting against Islam. It has seriously wounded the beliefs of 1.5 billion Muslims and followers of other religions." First Deputy Speaker Mohammad Reza Bahonar called Rushdie a "hated corpse" on the floor of the Iranian parliament. His statements were reportedly met with a loud applause. A spokesman for the Iranian Foreign Ministry called the knighthood "a blatant example of the anti-Islamism of senior British officials" and that it showed "the process of insulting Islamic sanctities was not accidental but was being supported by some Western countries."
Britain denies any anti-Islamic sentiment behind the honorific title bestowed upon Rushdie. Salman Rushdie has published over 10 different works since 1975, most of which are fiction. His second novel Midnight's Children earned him literary acclaim. His rise in the literary world occurred seven years before he published The Satanic Verses. He has published seven pieces since 1988. Rushdie isn't a one-trick pony - more on point, he isn't an Islamophobic one-hit wonder who rode his anti-Islamic message all the way to gates of Buckingham Palace.
For those readers that aren't aware of the cause of this international row, many within the Islamic world believe Rushdie to have insulted the Prophet Muhammad and his wives through dream narratives of the protagonist in The Satanic Verses. So incensed were some clerics, that Ayatollah Khomenei actually issued a fatwa condemning Rushdie to death and offering a bounty for his head - Khomenei claimed the offense was in Rushdie's depiction of Muhammad and his wives, but perhaps it was the dream narrative that was very similar to his Parisian exile. Iran refused to remove the fatwa even as recently as 2006. [A fatwa is a legal opinion, it is, therefore, not legally binging in court. It's similar to dictum in American law. It has legal significance, but is nothing more than an opinion of a judge on a certain subject. That doesn't mean of course that some wouldn't use a fatwa for justification after committing a crime. A similar decree was issued against Naguib Mahfouz which lead to a fanatical Muslim man stabbing him in the neck.] Rushdie was forced into hiding for many years. Translators and publishers linked to the text were also threatened or even killed.
I shall leave it to my readers to research the Rushdie's reference on their own if they so choose. However, the Hornbook/Cliff's Notes answer is this: it refers to a highly contested interpolation - a passage added to a text by someone other than the author - within the Qur'an. Rushdie's novel isn't even about the contested Qur'anic passages. For those that want a brief synopsis of the book: here.
Reading the novel I was expecting a depiction of the Prophet and his wives that was teetering on the far edges of bawdy. Now I am not an easily offended person, so perhaps my reaction is invalid. Nor was I raised a Muslim. However, while I am not easily offended I do have a good internal barometer of what is offensive to the general public. I didn't find the allusions to be offensive, and most certainly not to the point of a death sentence. At least with the Dutch cartoons there were images that were easily identifiable as offensive (Muhammad with a bomb in his turban) to those of the Islamic faith. Christians wouldn't like it if Jesus was portrayed flirting with alter boys in a commentary on the Catholic Church. Free speech aside, I can at least understand why the cartoons would be offensive to Muslims. (For an interesting angle on why some Muslims may be offended read Reza Aslan's article)
Regardless of the degree of offense, words and images do not justify violence. Muslims concerned with the West's depiction of their faith as one of radicals and violent young bearded men shouldn't feed the fire with violent protests of cartoons, knighthoods, or novels. Time and time again (from bin Laden to last week's diplomatic dialogue) Muslim's delicate sensibilities are invoked. Most commonly, "Muslim humiliation" is referenced. Instead of mindless protests and violence, read the text, commentary, etc. and then respond in kind with scathing rebukes or reviews of the Western or author's depiction of your faith and culture. Respect is not earned through mob mentality delinquency or by cutting off diplomatic ties with a country because they hurt your feelings. Iran, Pakistan, and other radical clerics may not speak for the Islamic faith, but they do have the loudest voices and receive the most media coverage. It's time to drown them out. The root cause of terrorism is not the knighthood of an author, but a failure to provide economically, socially, and politically for the disaffected Muslim youth. Economic progress is hard without multinational investment; which in turn is hard to secure when national policy is decided by emotion and reprisals against past "humiliations."
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