From grewals@acf2.NYU.EDU Sat Oct  5 00:37:18 1996
Date: Sat, 5 Oct 1996 00:23:22 -0400
From: Subir Grewal <grewals@acf2.NYU.EDU>
Reply-To: Joined Trill <hostmaster@trill-home.com>
To: Multiple recipients of list SASIALIT <SASIALIT@LISTSERV.RICE.EDU>
Subject: Re: Totally OFF the wicket (was Rushdie sight-screen-ings)

On Fri, 4 Oct 1996, Usama Khalidi wrote:

:I am not so sure. True, it's a defense of artistic freedom. But it wasn't
:just artistic whims that was at the core of L'Affair Ruchdi. It was a
:reckless disregard for the religious sentiments of millions of people.

Hmmm, I don't think people have a right to have their religious sentiments
respected.  In any case, Rushdie did nothing that was novel, nor did he
present a radically new reading of the Koran.  He was reframing old
heresies.  True, some would rather forget that there have been heretics in
the past, it's easier to place a shroud of respectability on the long dead
that way.  But there is really nothing to get bothered about when people
say such things about a Koran that was written after Muhammad's death,
whose text is probably corrupted (in an extremely literal sense) and
finally, one that is a supreme feat of visionary poetry.  As author,
Rushdie can comment on the works of another poet, its more interesting
when there is a strong relationship between the two individuals and their
work.  Though most people do agree that it is likely that the Koran we
have today contains the exact words of Muhammad (simply because of its
powerful poetic nature), we must accept that somethings may have been
lost.  Of course, not many churches are as powerful as the Roman, so they
must rely on the priority of ancient texts for their diktats, but then
getting into the veracity of the NT is probably not a good idea anyway.

So, we're dealing with one powerful poem that was finally written down 12
- 22 years after the death of its author.  A poem that was composed over
many years, that was compiled from various sources who are said to have
memorized it (and it is easy to see why).  Then we try to find out more
about the life of its author.  What we find are two lost biographies
written over 100 years after the death of the subject.  What we have are
fragments preserved in other biographies written about 150-200 years after
the subject's death and the slightly irksome habit of the biographers to
quote few (if any) sources.  The texts themselves (both of the Koran and
the Sira[s]) have seen errors in transcription over the centuries.

We can't say that there was no such figure as Muhammed (it's difficult to
maintain that about Jesus as well), but we know painfully little about
him.  We know little about his poetic influences, we know little about how
he developed his philosophy, we know even less about his visions and what
can you say about the psychology of a poet who turns over the entire act
of creation to a (male) muse acting on behalf of an (androgynous?)
godhead.  And to top it all off, the poet claims the status of a medium.
Plus he remains the most successful poet-king in history, well maybe an
argument could be made about David, but the authorship of the OT is
problematic, to say the least. There is no doubt this is a formidable
figure, and his is a formidable poem.  Was he an aspect of something
divine, who knows?  Was he influenced by the dark side?  I tend to think
every poet is in some manner.

What we can perhaps say with certainty is that the dogmatic life of
Muhammed, though accurate in parts, is to be taken with a grain of salt.
There is no "truth" we can glean about the life and visions of a poet who
died (thank God I can say that) 1,364 years ago.  So what is Rushdie's
heresy?  That he hurt the sentiments of "many"?  Frankly, who the hell
cares.  Artistic freedom is absolute, and strong authors know that
intiutively.  And Rushdie does not even claim anything but fictional
status for the book.  Who cares why he did it?  I think the Divine Comedy
is a very anti-Christian, certainly anti-church poem.  Maybe Dante wrote
it because he hated a church that bred such bishops with a vengeance.
Maybe Donne sold out to the protestant church, stifled his religion.
Maybe Paradise Lost is the cry of a blind man who has been cast from the
realm of light.  Maybe God is dead.

In the end, the poem stands alone.

:Back to TLSM, I have often wondered how could Rushdie have amassed so much
:detail about life in Bombay when he hardly spent many adult years there. Did
:he do all that research himself or hired some one to do it for him? Idle
:questions, I guess, but intriguing, nonetheless.

I think some of Rushdie's distinctive vision of Bombay comes from being
away.  Getting everything through newspaper reports, maybe letters,
influences the manner in which we re-member something.  The
disjointedness of Rushdie's work suggests something like a building out
of scraps, and one of his themes is of course forgetting.

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