Satanic Verses Redux

Asra Q. Nomani, author of "Standing Alone: An American Woman's Struggle for the Soul of Islam", writes for this morning's Wall Street Journal about journalist Sherry Jones, who put in alot of work writing "The Jewel of Medina"--a 'racy' historical novel about Aisha, the young wife of the prophet Muhammad. However, back in May, Random House called off publication of the book.

Random House feared the book would become a new "Satanic Verses," the Salman Rushdie novel of 1988 that led to death threats, riots and the murder of the book's Japanese translator, among other horrors. In an interview about Ms. Jones's novel, Thomas Perry, deputy publisher at Random House Publishing Group, said that it "disturbs us that we feel we cannot publish it right now." He said that after sending out advance copies of the novel, the company received "from credible and unrelated sources, cautionary advice not only that the publication of this book might be offensive to some in the Muslim community, but also that it could incite acts of violence by a small, radical segment."

The odd thing about this is that the person who got the ball rolling on creating a Muslim furor over the book was not even a Muslim:

This time, the instigator of the trouble wasn't a radical Muslim cleric, but an American academic. In April, looking for endorsements, Random House sent galleys to writers and scholars, including Denise Spellberg, an associate professor of Islamic history at the University of Texas in Austin. Ms. Jones put her on the list because she read Ms. Spellberg's book, "Politics, Gender, and the Islamic Past: The Legacy of 'A'isha Bint Abi Bakr."

But Ms. Spellberg wasn't a fan of Ms. Jones's book. On April 30, Shahed Amanullah, a guest lecturer in Ms. Spellberg's classes and the editor of a popular Muslim Web site, got a frantic call from her. "She was upset," Mr. Amanullah recalls. He says Ms. Spellberg told him the novel "made fun of Muslims and their history," and asked him to warn Muslims.

In an interview, Ms. Spellberg told me the novel is a "very ugly, stupid piece of work." The novel, for example, includes a scene on the night when Muhammad consummated his marriage with Aisha: "the pain of consummation soon melted away. Muhammad was so gentle. I hardly felt the scorpion's sting. To be in his arms, skin to skin, was the bliss I had longed for all my life." Says Ms. Spellberg: "I walked through a metal detector to see 'Last Temptation of Christ,'" the controversial 1980s film adaptation of a novel that depicted a relationship between Jesus and Mary Magdalene. "I don't have a problem with historical fiction. I do have a problem with the deliberate misinterpretation of history. You can't play with a sacred history and turn it into soft core pornography."

Read the whole thing.

Spellberg did not hesitate to initiate controversy where none existed, but did not shy away from a controversial movie. In defense of her actions, Spellberg claimed:

I don't have a problem with historical fiction. I do have a problem with the deliberate misinterpretation of history.

Apparently Spellberg was not concerned about the historical innaccuracies and manipulation of Gibson's movie.

So a plan was put in place--by people who had not seen the book--to see to it that the book was not published. They were successful.

Note: As pointed out in the comments, I confused Gibson's Last Temptation with The Passion. I still think my overall point holds that Spellberg seems somewhat selective on the acceptable levels of controversy.

Technorati Tag: Free Speech.