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since Wed, 26 Dec 2007 20:04:17.
by Joachim Martillo (ThorsProvoni@aol.com)
Another Salvo in the Ongoing Zionist Attack on Middle East Studies at Columbia?
Muslims excoriate the explicit pictorial depiction of the Prophet.
Muslims would almost certainly find profanation and an attack or incitement against Islam and all Muslims in a novelization of the life of `A'isha (alayha-s-salam) if the story included a rather explicit description of the consummation of her marriage with Muhammad, for such a novel would reasonably be perceived as part of an orientalist attempt either
- to deny that Islam is a "genuine" religion or
- to imply that Islam is alien to "American" Judeo-Christianity.
In April, looking for endorsements, Random House sent galleys [of Sherry Jones's book entitled The Jewel of Medina] 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."
Already the blogosphere is calling for harassment of Spellberg.
The issue is not free expression. We do not have free expression in the USA.
How many Palestinian sympathetic Hollywood films have been produced? (Planet of the Zionist Apes)Pluto Press lost its distribution through the University of Michigan because of Joel Kovel's Overcoming Zionism. (Summary: Pluto Press, Kovel)
A book pointing out that the Holocaust of Zionist mythology has only the most tenuous factual connection to real history of the mass murders of Jews during WW2 would have extreme difficulty in finding a publisher, and the usual culprits would defame the author mercilessly. (See Bringing Holocaust Religion to Arabs, The Pattern of Ethnic Ashkenazi Genocidalism: The Jewish Century by Yuri Slezkine, and Holoexaleipsis, Holocaust, Holosphage and Holodomor .)
While far too many Jews (including Elie Wiesel) reject attempts to understand the Holocaust rationally, I have discussed my ideas about Muhammad and early Islam in many Muslim forums (Islamic Marcionism in Malaysia). Yet, I have never had a problem because no one perceives me as denigrating either Islam or Muslims.
Please write University of Texas President William Powers, Jr. at president@po.utexas.edu to express support for Dr. Spellberg for stating the obvious, for her decency and for her common sense!
If you cc me, I will post a selection on this blog. Note that the call to harass Dr. Spellberg may be part of the ongoing Zionist attack on Middle East studies at Columbia University, from which Dr. Spellberg received her PhD.
Sphere: Related Content
10 comments:
Here's a comment that I saw at Solomonia.
I actually had Dr. Spellberg for a class at UT. I thought she was a great professor, and an extremely intelligent woman. We didn't agree on everything, but she was extremely fair and open to different perspectives. The fact that she trashed this book probably indicates that it was just that - trashy. When you submit your book to someone and ask for criticism, you should expect criticism - especially when you ask a history professor, an expert in the field. I read historical romance ebooks all the time (guilty pleasure), but I would never, ever ask one of my history professors for a review of them. Random House pulling this book has, I believe, less to do with Professor Spellberg's critique and more to do with fear of a backlash. As a business, they are well within their rights to do so. And the fact that this book has generated so much buzz before even becoming available is great for Sherry Jones - someone will snap this book up immediately, and everyone will want a copy. It's a win-win.
"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."
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121797979078815073.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
It is one thing to dislike the book and be concerned about the consequences of publication. It is quite another for the professor to actually STIR the pot!
Some more discussion of this topic is available at altmuslim.
Contrasting Muslim reactions to the publication of this type a work with Jewish reactions to novelizations of Jewish religious stories is a sort of apples and oranges issue because E. Europeans so deeply lost religious faith in the 19th century.
But Jews react very strongly to any book which diverges from the Jewishly accepted Holocaust narrative, that highlights Israel's failings like Carter's recent book, or that suggests E. European ethnic Ashkenazim are not descended from the ancient population of Greco-Roman Palestine.
I tend to view modern Jewish religion not as focused on God but as composed in more or less equal measure of Holocaust obsession, worship of the State of Israel, and ethnic narcissism.
It is not my observation. Jeremy Milgrom of Rabbis for Human Rights made this point to me when I met him while I was doing some business in the Palestinian Occupied Territories.
BTW, both Joel Kovel and Norman Finkelstein have run into serious and very damaging Jewish censorship efforts as has Tony Judt as well as Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer.
Ok, I'm Muslim and I work in the media. I read the prologue of the novel, which was sent to us by the publisher... Look, to tell the truth, I personally could care less about the sex scenes (none of which appear in the prologue), but what really got my goat was that the prologue was full of historical mistakes and misconceptions about Islam. Nothing new there, but when the jacket of the book said that it was "extensively researched", that got me thinking: what are they trying to prove? That the events are more or less accurate (they are not - ask anyone who has read any biography of the Prophet)? That the writer is being "sympathetic" to the amazing Lady Aishah (does misrepresenting her the way to "sympathize")? There are countless numbers of books that trash Islam, trash Prophet Muhammad, and trash Muslims and Arabs in general way before the Satanic Verses, but I think that what's been happening in the increasingly irresponsible media is highlighting these books/cartoons/films, thereby provoking Muslims needlessly. Before the Satanic Verses, Muslims didn't give two hoots about the way they were portrayed and were more concerned about more immediate issues (Palestine, for one). Now, Muslims are more concerned about cartoons than they are about the issues that are still issues (Palestine, for one)... all in a day's work for the media.
Dr. Spellberg's reply to Asra Nomani's column can now be read in the WSJ.
Sherry Jones discusses the controversy at her Author!Author! blog.
I'd like to formally protest the Quran since it contains so many errors regarding Christianity (Mary part of the 'Trinity'), and Judaism (Ezra deified as son of God).
Now if I can just figure out who the publisher is......
How do you know that a novel about A'isha's life would be seen by all Muslims as an "incitement against all Muslims"? No large body of people react uniformly to anything - why do you think a billion Muslims do? Is this something you believe, rather than a fact? You also do not explain how an explicit description of the consummation of her marriage with Muhammad denies that Islam is a "genuine" religion or alien to "American" Judeo-Christianity' (this seems very ethnocentric in itself - there's a big world out there beyond what you call America).
One final question, which I can never get an answer for from religious people: why should religious beliefs be regarded as any more genuine or deserving of respect than non-religious beliefs?
While I should probably have written "a very large number" instead of "Muslims" without qualification, Jewel of Medina fits into the category of inflammatory Islamophobic literature that focuses on Muslim sexuality even if to write such a thing was not Sherry Jones intent. (There is also a similar category of inflammatory Judeophobic literature, but unlike the Islamophobic stuff, the Judeophobic material material never makes it into the movies.)
The comparison of media treatment of religious and non-religious beliefs is a red herring.
Those that condemn censorship relating to Islam are simply (often Jewish) hypocrites unless they take a strong stand against Jewish-Zionist censorship as Alison Weir has described here and as I mention here (search for Zentralverein).
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