In 1988 in Jammu and neighbouring places 'Punjab Kesri' used to be the popular choice of newspaper. The news was coming that a book by writer Salman Rushdie is creating a furore in muslim community because it has mocked the verses od Quran. The book was named as 'Shaitan ki aayatien' to which I was initially translating it as aantein (intestines) as I was only 12 years old at that time and Shaitan to me was someone naughty as I was not that familiar with the Islam theolegy then.
The book got banned in India and several other places. I also remember Ayotallah Khumeini (Iran's premier at that time) whose name sounded more like a pahadi fruit 'Khubani' (apricots) was Salman Rushdie ke khoon ka pyassa and had released a 'Fatwa' against him. The book if I remember clearly can easily be termed as most controversial of my life time, although 'Lajja' by Tasleema Nasreen can come a distant second as West haven't heard of her much. Owing to this controversy Hindustaani public also came to knew about the 'Fatwa' politics specially Syed Imam Bukhari exploited this particualr concept to affect muslim voting in India but failed most of the times.
The curiousity remained as this was the book which got discussed far more than it got read. Till I started to rethink about the book I was under the impression that it was a literary, non fiction, essay type book in which Rushdie might have criticised the verses of Quraan and termed them as Satanic Verses. I think many people think the same and pretty sure that fatwa issuing self proclaimed protectors of religion did not even go close to the book. My curiousity took me to google and serached the term and to my astonishment this was a fiction book which made no clear reference either to Islam or to prophet!
In reality 'Satanic Verses' were recorded by the Prophet and as those verses mentioned the idol worship ( reference to Lat, Iza and Mannat) of female dieties, those were later got discarded as verses by satan and not by Jibril. Hence it was not Rushdie who coined that term but the historians who mentioned it much earlier than Rushdie did.
Satanic Verses is a work of fiction. It is a story of two protagonsits, Gibreel Farishta and Slahuddin Chamcha. The two are Indian immigrants and the plot covers their travails in India and after migrating to Engalnd. Gibreel is an Indian actor who has risen from the poverty and mainly plays the part of deities in the movies. Because of his mental problems he decides to run away from the stardom and catches the flight to London. He meets Chamcha on his way to London. Chamcha comes from a rich muslim family from India and studied in Britain. He dislikes being Indian and disassosciates hinmself from being an Indian. He goes to India for an assignment an falls in love with an Indian actress himself despite of being married to an Englsih woman. Incidentally he lands on the same flight on his way back to London as of Jibreel Farishta's.
The plane gets hijacked by a pro Khalistan terrorist group and then get blown up in mid air over the English channel. Jibreel and Chamcha survives the crash. Jibreel becomes a farishta with a halo around his head and Chamcha gets metamorphosed into a goat like creature with horn on his head. They both gets safely to English coast and Chamcha gets arrested as an illegal immigrant and develops animosity againt Jibreel. They again meet in the future in India where Jibreel has again got his lost fame and when Chamcha confront s him Jibreel shoots himself.
The story of the book could have been translated in a better way than I did. But what I am trying to say here is that book is nothing what it had been portrayed of in Asia and other Muslim countries. It is a work of fiction and written in a narrative, expletives which are not easy to understand. Reading it twice or thrice might make the meaning of it much clearer. It is written in a comic tone but by no means is easy to understand.
One thing I was impressed by was the imagination of Rushdie and the way he has woven the chracters around people and things he wanted to inolve in the book like Islam, Prophet, issues of immigration, terror, cross culturalism..
Objective of this post was to clear the myth and controversies surrounding the book and I hope that I have succeded to some extent in doing it.
Comments are welcomed.
The book got banned in India and several other places. I also remember Ayotallah Khumeini (Iran's premier at that time) whose name sounded more like a pahadi fruit 'Khubani' (apricots) was Salman Rushdie ke khoon ka pyassa and had released a 'Fatwa' against him. The book if I remember clearly can easily be termed as most controversial of my life time, although 'Lajja' by Tasleema Nasreen can come a distant second as West haven't heard of her much. Owing to this controversy Hindustaani public also came to knew about the 'Fatwa' politics specially Syed Imam Bukhari exploited this particualr concept to affect muslim voting in India but failed most of the times.
The curiousity remained as this was the book which got discussed far more than it got read. Till I started to rethink about the book I was under the impression that it was a literary, non fiction, essay type book in which Rushdie might have criticised the verses of Quraan and termed them as Satanic Verses. I think many people think the same and pretty sure that fatwa issuing self proclaimed protectors of religion did not even go close to the book. My curiousity took me to google and serached the term and to my astonishment this was a fiction book which made no clear reference either to Islam or to prophet!
In reality 'Satanic Verses' were recorded by the Prophet and as those verses mentioned the idol worship ( reference to Lat, Iza and Mannat) of female dieties, those were later got discarded as verses by satan and not by Jibril. Hence it was not Rushdie who coined that term but the historians who mentioned it much earlier than Rushdie did.
Satanic Verses is a work of fiction. It is a story of two protagonsits, Gibreel Farishta and Slahuddin Chamcha. The two are Indian immigrants and the plot covers their travails in India and after migrating to Engalnd. Gibreel is an Indian actor who has risen from the poverty and mainly plays the part of deities in the movies. Because of his mental problems he decides to run away from the stardom and catches the flight to London. He meets Chamcha on his way to London. Chamcha comes from a rich muslim family from India and studied in Britain. He dislikes being Indian and disassosciates hinmself from being an Indian. He goes to India for an assignment an falls in love with an Indian actress himself despite of being married to an Englsih woman. Incidentally he lands on the same flight on his way back to London as of Jibreel Farishta's.
The plane gets hijacked by a pro Khalistan terrorist group and then get blown up in mid air over the English channel. Jibreel and Chamcha survives the crash. Jibreel becomes a farishta with a halo around his head and Chamcha gets metamorphosed into a goat like creature with horn on his head. They both gets safely to English coast and Chamcha gets arrested as an illegal immigrant and develops animosity againt Jibreel. They again meet in the future in India where Jibreel has again got his lost fame and when Chamcha confront s him Jibreel shoots himself.
The story of the book could have been translated in a better way than I did. But what I am trying to say here is that book is nothing what it had been portrayed of in Asia and other Muslim countries. It is a work of fiction and written in a narrative, expletives which are not easy to understand. Reading it twice or thrice might make the meaning of it much clearer. It is written in a comic tone but by no means is easy to understand.
One thing I was impressed by was the imagination of Rushdie and the way he has woven the chracters around people and things he wanted to inolve in the book like Islam, Prophet, issues of immigration, terror, cross culturalism..
Objective of this post was to clear the myth and controversies surrounding the book and I hope that I have succeded to some extent in doing it.
Comments are welcomed.
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