Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Muhammed's Koran and Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses: ​A Comparative Reading

Sir,

Your question on the futility of arguing with a mad man summarises the difference between a learned person and an illiterate who considers himself an authority in any religion because he is  able to speak Arabic or because he memorises Bible verses or Ifa corpus.

Ordinarily, the Qur'an addresses this question as follows:

     "The likeness of those who were made to bear the Book but would not bear it, is as THE LIKENESS OF AN ASS CARRYING A LOAD OF BOOKS..."

Qur'an 62 verse 6.

In several other places, the Qur'an emphasises that it addresses the "Ulul Albaab" ( people of logical reasoning or understanding)hence, the Prophetic clarification in the Sahib that "Laa diina li maa laa aqla lahuu (There is no religion for whoever lacks the sense of reasoning).

Islam has been so lucky that the Divinity and the universality of the Qur'an cannot be distorted nor interpolated.

What happened therefore is that overzealots have exploited the secondary sources of the Shari'ah viz the Ijma' ( consensus of opinion of Muslim jurists) and the Qiyas (Analogical deductions) to proliferate various schools of thoughts that are opposed to orthodox interpretations.

As it is happening in Christianity where many adherents see their pastors as infallible and God incarnate, it is worse in Islam. 

This is the major cause of the criminal manipulations of Islamic traditions in Nigeria  among some Southern and most especially Northern extremist  groups.

The injunctions of Islam are very clear on all issues. The circumstances of such traditions are also clear. Owing however to particularistic tendencies of sectarian groups, crimes are committed and teachings are perverted. Some of the teachings of Islam that are perverted by overzealous include but not  limited to apostasy, feminism, child upbringing, polygamy, divorce and inheritance etc.

Unfortunately, many media houses are not charitable in the reportage of religious crimes across all religions and ethnic groups. Child and women rights' abuses, sexual crimes, deprivation of inheritance rights, class discrimination, labour exploitation and slave wages etc are all contemporary issues and recurring decimals in all religions in Nigeria.

On despicable fact which is distorting the understanding of these issues is the ethnic and religious profiling of crimes and criminals.

As it were, crime has no colouration, ethnic or religious. While terrorism is rampant in the North owing to our porous borders, ritual killings in the south has reached a level of a national emergency. Unfortunately, the fixation is politically on the North while the network of kidnappers and extra judicial killings  in the south are under reported.

On Wed, Aug 17, 2022, 11:24 AM Cornelius Hamelberg <corneliushamelberg@gmail.com> wrote:

Compared with the Quran,  there's no choice other than 100% agreement with what you say about Rushdie's extended phantasmagorical nonsense

Just a short question.

By the same yardstick, regarding Sacred Texts,  what do we have to say about Dante's Divine Comedy? 

Should a fatwa carrying or recommending the death penalty be passed on him,  his publishers, distributors and readers, currently and posthumously? 

In the modern world, what is supposed to be the fate of what's perceived as satirical,  ireverential, blasphemous, anti-religious fiction, or poetry, music, drama, art, outside the jurisdiction of the thought-police and e.g. the Ayatollahs?

Must we always have to argue with a madman? 

Perhaps, whilst you are at it Sir, you could take a little time out to answer the question WHAT MAKES ISLAM SO DIFFERENT  

On Wednesday, 17 August 2022 at 01:12:33 UTC+2 drsikir...@gmail.com wrote:

In the intellectual world, a writer is a literary artist who designs ideas with words and expressions. Most at times, the writer travels far into his world of imagination. He then requires a very sophisticated audience of the caliber of this global Forum to actually discern his message.

In discerning the message, a critic could validate or invalidate the presented hypothesis.

In the above context therefore, this write up is an attempt to compare the incomparable. The Qur'an is not just a Book of Worship. It is a compendium of  Philosophy, Sociology,  Physical and abstract Sciences and Jurisprudence. Rushdie's presentation is one of the most recent attempts of certain class of sceptics to disprove the Divinity of the Qur'an. 

Without being apologetic, as a scholar of Islamic Studies, there are intrinsic qualities that characterize the revelation, recording, compilation and the standardization of the Qur'an. 

For example, Surah Al Kahf, Chpt 18 of the Qur'an opens with an emphatic declaration  as follows:

"All praise belongs to Allah Who has sent down the Book to His servant,  and has not placed therein any crookedness" 

The author of this comparison should have gone half a step further to read the opening of the 2nd chapter,  Al Baqarah,  which laid a solid foundation for the verse above.  Verse 2 of that chapter  says:

   " This is a perfect Book, there is no doubt in it, it is a guidance for the righteous. "

Pointed verses of these categories  have motivated more serious minded scholars, such as William Muir in history to carry out intensive studies of the Quranic texts in order to bring out the human elements contained in it. 

Unfortunately, their studies ended up compelling most of them to admit the Divinity of the Qur'an. Kenneth Craig even went far in his " Qur'an - A Scripture for the Arabs? 

In Salman Rushdie's  work, the objective was to discredit the  Qur'an.  The conception of the satanic verses was a satiric process.  It was not  intended as an equivalent literature hence  the comparison has no basis ab initio. 

Rather than reading it in the context of blasphemy,  the comparison is just an intellectual  exercise aimed at soliciting study materials for further research.  The satanic verses are just too vague,  derisive and  twisted. The Qur'an  is absolutely  incomparable as a work of Theosophy.  

On Tue, Aug 16, 2022, 8:11 PM Toyin Falola <toyin...@austin.utexas.edu> wrote:

Will this not pass for blasphemy?

 

From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Oluwatoyin Adepoju <ovde...@gmail.com>
Date: Tuesday, August 16, 2022 at 2:04 PM
To: usaafricadialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Muhammed's Koran and Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses: ​A Comparative Reading

                                                                                              

                                                             

 

 

                                Muhammed's Koran and Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses

 

                                                                         A Comparative Reading

 

 

 

                                        

                                                   

 

 

                                                                    Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju

                                                                              Compcros                                       

                                                     Comparative Cognitive Processes and Systems   

                                      "Exploring Every Corner of the Cosmos in Search of Knowledge"

 

     

Two authors, two books. One, Muhammed, claims divine inspiration, another, Rushdie, claims inspiration perhaps from his own creative powers. Both books are described as being in opposition.

 

This an effort to slowly read both books and learn from them in a comparative manner.

 

1. The Koran.

Surah al Fatiha. The Opening.

 

In the name of Allah, the Entirely Merciful, the Especially Merciful.

Praise be to Allah, the Cherisher and Sustainer of the Worlds.

Most Gracious, Most Merciful.

Master of the Day of Judgement.

You we worship, Your aid we seek.

Show us the Straight Way.

The Path of those on whom you have bestowed your grace

not of those who have inspired your anger

those who have gone astray.

 

 

Composite rendering from translations by Saheeh International, Abdullah Yusuf Alli, Sayyid Abdul A la Mawdudi, as trans. by Zafar Ishaq Ansari, with some modifications by myself that do not change the content.

 

This opening needs to be listened to in powerful Koranic chanting to be adequately appreciated, even if one does not understand the language in which the chanting is uttered. Superb examples can be got online, with YouTube being a primary source.

The vocal rendering dramatizes with poignant force what it means to commit oneself to belief in a transcendent reality of all pervasive force, one way of describing  the divine identity the opening salutes.

 

Travelling a long distance, parched with thirst, I came at last upon an oasis in the dry wilderness, a gleam of life in the deadly desert. Long prayer, month after month, sustained me in that cave, until the nourishing waters poured through. Voices in coming millennia will ask if I heard a divine voice or an imaginary one. The best I can do is testify.

 

So Muhammed may be imagined as testifying, using imagery of travelling in a desert, to the experience that led him to compose those opening lines which perhaps a countless number of people chant today in following his example.

Does Allah exist? Do any of the various conceptions of a creator and sustainer of the universe have any reality apart from the beliefs of those who hold those views?

 

 I don't know.

 

 How may one find out?

 

 Perhaps by following the practices of those who hold such beliefs.

 

Does that mean that one must believe to know? I doubt it.

 

2. The Satanic Verses

 

Epigraph

 

Satan, being thus confined to a vagabond, wandering, unsettled condition, is without any certain abode; for though he has, in consequence of his angelic nature, a kind of empire in the liquid waste or air, yet this is certainly part of his punishment, that he is . . . without any fixed place, or space, allowed him to rest the sole of his foot upon.

 

       Daniel Defoe, The History of the Devil

 

A description of Satan, the primary adversary of God, as described in the Bible. An angel, formerly lofty in heaven, but now homeless.

 

Does Satan exist?

 I don't know.

 Rushdie is a fiction writer, not a self-described  prophet like Muhammed, so where could be going with this?

 

The unfolding drama of his first chapter should reveal that.

''Self described'' refers to Muhammed's self description, accepted by his followers. Some claim fiction writers may also be prophets but they often do not describe themselves that way.

 

Can both descriptions have value?

 

Muhammed was certainly a prophet, because he testified to values beyond the scope of most human beings.

 

Whether or not a particular imaginative writer is also a prophet may depend on how one interprets the depth of their message.

 

The creative sensitivities of both authors are evident in those contrastive openings.

 

This is so even though the openings refer to two total opposites, the creator of the universe and his former lieutenant, now turned rebel, Satan.

 

These spiritual identities occur in the same religious universe, the Abrahamic tradition represented by Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

 

Muhammed's own Koranic lines come through his own verbal expression, though attributed to divine inspiration.

 

Those of Rushdie are a quote from another writer, but a quote dramatizing powerful imagistic resonance, potent visual force, a vivid evocation of a tragic state.

 

Clearly, we have here two masters in the art of language, vivifying for us an invisible universe, since neither the creator of the universe or Satan are known as visible entities.

 

Muhammed projects this vivification through ideational rhythm, a musical balance of ideas, between mercy and wrath, between cosmic creativity and sensitivity to the individual human petitioner, the entire sequence shot through by profound emotional force in the face of the ultimate arbiter of existence, its creator, sustainer and judge.

 

Rushdie's quote from Daniel Defoe, on the other hand, is also elevated in ideational evocation, lifting the mind to engage the material world, air and other elements, in relation to a mighty but tragic spiritual identity, a creative projection scintillating in its expansion of the mind's imaginative force, its capacity to ''see'' through thought, but the picture generated is one meant to inspire caution and repellence, not identification, as in the Koranic opening.

Two authors, separated by centuries, by very different personalities and histories, in very different parts of the world, but both engaging similar subjects from very different angles.

Where is each of them going with this?

 

 Background to this Post

 

''Everyone, Muslims and Non-Muslims, Should Read Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses'', Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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