Author: Anirudh Bhattacharyya
Publication: MoneyControl.com
Date: October 17, 2006
URL: http://news.moneycontrol.com/india/newsarticle/stocksnews.php?autono=245914
Salman Rushdie has recently been in the news
for donating his papers to Emory University, where he will also teach for
four weeks every year. But as he prepares to enter the world of academia,
plans his next novel and a possible autobiography, he is also engaged with
the issue of militant Islam. And he was blunt on this topic while speaking
before a large audience in Manhattan recently, and in an exclusive interview,
arguing for a deeper look at the religion and its foundation, the Koran.
At an event organized by the Center for Inquiry
in New York, author Salman Rushdie spoke for nearly 45 minutes, and frankly
at that, on the ongoing debate in America and Western Europe over Islam and
terrorism. Rushdie called for a reform movement in Islam including a re-interpretation
of the Koran to take it away from the 'literalists'.
Author Salman Rushdie told SAW, "Nobody
who reads the text neutrally can circumvent the conclusion that it's a bit
of a mess. When people like me argue that there's a need for a reform movement
inside Islam, it's not just to say. 'No, we don't want terrorists', it's to
say in order to unshackle this philosophy from the literalists, literalist
chains, we have to create a world in which people can question the first principles,
you have to create a world in which people can rethink the core of the text.
And until that happens, you will have a paralysed culture."
Rushdie felt the Koran should be viewed in
its historical context - not simply as the uncreated word of God. In an exclusive
interview after his speech, the writer, who lived under a fatwa following
the publication of his earlier book 'The Satanic Verses', went one step ahead
of former British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, declaring that the veil oppresses
Muslim women.
Salman says, "I just come from a tradition
in the Muslim world of the subcontinent, which rejected the veil completely.
If you had asked my grandmother to wear a veil, she would probably have hit
you. There's no woman I know in India or Pakistan, in my entire acquaintance,
who would have been willing to wear a veil. So my view of the veil is it's
an antiquated thing, which oppresses women. And it seems to be perfectly proper
to say so."
That, of course, wasn't all for the outspoken
author. He also said that Pope Benedict XVI need not have apologized for the
references to Prophet Mohammed in his speech, which had offended Muslims.
Rushdie argued that 'frank' discussion was necessary even if that proved 'upsetting'
at times.
Years of living under a fatwa have clearly
not mellowed Salman Rushdie as he jumps into the debate raging in the West,
over the linkages between Islam and extremism.
