VALENTINE’S Day is usually an occasion to write mellifluous letters of love. But 20 years ago, a letter penned that day was so vile in its content and so bilious in temperament that, almost like some talisman out of magic realist literature, it tore apart relations between communities and changed the course of history in its wake.
That letter was the fatwa issued by Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini calling for the head of Salman Rushdie, a little less than five months after the publication of ‘The Satanic Verses’. And yes, it was that succinct four-paragraph letter – and not the literary tome itself – that stirred up the maelstrom which continues to (mis)shape life and death for many across the world.
This is one of the central thrusts of scientist, writer and broadcaster Kenan Malik’s scalpel-sharp ‘From Fatwa To Jihad: The Rushdie Affair And Its Legacy’. The book documents how the fatwa became a clarion call for a motley mass of radical Muslims – until then divided not just by geography but also by their understanding of Islam and radicalism – to meld into what is now seen as a jihadist force threatening the global order. Malik also rises above the ambit of political history to assess the subtler effects of the fatwa, on Muslims and on the Enlightened Western civilisation itself.
http://newageislam.com/from-fatwa-to-jihad-by-kenan-malik/books-and-documents/d/1545
No comments:
Post a Comment