Word: muslims
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Absolutely not. The Ayatullah is made of sterner stuff than that. The very next day the Iranian revolutionary leader, 88, issued a statement rejecting Rushdie's apology and declaring flatly, "It is incumbent on every Muslim to do everything possible to send him to hell." Three days later, in a speech to a group of Iranian clerics, Khomeini added that nothing, not even Western economic sanctions, would "force us to retreat and forgo implementation of God's decree...
After his public-school ordeals, he went to Cambridge, where he read history (with an emphasis on Islamic subjects) and developed an interest in acting. After graduating in 1968, he moved to Pakistan, where his parents had relocated. His brief stay in a Muslim state was not happy. His production of Edward Albee's The Zoo Story was censored because the play contains the word pork. Within the year, Rushdie fled back to England...
...revealed word. But the real-life author will be lucky if he enjoys the same clemency as his fictional counterpart. His literary twisting of the Koran is the central transgression for which the Ayatullah Khomeini has condemned him to death. Explains Indian- born writer Mihir Bose: "Every Muslim, whether fundamentalist or liberal, believes the Koran is literally the very word of God, preserved in heaven and transmitted by the angel Gabriel through Muhammad." The Prophet himself, although not considered divine, is revered by Muslims as the model of sinless human perfection...
Though Rushdie denies that his convoluted novel is meant to be antireligious, its profane and satirical treatment of Islam's origins is guaranteed to offend any true Muslim. Rushdie points out that his work is fictional and the two most offensive chapters merely recount the demented dreams of one of its characters. But in the eyes of believers, both historical and religious truth have come under an unprecedented assault. Their reaction is especially harsh because Rushdie was raised a Muslim. Says Professor Georges Sabagh, director of the center for Near Eastern studies at UCLA: "He's engaged in the worst...
Actually, this passage did not spring from Rushdie's imagination: similar accounts of Muhammad's temptation were recorded a millennium ago by Ibn Sa'd, al-Tabari and other authoritative Muslim historians. Today's Islamic scholars, however, do not consider the story authentic. Like the section dealing with the scribe Salman, this episode is seen by Rushdie's critics as a blatant attempt to undermine the Koran as the word...