agreed losttheplot ( great name btw )......

No one here can say we are insecure muslims who cannot take criticism of islam. SR has openly, without shame disrespect our prophets, his wives and our faith as it stands.
I am sure, he was on the same pills that bush and the 51% american public was when they voted him back in.

i heard that this was a terrible book (in terms of writing) and that thanks to the histrionics, we got it onto the best seller list. most critics agree that it is one of his weaker books.

not read any of his but midnight's children really intrigues me. as well as the moor's last sigh

agree with you sky ... hes a good write but... i wouldnt recommend anyone to waste their time reading SV.

Ive been recommended that book several times, I have to read it now :P

Afaq- i would highly recommend you read 'reading lolita in tehran' ...perhaps you wll get the point of fiction vs. non fiction.

actualy, i dare you to read it.

i think salman rushdie is an extraordinary talent. I have read all of his books and found satanic versus to be the rotton apple.

My point is this.the harm done to the good name of Islam & Muslims by issuing a fatwa sentencing Salman Rushdie to death for writing The Satanic Verses is far, far worse then anything actually written in the book itself. Which I'm sure most of the people who got so worked up over the issue never even read in the first place.

Threatening to kill anyone who criticizes your beliefs maliciously or out of ignorance is hardly the solution or right way to go about it. Doing so only further fuels the negative stereotypes we all have to live with.

god help us all.

Waqas, my friend. you say

"If your faith is that weak that you feel offended by someone who dares to criticize your beliefs or make you question them then thats your problem. Personally I'm more offended by the common ideas and stupidity I find
in the majority of the muslim population."

what is wrong with you? Those things which yu put as the inability to assert somethings without breaking your faith, is called sacreligious writing, behaviour and ideas.

Now, i have a very strong faith. for that reason alone, I find his writing very offensive, and this indian born muslim, oo sigh, who thinks he can get away with this writing will face allah (swt ) one day.

And your comments are very false. THere is no relation between being offended about your religion and not having faith in that religion.

I shall give you an example.
You love your parents, Maybe your mother of father. For example purposes.

Now If anyone proclaims to have secret stories of how your parents, or anyone you love for that matter, being involved in indence acts, being called Offensive names, being pure discriminate against, You will be affected.
To what extent, i cannot say, for I do not know you. But i am using an analogy, i feel people will understand.

Now you being upset, being angry, has nothing to do with a lack of love you have for your parents? or does it? according to your logic wawas, its exactly that.

Now please exlpain to me, why you are taking our your frustration of the Ummahs condition on us? WHy are you using examples , which will be agreed on a general base to win an argument in this manner?

I believe, you are in the wrong. And i am deeply offended that my love and anger out of such writing by Salman, can be seen to be uncivilised, irrational and unexplained.

now you explain. hah.

Salam Rushdie. Wouldnt i like to be in a room with him, without any doors or windows, and a copy of his book.

I will read to him word by word, sentence by sentence. And once we are done, I will hit his head with his books, and walk out, cementing the wall behind me.

mm just finished reading it.. finally!

Have to admit I change my mind it does get pretty interesting again and he does go back and ties up all the loose ends and subplots.

I've never read any reviews or interviews by him so I'm not sure what he was thinking when he wrote this book.
If his intent was to make you question your views about religion and the beliefs you were brought up with and think "hmm.. what if?" I'd say he managed to do that pretty well. and maybe thats why he chose to use names from Islamic history for his characters... because we already have ideas and feelings towards those names and the same effect could not have been possible if he'd used any others.

I'm not at all offended by some of the things he wrote even though there were times I was like "wow ok now thats asking for alot of trouble!".

If your faith is that weak that you feel offended by someone who dares to criticize your beliefs or make you question them then thats your problem. Personally I'm more offended by the common ideas and stupidity I find
in the majority of the muslim population.

Rozaiba - :) I totally agree with you!

one of rushdie's poorest books...Rushdie should thank the Muslims for having bouts of emotional constipation and thereby making it a big money earner :D

lesee now i'm 2/3 's through lol I'm just struggling to finish it now.. I don't really care for it much, but I want to see how it ends.

There are parts of the story that start to get interesting and then he keeps going off on tangents or nothing really happens afterwards.

As far as what was all the fuss about? Well he uses a lot of names from Islamic history for his characters and even has a few fictional flashbacks to the past. So I'm sure that was enough to get most people angry.

Other then managing to get himself in a whole lot of trouble I don't see what the significance was in doing so.
Its not really clever or interesting in anyway by using those names.. the same 'story' could have been told using any names if you ask me.

All I could say is: much ado about nothing!!!

Don't be hard on yourself Rsa.. Ppl like to attribute to art/creativity/flair the abberant, i.e., whatever they can't understand sufficiently yet feel others might appreciate.. Old "Emperor Has No Clothes" syndrome..

Waqas - What are your own views? You must have read the book by now?

So are you guys all saying its a poorly written waste of time? Interesting how the Rushdie-pushers are all in awe of the style and flair, analyzing things they know jack about.

imo, it's all jabberings about his, i.e. Sally's, inner struggle with the paradoxical duality he perceives his life to be. but who knows, maybe he's just being creative.

yeah so far that's my impression too.. what exactly is the point of this book?