As this whole Jewel of Medina scandal continues to spiral into the abyss, and granted, yes, I contributed to the abyss with Professopatra as well as on the Smart Bitches, Trashy Novels blog, some issues need to be addressed for the general sake of understanding. Obviously I have not been able to control impulse to blog about this again and like chocolate, I will probably not be able to tear myself away from it until it is well and truly gone from my life.
1. Academics, as a general rule, do not have basic social skills. They are also very territorial and defensive of their subjects. We treat our pet projects as, quite literally, pets. We walk them, feed them, and clean-up their poop. When something threatens our pets or infringes on the space we keep sacred in the academy, whether that be some garbage book about A’isha or a beauty school in Kabul, we get a little agitated. That agitation does not always translate well as we have seen with Dr Spellberg’s comments on The Jewel of Medina.
I certainly appreciate Spellberg’s comments as I have had similar thoughts about The Kabul Beauty School. It is painful to watch yet another spectacular bastardisation of a culture unravel in front of you and watch hoards of women, like the Filene’s Basement bridal sale, flock to bookstores to read the stuff. Unfortunately, sometimes we start fires that we are either trying to prevent from ever getting going or dump kerosene on the ones already going.
2. The issue at stake here with The Jewel of Medina is that for Muslims, creating any sort of graven image whether it be written or painted or drawn of the Prophet Muhammad or his kin, is contextualised as blasphemy. The Qur’an says, “6:103: No visions can encompass Him, but He encompasses all visions.” This verse has wide implications, not only in reference to Allah (G*d) but also to those who He called as Prophets and companions. Although images of the Prophet Muhammad and his companions, although face-veiled or clouded by a burst of flames, appear in some Shi’a art, it is generally understood to be haram.
The Jewel of Medina is not art, it is considered by those who have read it or read the Prologue to be a bodice ripper, described by Asra Nomani as “racy” and others as well, to put it politely: vulgar. This, compounded with the literary interpretation of the Prophet Muhammad’s favourite wife, A’isha, the Umm al-Muminin (Mother of the Believers) is enough for the book to be considered a blaspheme. Had this book been written about Hurrem Sultan or Noorjehan, it would be evaluated on a different set of criteria and met with probably a lesser-degree of outrage, because it is expected that those women, although incredibly religious and politically dynamic like A’isha, are part of the popular “harem culture” and thus their presence in bodice rippers and historical romances is completely acceptable. After all, Hurrem Sultan supposedly seduced her way to being the first Sultana of the Ottoman Empire! Sod everything else she did as a patron of the arts or her political savvy. She was like the Anne Boleyn of the Ottoman Empire, thus she’s fair game, right? RIGHT
3. To equate this whole fiasco with “The Rushdie Affair” is to give far too much credit to the novel itself. Salman Rushdie’s text was written by a man already known to be controversial and, at its very base level, was a novel titled with the name of the most controversial verses in the Qur’an: The Satanic Verses and at its most complex, issued a direct challenge, in the form of blasphemy, to the Muslim religious establishment. The fact that Rushdie was self-exiled from Iran and Ayatollah Khomeini was in full-swing whetting his appetite for the blood of intellectuals, obviously there was going to be an incredible amount of controversy surrounding the text. Yes, “The Rushdie Affair” still stings and many authors are still (self) conscious of the literature that they produce.
I would stop however, at drawing parallels between the publication of this novel and “The Rushdie Affair.” Rather, I would draw parallels between the publication of this book and the release of The Message in 1977. At the time of the movie’s release, there were high security alerts at theatres because there was also a fear of how the film would be received given that it did portray the Prophet Muhammad, however obscurely, and many of the early community, in the film. So thirty years later, the same issues exist: do we see a common theme here? Yes, we do and it has absolutely NOTHING to do with 9/11, radical Islam, or Ayatollah Khomeini. What’s this though? It has everything to do with an integral part of the basic belief system of Muslims.
Muslims did not just decide in the last five years to ban these things, they were banned 1400 years ago!
4. We are a society that has been given such books as The DaVinci Code and The Red Tent, books that have been received with great praise, fanfare, and filled the coffers of publishing houses and the authors pockets. We feel, in the “West”, that we are not only entitled to publish everything we want to publish, no matter how controversial and vulgar it may be, but that everyone else be damned if there is controversy surrounding the publication. The other Abrahamic faiths have become sort of complacent to the idea of integrating history and literature together, although to my knowledge (which is not great in this matter since I alternate between David Sedaris, Anne Boleyn, and whatever garbage I have to read for school), we have not yet had something quite so vivid as this text on A’isha. I almost keeled over watching The Nativity and the Virgin Mary giving birth to Jesus, I mean, I get that it is the whole point of the story, but really, I could do without the imagery of the Blessed Virgin giving birth to the Son of G*d, thanks. Further, what would happen if someone wrote a bodice ripper about the moment when G*d impregnated the Virgin Mary? Can you imagine? Even my head would explode over that, if it has not already gotten there from teaching America’s youth. Sometimes it is just an issue of tastefulness, other times it is a real issue of faith. Sometimes we straddle that fine line between both issues and the waters get quite murky, but when we transfer elements of those beliefs that we hold so passionately and walk others’ shoes, we have a better understanding, a better perspective on our actions.
The book should be published, but at the same time I mourn the loss of the divide between the sacred and the profane, a divide that is becoming more and more obscured by sensationalism and a general epidemic of creative entitlement. The most I naively hope for from this mess is that A’isha’s legacy will be explored and understood more deeply as a result of intellectual curiosity stemming from this text and that people will eventually understand and appreciate A’isha for the incredible, savvy woman that she was, instead of the so-called child bride of a Prophet involved in an adultery scandal. Let us find a way as women to honour her in the realm of the sacred, together with all of our beloved matriarchs.
