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The Unknown Satanic
Verses Controversy on
Race and Religion
Politics, Literature, and Film
Series Editor: Lee Trepanier, Saginaw Valley State University
The Politics, Literature Film series is an interdisciplinary examination of the intersection of politics with literature and/or film. The series is receptive to works that use a variety of methodological approaches, focus on any period from antiquity to the present, and situate their analysis in national, comparative, or global contexts. Politics, Literature, & Film seeks to be truly interdisciplinary by including authors from all the social sciences and humanities, such as political science, sociology, psychology, literature, philosophy, history, religious studies, and law. The series is open to both American and non-American literature and film. By putting forth bold and innovative ideas that appeal to a broad range of interests, the series aims to enrich our conversations about literature, film, and their relationship to politics.
Advisory Board
Richard Avaramenko, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Linda Beail, Point Loma Nazarene University
Claudia Franziska Brühwiler, University of St. Gallen
Timothy Burns, Baylor University
Paul A. Cantor, University of Virginia
Joshua Foa Dienstag, University of California at Los Angeles
Lilly Goren, Carroll University
Natalie Taylor, Skidmore College
Ann Ward, University of Regina
Catherine Heldt Zuckert, University of Notre Dame
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Age of Anxiety: Meaning, Identity, and Politics, in 21st Century Film and Literature by Anthony M. Wachs and Jon D. Schaff
Science Fiction and Political Philosophy: From Bacon to Black Mirror edited by Steven Michel and Timothy McCranor
Theology and Geometry: Essays on John Kennedy Toole’s A Confederacy of Dunces edited by Leslie Marsh
The Unknown Satanic Verses Controversy on Race and Religion by Üner Daglier
The Unknown Satanic
Verses Controversy on
Race and Religion
By Üner Daglier
LEXINGTON BOOKS
Lanham • Boulder • New York • London
Published by Lexington Books
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Available
ISBN 978-1-7936-0003-5 (cloth: alk. paper)
ISBN 978-1-7936-0004-2 (electronic)
Contents
Part III Elloween Deeowen
Part IV Ayesha
Part V A City Visible but Unseen
Part VI Return to Jahilia
Part VII The Angel Azraeel
Part VIII The Parting of the Arabian Sea
Part IX A Wonderful Lamp
Conclusion
References
Index
About the Author
This monograph could not have been possible without a postdoctoral fellowship at The University of Hong Kong and the rich resources of the Hong Kong University libraries. And I am grateful to the Lexington Books Politics, Literature & Film series editor, the purchasing editor, and editorial assistants for their help and guidance throughout the publication process. (I do not want to list names given sensitivities surrounding the subject matter of my manuscript.) Last but not least, I thank my parents for their kind support.
The Satanic Verses was a novel about blasphemy in the widest sense. It tackled both supernatural and worldly dogmatism. Although its critique of supernatural dogmatism centered on Islam, other religious movements or traditions, including American Christianity, Hinduism, and Sikhism, got some critical attention. As for secular blasphemy or worldly religion, the novel’s focal point was white racism as epitomized by its English variant. Hence there was parity between Salman Rushdie’s critique of Eastern and Western civilizations.1 In terms of sheer physical length, Islamic criticism constituted a relatively minor portion of The Satanic Verses, but it was the most poignant. And its stylistic—if not essential—sense of gravity overshadowed and framed a separate layer of inherent lewdness or profanity. In contrast, the novel’s major portion, devoted to migrant woes and racism in England, as mainly articulated through nonwhite and non-Christian perspectives, was arguably less significant in its dramatic impact and value. To say the least, Rushdie’s arduous attempt to bind the novel’s twin concerns, religion and race, or disparate species of dogmatisms, within the compass of this latter portion exacerbated its alleged artistic failure.2
Yet irrespective of its artistic qualities, The Satanic Verses has been widely hailed for its religiopolitical potentialities.3 Its first publication in 1988 has time and again been compared to Martin Luther’s nailing of his Ninety-five Theses on the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg or the symbolic beginning of the Protestant Reformation in 1517.4 Indeed dissident poet Baal’s posting of his amorous verses for twelve prostitutes on the outer walls of their prison, each one of them exactly nicknamed for a real wife of prophet Mahound in the novel, has served as a concrete basis