Author: Ophelia Benson

From the Dakar Declaration of the 2008 OIC summit.

Our faith in such a strategic option for the quest for peace in that part of the world [Basra? No. Kashmir? No. Darfur? No.]…illustrates our strict adherence to the values of Islam, a religion of peace that forbids all forms of exclusivity and extremism and that warrants the following quotation “You have been made a Prophet only to restore peace in the world”, which is based on a verse from the Holy Quran.

From the report on Saudi textbooks.

A Muslim is forbidden to love and aid the unbelieving enemies of God…They are the people of the Sabbath, whose young people God turned into apes, and whose old people God turned into swine to punish them…Narrated by Abu Hurayrah: The Prophet said, The hour [of judgment] will not come until the Muslims fight the Jews and kill them. [It will not come] until the Jew hides behind rocks and trees. [It will not come] until the rocks or the trees say, ‘O Muslim! O servant of God! There is a Jew behind me. Come and kill him.’ Except for the gharqad, which is a tree of the Jews.”

A religion of peace that forbids all forms of exclusivity! As we see every day. You bet.

And another thing. Thomas Perry of Random House said, we are told, that Random House received ‘cautionary advice’ that the publication of the Aisha novel ‘might be offensive to some in the Muslim community’ – he said this in partial explanation of Random House’s decision not to publish it. But that’s imbecilic. It’s beyond imbecilic – it’s deranged – it’s surreal – it’s self-nullifying. It is not possible to write anything that ‘might’ not be offensive to ‘some’ in the X ‘community.’ In fact it’s all but certain that anything anyone writes will be offensive to ‘some’ in some ‘community.’ The condition of writing and publication is not and cannot be and must not be not being potentially offensive to ‘some’ – because that condition would rule out everything. Every single thing. There would be nothing left. Life would be a desert. The only alternative to the risk of offending ‘some’ is complete nullity. That’s too high a price to pay. If we want to be able to think and talk and write at all – and we do – we have to take the risk of offending ‘some.’

This one is so disgusting my teeth are chattering with rage – not quite literally, but it’s close. I feel as if my teeth were chattering with rage. What? A historian named Denise Spellberg was sent a novel about Aisha, the little girl Mo married when she was nine years old, and Spellberg decided she needed to get busy warning and threatening and silencing. And it worked.

Thomas Perry, deputy publisher at Random House Publishing Group, said that it “disturbs us that we feel we cannot publish it right now.” He said that after sending out advance copies of the novel, the company received “from credible and unrelated sources, cautionary advice not only that the publication of this book might be offensive to some in the Muslim community, but also that it could incite acts of violence by a small, radical segment.”

Especially if conscientious determined people worked hard enough to get the incitement of violence started, which it looks as though they would have. We have seen this before. (And then been told the ensuing riots were the fault of the people who had the temerity to draw the cartoons, rather than the fault of the people who put in a lot of effort to get people worked up. I hope we never have to hear that kind of thing again.) (The reporter is a Muslim, by the way, and she is upset by this revolting mess.)

This time, the instigator of the trouble wasn’t a radical Muslim cleric, but an American academic. In April, looking for endorsements, Random House sent galleys to writers and scholars, including Denise Spellberg, an associate professor of Islamic history at the University of Texas in Austin. Ms. Jones put her on the list because she read Ms. Spellberg’s book, “Politics, Gender, and the Islamic Past: The Legacy of ‘A’isha Bint Abi Bakr.” But Ms. Spellberg wasn’t a fan of Ms. Jones’s book. On April 30, Shahed Amanullah, a guest lecturer in Ms. Spellberg’s classes and the editor of a popular Muslim Web site, got a frantic call from her. “She was upset,” Mr. Amanullah recalls. He says Ms. Spellberg told him the novel “made fun of Muslims and their history,” and asked him to warn Muslims.

To warn them? To warn them of what? A threat on their lives? An approaching hurricane? A tsunami? The melting Arctic? Hungry polar bears? Homeland Security? No, of course not. To warn them of a book – a novel – a novel that Spellberg didn’t like. Knowing the impressive history that ‘warned’ Muslims have of respecting the freedom of the press and the value of open discussion and debate, Spellberg asked her friend to ‘warn Muslims’ about a novel. This makes me very, very, very angry. This causes me to have dark thoughts about wishing the University of Texas at Austin would summarily fire Spellberg for her failure to understand the most basic principles of intellectual life. What business does someone like that have at a university? What business does she have writing books and teaching? What right does she have to set herself up as a censor of other people’s work?

In an interview, Ms. Spellberg told me the novel is a “very ugly, stupid piece of work.” The novel, for example, includes a scene on the night when Muhammad consummated his marriage with Aisha: “the pain of consummation soon melted away. Muhammad was so gentle. I hardly felt the scorpion’s sting. To be in his arms, skin to skin, was the bliss I had longed for all my life*.” Says Ms. Spellberg…”I don’t have a problem with historical fiction. I do have a problem with the deliberate misinterpretation of history. You can’t play with a sacred history and turn it into soft core pornography.”

Who says you can’t? Under what jurisdiction can’t you? And who the hell assigned Denise Spellberg to decide? What on earth makes her think she has the right to shut down someone else’s book? Who (to be obvious about it) does she think she is?

Jane Garrett, an editor at Random House’s Knopf imprint, dispatched an email on May 1 to Knopf executives, telling them she got a phone call the evening before from Ms. Spellberg (who happens to be under contract with Knopf to write “Thomas Jefferson’s Qur’an.”) “She thinks there is a very real possibility of major danger for the building and staff and widespread violence,” Ms. Garrett wrote. “Denise says it is ‘a declaration of war…explosive stuff…a national security issue.’ Thinks it will be far more controversial than the satanic verses and the Danish cartoons. Does not know if the author and Ballantine folks are clueless or calculating, but thinks the book should be withdrawn ASAP.”

She thinks there is a very real possibility because she herself has been busy trying to foment the possibility. That takes some brass-plated nerve.

I’d like to see her summarily fired, and I’d like to see Knopf withdraw that contract. I’d like to see her disgraced, shamed, an outcast. I’d like to see her have to get a job at a chicken-rendering plant in Odessa. At the very least I’d like to see her name become mud, which, judging by Google blog search, it’s well on the way to doing.

Denise Spellberg, self-appointed censor and destroyer of books: you should be embarrassed at yourself. You should go into a very different line of work, right away – you should not be allowed anywhere near students, and you should never get another book or article published.

*As mediwatchwatch said, all nine years of it.

P.S. Note that the last bit is a pious hope. I’m not telephoning people to urge them to fire Spellberg (much as I’d like to) or to decide not to publish her book (even more as I’d like to). I’m merely expressing a cherished dream. I’m a fantasist, not a censor. Unlike some people I could mention.