De Duivelsverzen: ongelezen maar levensgevaarlijk

Geert Lernout

Voor de fatwa

Syed Shahabuddin, parlementslid in India, na interview met Rushdie, eist dat Rajiv Ghandi het boek verbiedt. Dit gebeurt op 5 oktober 1988.

Het boek wordt eveneens verboden in Pakistan, Bangladesh, Egypte en Zuid-Afrika.

Radicaal-islamistische pakistani eisen dat Benazir Bhutto aan de VS vraagt om het boek ook daar te verbieden; betogingen met geweld, doden.

Fatwa 14/2/1989

"We are from God and to God we shall return." (Qoranic verse). I am informing all brave Muslims of the world that the author of The Satanic Verses, a text written, edited, and published against Islam, the Prophet of Islam, and the Koran, along with all the editors and publishers aware of its contents, are condemned to death. I call on all valiant Muslims wherever they may be in the world to kill them without delay, so that no one will dare insult the sacred beliefs of Muslims henceforth. And whoever is killed in this cause will be a martyr, God Willing. Meanwhile if someone has access to the author of the book but is incapable of carrying out the execution, he should inform the people so that [Rushdie] is punished for his actions.... Rouhollah al-Mousavi al-Khomeini."

Beloning

5 miljoen dollar beloning voor de moordenaar van Salman Rushdie, aangeboden door de “Beweging van 15 Khordad”, een religieuze organisatie die geïnspireerd is door Khomeini.

GevolgenMustafa Mahmoud Mazeh in augustus 1989 blaast zichzelf

op in een hotelkamer in Londen (grafmonument in Teheran,voor de eerste martelaar)

Hitoshi Igarashi, Japanse vertaler, vermoord met een mes op 11 juli 1991.

Ettore Capriolo, Italiaanse vertaler, neergestoken en levensgevaarlijk gewond in juli 1991.

William Nygaard, Noorse uitgever, overleeft op het nippertje een moordaanval in oktober 1993.

Aziz Nesin, de Turkse vertaler, is het doelwit van een aanval op een vergadering waarbij fundamentalisten een gebouw in brand steken en 37 mensen omkomen. Nesin ontsnapt, maar wordt daarna in elkaar geslagen door de brandweerlui.

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Nog een slachtoffer: goede smaak

International Guerrillas (1990). Pakistaanse film over Rushdie die het land wil destabiliseren door er casino’s en disco’s te openen; vermoordt kinderen en martelt andere moslims

Grappige scene als hij een gevangene martelt door hem voor te lezen uit zijn boek.

Natuurlijk sterft hij op het einde.

Maar: fatwa blijft gelden tot vandaag!

Salman Rushdie

Grimus (1975)

Midnight’s Children (1981)

Booker Prize, Booker of Bookers in 1993 en Best of the Booker in 2008

Shame (1983)

The Satanic Verses (1988)

Whitbread Award

Rushdie’s zonden

1. Apostaat (onmogelijk in islam).

2. Voorstellen van Mohammed als romanfiguur, met afwijkende biografie.

3. De hoeren in het bordeel dragen de namen van de vrouwen van de profeet.

4. Persoonlijk belediging van Khomeini

5. Godslastering.

6. In de roman speelt zelf de rol van god/de duivel.

De romanTwee Indische moslims Gibreel Farishta and

Saladin Chamcha proberen in Engeland te overleven; keren terug naar India.

Drie droomsequenties:

1. Verhaal van het ontstaan van islam.

2. Een jonge vrouw ziet god en leidt een massa naar Mekka: zij verdrinken.

3. Een “Imam” in ballingschap (Khomeini in Parijs)

'To be born again,' sang Gibreel Farishta tumbling from the heavens, 'first you have to die. Ho ji! Ho ji! To land upon the bosomy earth, first one needs to fly. Tat-taa! Taka-thun! How to ever smile again, if first you won't cry? How to win the darling's love, mister, without a sigh? Baba, if you want to get born again...' Just before dawn one winter's morning, New Year's Day or thereabouts, two real, full-grown, living men fell from a great height, twenty-nine thousand and two feet, towards the English Channel, without benefit of parachutes or wings, out of a clear sky. 'I tell you, you must die, I tell you, I tell you,' and thusly and so beneath a moon of alabaster until a loud cry crossed the night, 'To the devil with your tunes,' the words hanging crystalline in the iced white night, 'in the movies you only mimed to playback singers, so spare me these infernal noises now.'

'To be born again,' sang Gibreel Farishta tumbling from the heavens, 'first you have to die. Ho ji! Ho ji! To land upon the bosomy earth, first one needs to fly. Tat-taa! Taka-thun! How to ever smile again, if first you won't cry? How to win the darling's love, mister, without a sigh? Baba, if you want to get born again...' Just before dawn one winter's morning, New Year's Day or thereabouts, two real, full-grown, living men fell from a great height, twenty-nine thousand and two feet, towards the English Channel, without benefit of parachutes or wings, out of a clear sky. 'I tell you, you must die, I tell you, I tell you,' and thusly and so beneath a moon of alabaster until a loud cry crossed the night, 'To the devil with your tunes,' the words hanging crystalline in the iced white night, 'in the movies you only mimed to playback singers, so spare me these infernal noises now.'

'To be born again,' sang Gibreel Farishta tumbling from the heavens, 'first you have to die. Ho ji! Ho ji! To land upon the bosomy earth, first one needs to fly. Tat-taa! Taka-thun! How to ever smile again, if first you won't cry? How to win the darling's love, mister, without a sigh? Baba, if you want to get born again...' Just before dawn one winter's morning, New Year's Day or thereabouts, two real, full-grown, living men fell from a great height, twenty-nine thousand and two feet, towards the English Channel, without benefit of parachutes or wings, out of a clear sky. 'I tell you, you must die, I tell you, I tell you,' and thusly and so beneath a moon of alabaster until a loud cry crossed the night, 'To the devil with your tunes,' the words hanging crystalline in the iced white night, 'in the movies you only mimed to playback singers, so spare me these infernal noises now.'

'To be born again,' sang Gibreel Farishta tumbling from the heavens, 'first you have to die. Ho ji! Ho ji! To land upon the bosomy earth, first one needs to fly. Tat-taa! Taka-thun! How to ever smile again, if first you won't cry? How to win the darling's love, mister, without a sigh? Baba, if you want to get born again...' Just before dawn one winter's morning, New Year's Day or thereabouts, two real, full-grown, living men fell from a great height, twenty-nine thousand and two feet, towards the English Channel, without benefit of parachutes or wings, out of a clear sky. 'I tell you, you must die, I tell you, I tell you,' and thusly and so beneath a moon of alabaster until a loud cry crossed the night, 'To the devil with your tunes,' the words hanging crystalline in the iced white night, 'in the movies you only mimed to playback singers, so spare me these infernal noises now.'

… the jumbo jet Bostan, Flight A I-420, blew apart without any warning, high above the great, rotting, beautiful, snow-white, illuminated city, Mahagonny, Babylon, Alphaville.

I know the truth, obviously, I watched the whole thing. As to omnipresence and –potence, I’m making no claims at present, but I can manage this much, I hope. Chamcha willed it and Farishta did what was willed.

Which was the miracle worker?

Of what type—angelic, satanic—was Farishta’s song?

Who am I?

Let’s put it this way: who has the best tunes?

Duivelsverzen Koran 51:18-19

Have you thought of Allāt and al-'Uzzā and Manāt, the other third?

These are the exalted gharāniq, whose intercession is hoped for.

Duivelsverzen 51:18-21

Have you thought of Allāt and al-'Uzzā and Manāt, the other third?

Are there sons for you, and daughters for Him?

This is certainly an unjust apportioning.

These are only names which you and your fathers have invented. No authority was sent down by God for them. They only follow conjecture and wish-fulfillment, even though guidance had come to them already from their Lord.

Koran 22:52

We have sent no messenger or apostle before you with whose recitations Satan did not tamper.

Yet God abrogates what Satan interpolates; then He confirms His revelations, for God is all-knowing and all-wise.

The Satanic Verses, p. 95.

Question: What is the opposite of faith?

Not disbelief. Too final, certain, closed. Itself a kind of belief.

Doubt.