Fearful of 'Religion of Peace'

Random House Publishing has dropped its plans of publishing a book on the Prophet Mohammed's wife Aisha. The reason? Fear of Muslim community wrath!

The Islamic community is notorious for its intolerance of any criticism or outsider analysis of its religion. It fears that any such attempt could harm its religion. When in fact what the Islamic community or the Ulema really fear is the expose of many not so good aspects of Islam. This fear has caused the Islamic leaders and the community to denounce every attempt at critique. This is also the reason why Ulema keep the ordinary folk from researching into their religious scriptures and insist it be left to the learned few. And of course only the learned few are regarded as authorities in all matters Islamic, thus isolating Islam completely from any objective analysis. No innovation, no reform is permitted. The Islamic leaders insist on applying the tenets of Koran or the laws i.e. the Sharia as it was written well over 1400 years ago. Perhaps they fear the same fate that the orthodox churches met in the west due to objective criticism of Christianity.

The Islamic community has steadfastly guarded itself from any criticism. Some examples that come to mind are fate that Bangladeshi author Taslima Nasreen met when she wrote 'Ka' and 'Lajja'. Another famous example is Salman Rishdie's book 'The Satanic Verses'. We all know how the Muslim community erupted in protest and made the authors and the establishment bend over backwards. Some other similar examples (though not involving books) are Danish cartoons of Prophet Mohammed. Islamic intolerance was at its best in these instances.

Random House's decision to scrap publishing a book on Aisha was because -

Publishing giant Random House has scrapped plans to
publish a book on Aisha, the wife of Prophet Mohammed, fearing that it could be
the new Satanic Verses and may draw the wrath of the Muslim
community.

The sheer terror that Islamic community strikes in evident from this decision. The publishing house fears -

The publishers feared it could become new
Satanic Verses, a book written by Indian-origin author Salman Rushdie that led
to death threats being issued to him, riots and the murder of its Japanese translators, the journal said. [Emphasis
mine].

The author of the book, Sherry Jones, is understandably devastated. She says -

"I wanted to honour Aisha and all the
wives of Mohammed by giving voice to them, remarkable women whose crucial roles
in the shaping of Islam have so often been ignored -- silenced -- by
historians," [Emphasis mine].

Asra Nomani, a former reporter with the Wall Street Journal writes -

"The series of events that torpedoed this novel are a window
into how quickly fear stunts intelligent discourse about the Muslim
world," Nomani writes. [Emphasis mine].

And apologists, misleadingly called 'Intellectuals', are not far behind in defending Islam. Denise Spellberg, an associate professor of Islamic history at the University of Texas in Austin has this to say on the book -

"made fun of Muslims and their history,"

In an interview, Spellberg told
Nomani that the novel is a "very ugly, stupid piece of work."

A very intellectual defence of Islam indeed.

So much for claiming Islam to be a 'Religion of Peace'!

Obviously such regard is not accorded to other religions, like say, Hinduism. The tolerance and openness of the Hindus is often exploited and sentiments of the Hindus has no regard. Perhaps because there is no threat to life in abusing Hinduism.