The Jewel of Medina
Who wouldn’t want to read a book about Aisha, Mohammed’s nine-year-old love-bunny? Maybe not Ibrahim Hooper or Woody Harrelson but if such a book were available, especially if it were a novel, the Salman Rushdies and Bill Mahers would be beating a path to their favorite bookstore.
G’wan, it will never happen you say? No one would dare write a novel about Aisha? Aha, but someone has! Yes, Sherry Jones has written a book about Aisha—Mohammed’s greatest love! The Jewel of Medina.
Well, it was time a 21st Century author spiced up the life of the Prophet. Those surahs and hadiths need some amplification—all that galloping around in the desert, stirring up dust clouds, slaying Jews and infidels, deciding which dogs to kill and which not, those endless talks with the Angel Gabriel, silencing annoying poets, pronouncing fatwas; boring stuff for a reading public thirsting for a genuine 7th Century romance.
Sure, the Prophet had more wives than Henry VIII but except for Aisha it’s doubtful if any of them would have caused much of a stir at Windsor Castle unless on the way to the chopping block. And, please, do not bring up Mohammed and Khadija. That was Dennis the Menace marrying his Aunt! And don’t try to make a case for Zainab! Potsy felt exactly the same when he saw Marilyn Monroe in The Seven Year Itch as Mohammed did when he first laid lewd and lascivious eyes on his adopted son’s bride. Of course, it took Posty longer to get over Marilyn than it did Mo to forget Zainab. (How long has it been now, Potsy?)
The world needs this book—an effort has to be made to humanize Mohammed. The Jyllands-Posten cartoons were a start but the PR was bad. Unfortunately, there are always a few people who take things the wrong way, who make threats and burn down building—well, more than a few. But The Jewel of Medina is a great love story. It has to be told.
How old was Aisha when she was betrothed to Mohammed? Six? Seven? That’s how old Darla was when Alfalfa told her he wanted to marry her! Aisha’s marriage to the Prophet was consummated when she was nine years old. What a great love story! How old was Mohammed? Kind of makes one think of Hugh Heffner surrounded by his love-bunnies at the Playboy Mansion. God! Mohammed knew how to live!
Darla was ten or eleven years old before Alfalfa got up enough never to kiss her. There wasn’t much room for consummating; Alfalfa got a black eye and the school nurse had to send a report to Alfalfa’s parents. But what a great love story!
Child brides are so beautiful!
The National Organization of Women (NOW) might not think so, but they are bucking the Internet and have fallen light years behind the trendsetters in San Francisco. Think of all the knowledge Gloria Steinem and Betty Freidan might have accrued if they had been married when they were nine years old—to say nothing of improving their dispositions. The San Francisco City Council should seriously consider lowering the legal marriage age. Who knows—someday a bride may be no older than her flower girls!
But alas, those who might wish to meet Aisha, to share her most innermost thoughts, to revel in her preteen sensuousness, have been dealt a cruel blow! The publisher, Random House, has taken fright—yes, fright! Oh, the cowardly wretches—may Hemingway, wherever he is, forgive them! The Jewel of Medina will not see the light of day! There will be no Christian exegesis of the life of Aisha! The cowardly wretches! Curse them! Send them to Donnybrook farm! America needs publishers with guts, with chutzpah—men and women with ink in their veins, fire in the eye and no jelly in their spines!
Random House said publication had been halted because experts in the field thought the book might be offensive “to some Muslims” and “could incite acts of violence,” not because they had seen pictures of Theo van Gogh lying in a puddle of blood in a street in Amsterdam, shot eight times and with his throat slit. Eight times and with his throat slit! Well, no one would want that to happen! It’s a sobering thought. A man with an Uzi or a stick grenade could do a lot of damage in a crowded office at Random House.
What does CAIR think? What does MPAC think? What was the Muslim response to Submission? What was it Imam Fawaz of the as-Sunnah Mosque in The Hague said about van Gogh? Oh, yes—van Gogh was a bastard and Allah should visit an incurable disease upon him. And a few weeks later van Gogh was dead! Of course, Fawza had nothing to do with it. Still…
Was halting publication of The Jewel of Medina a cowardly act? Not at all, Random House was merely playing it smart. Anyway, that’s the story. They talked to security experts and called on Islamic scholars. They called on Denise Spellberg, associate professor of Islamic History at the University of Texas at Austin. Ms Spellberg read The Jewel of Medina. The book, said Ms Spellberg, was “ugly” and “stupid.” Some of the scenes were “soft-core pornography.”
Is Ms Spellberg a bona-fide literary critic? Perhaps not, but she is an author. Her list of credits include: Politics, Gender and the Islamic Past: The Legacy of A’isha Bint Abi Bakr (Columbia University Press: 1994); Inventing Matamoras: Gender and the Forgotten Islamic Past in the United States of America (Frontiers: A Journal of Woman’s Studies 25); Writing the Unwritten Life of the Islamic Eve: Menstruation and Demonization of Motherhood (International Journal of Middle East Studies 28); and Could a Muslim be President? An Eighteen-Century Constitutional Debate! (Eighteenth Century Studies 39)
The Islamic Eve! Well! Well! Perhaps Random House should have consulted someone who didn’t have a horse in the race, someone who could tell the difference between a novel and an obscure article in an obscure magazine.
If everyone who wanted to read The Jewel of Medina got in line at the bookstore with those hungering for Writing the Unwritten Life of the Islamic Eve who would be left when Jewel sold out? George Costanza?
Ms Spellberg said, “The combination of sex and violence sells novels.” (One can only hope that doesn’t pass for intellectual brilliance at the University of Texas)
Sex and violence! It should not surprise anyone—that’s how Mohammed sold Islam.
“When combined with falsification of the Islamic past—“ continued Ms Spellberg. Here we go again!
And what did Aisha say? Here’s an interesting morsel.
Sunan Nas’ai, Book of Marriage, 3256: Sunan 5e “The Apostle of Allah (,) peace be upon him (,) married me when I was six and had intercourse with me when I was nine and I was playing with dolls.”
Dolls! And Ms Spellberg is worried about what? It can’t get much worse without the Prophet having to report as a sex offender!
Say, how old was that dude anyway?
courtesy: faithfreedom.org
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