Re: Khomeini & Rushdie

[Art Burke <aburke@VANSD.ORG>]

You may be getting slightly off the point of a list devoted to assessment reform.  Art

>>> mkluznik@HOTMAIL.COM 09/18 3:51 PM >>>
To the Editor:
>In 1989, Anglo-Indian novelist Salmon Rushdie was condemned to death by
>leading Iranian Muslim clerics for allegedly having blasphemed Islam in his
>novel "The Satanic Verses."  Rushdie's case became the focus of an
>international controversy.  Some of the bizarre adventures in "The Satanic
>Verses" depict a character modeled on the prophet Muhammad and portray both
>him and his transcriptions of the Koran in dubious light.
>"The Satanic Verses" was angrily denounced by outraged Muslim leaders.  The
>spiritual leader of revolutionary Iran, Ayatollah Khomeini, publicly
>condemned the book and called on his fellow Muslims worldwide to "execute"
>its author.  Rushdie was compelled to remain in hiding, since Iran's
>religious leaders refused to lift their death sentence on him, thus
>rendering him liable to assassination at any time.
>It is disturbing that Muslim leaders were so quickly able to order the
>murder of a relatively harmless novelist but do not feel similarly offended
>that their religion is apparently being used as an excuse to commit
>atrocities.  Do they lack the resolve and sense of justice to condemn one
>of their own for killing innocents, an act which violates religious laws
>set down in the Koran?  Why doesn't Islam call for the execution of Muslim
>murderers who showed moral cowardice in their evil acts?  By saying so
>little, Muslim leaders give tacit approval to the atrocities committed in
>New York, Pennsylvania and Washington, D.C.


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