Living In The Fatwa's Shadow: The Cost Of Insulting The Prophet Muhammad

In 1988, a Booker Prize-winning author published a novel called "The Satanic Verses." In the British city of Bradford, 200 miles from his London residence, a wild-eyed rabble of Muslim fundamentalists, most of whom hadn't bothered to read the book, declared it blasphemous and set it alight. The word "fatwa" would enter the English lexicon when Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini weighed in, issuing a religious edict demanding that Salman Rushdie, the book's author, be put to death for insulting the Prophet Muhammad. The ayatollah offered those unmoved by promises of otherworldly paradise a bounty of $1 million.

Mr. Rushdie now lives quite openly in New York—but the author's more literate tormentors can take satisfaction from "Joseph Anton," his compelling, affecting, depressing memoir of a life profoundly disfigured by terrorism. The soldiers of Allah didn't "send him to Hell," as Khomeini demanded, but they did make his existence a living one. Michael C. Moynihan - Wall Street Journal - Click To Read More...

President Obama came to office promising that he would start a new conversation with the Muslim world, one that lectured less and listened more. After nearly four years of listening, we can now hear more clearly where the U.S. stands in the estimation of that world: equally despised but considerably less feared. Just imagine what four more years of instinctive deference will do. - Bret Stephens

"The Book of Mormon" continues to play in New York to sell out crowds where it's won 9 Tony awards for unprintable humor and  continues to keep libs highly entertained. D'Souza's blockbuster Movie Obama's America 2016 can be found at a theater near you. Tell me what's wrong with Islam again? - DSMW

Comments

[JewishOdysseus]

I'm constantly amazed by liberals who see no need to pipe up in solidarity with Salman Rushdie, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, "Sam Bacile" or the many other free-thinkers who have openly criticized Islam, and are then threatened with death for it. It's almost like they are big free-speech defenders...unless they have to RISK something by defending it. THEN...crickets.