Hey, Queen

[maderr]

Have you heard anything about this book? What's your take?

My two cents - it's a free fucking country. It's historical fiction. Publish the fucking book.

Comments

[stardance.livejournal.com]

After all this free press, someone'll have the balls to publish this book.

[unusualmusic.livejournal.com]

She will (http://sherryjones.blogspot.com/) You gotta scroll down. And honestly? I'm thinking that that Spellberg idiot and teh publisher overreacted. Big time. First to begin with, I want to see the link to the blogposts mentioned in the article, to see what they actually said. And I would love to know who were all these sources as well. ANd I really hate the notion of people judging a damn book before reading it (that goes out to the graduate student listserv) Honestly!

[alixkat.livejournal.com]

I'm surprised it wasn't Amina Wadud, she's a good one for this sort of thing, too, and her scholarship is garbage. Denise Spellberg's one claim to fame is her book on A'isha, which incidentally, I used for a paper on menstruation in Islam, but I digress. It's very heavily padded because there is virtually nothing, except for snippets and hadiths about A'isha, so in a sense, her work is largely a body of historical fiction as well.

I haven't seen ANYONE on any listserver mention a word about it nor have I seen anyone in AMEWS say anything about it either. I'm always the last person to know about these things and frankly, there are greater things to worry about other than this stupid book. You could take anyone's name and throw it into this book whether it be Shajaraat al-Dhurr or Hurrem Sultan. Shit happens.

[sunandshadow.livejournal.com]

yeah the author will make out like a bandit - gets to keep the 100k advance, free publicity, and someone else will publish the book pretty much guaranteed.

[alixkat.livejournal.com]

Denise Spellman is the sort of "living authority" on the historical A'isha which is why and how she is able to raise the sort of opposition that she can and did to this novel. There is a sentiment amongst women working Middle East Women's Studies and Islamic Gender Studies, of which I am a part, of a constant fear of neo-Orientalism, neo-Colonialism, and the perpetuation either through scholarship, art, or in this case fiction, of the "exotic Eastern other."

That said, one point I do agree with Spellman on is that that the work that is being done to reclaim historical Muslim women for the purpose of activism and reinforcement of women's rights in Islam, is quite fragile, and the idea, however absurd or fictional, that that could be threatened by a novel, is theoretically possible. In fact, she has proven this fact by rallying who she has rallied and during the summer no less when trying to find any academic is next to impossible.

That said however, the mind boggles that we can have [i]The Red Tent[/i], with the Jewish matriarchs, a fictional biography of Mary Magdalene, and as someone mentioned above Dan Brown's treatment of Mary Magdalene as the wife of Christ, but we cannot publish a book on the favourite wife of the Prophet Muhammad without having another Danish Cartoon Fiasco. More than anything, it frightens me that academics are now reaching outside of their own spheres and instigating the censorship that we work so hard to tear down.

Kat

[(Anonymous)]

There is actual historical scholarship suggesting that Mary Magdalene was the wife of Christ. A 30 year old unmarried Jewish man in that day and age was an extremely odd duck. And Mary Magdalene was not the whore who wiped Jesus's feet like most people assume. Peter sort of hated her and it's mostly his readings that cast her in that light. Each apostle wrote a book (and most of them agree Peter had some issues with Mary Magdalene), the ones included in the New Testament are just the ones the Catholic Church approved.

That's my rant.

Re: Kat

[maderr.livejournal.com]

That wasn't really her point. Her point was that if books like that can be published, then so too a book on Muhammed's favorite wife.

Re: Kat

[alixkat.livejournal.com]

Yeah that was pretty much it.

It doesn't bother me at all if Mary Magdalene was the wife of Christ. What always bothered me was that she was protrayed as a whore, which she wasn't. The rest is secondary, I know that she was a fairly affluent woman and other snippets of her life.

My point being however is that we can write about the matriarchs of other Abrahamic religions without rioting in the streets, but when it comes to a Muslim matriarch, after all, A'isha is "Umm al-Mu'minin," but I get the point when there are hypersexual scenes, but that sort of goes with the territory.

I for one could do without a book with A'isha losing her virginity, but I admire anyone who is willing to dangle her toe into that snakepit.

[alixkat.livejournal.com]

This is the best comment on there:

"You know what? This is publicity gold for that author. SOMEONE is going to pay her a metric fuck ton of cash for this book."

<3

[unusualmusic.livejournal.com]

WHther or not the book is any good. The snippet of purple prose there sort of made me raise an eyebrow.

[alixkat.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that did make me raise an eyebrow, too... definitely not the classiest text ever written on a religious figure, however, if it was Hurrem Sultan or someone, no one would even bat an eyelash.

Who would even know about this book unless Spellberg pitched such a shitfit?

Thank God she didn't write "The Jewel of Mecca."

[unusualmusic.livejournal.com]

Thank God she didn't write "The Jewel of Mecca."


*shudders at the thought*

[amiko-16.livejournal.com]

oh give me a break DX
what a bunch of immature intolerant whiners
I think the publishers should grow some balls and publish it anyway.

[(Anonymous)]

It’s only a “deliberate misinterpretation of history” if it’s presented as historical fact. I can definitely understand why Muslims might be pissed though, I can think of a few fundamentalist Christians that would be equally outraged if someone wrote a similar novel about Christ. So let them be pissed, it’s their right. Canceling the book though is ridiculous. It brings to mind the South Park episode where everyone stuck their heads in the sand over a Family Guy spoof on Mohammad. I don’t think Spellberg had the right to discus a copyrighted piece of literature before it’s release date when she was given the draft in confidence, especially since she did it with the intention of getting the book canceled. She should be blacklisted for that, in my opinion. No publishing company should deal with her, ever.

[madmax0r.livejournal.com]

I think one of the biggest misunderstanding we make when criticising religious censorship with regards to Islam is that we often use the same sort of rules to justify being liberal with Christianity or Buddhism.

e.g. If we can have a caricature about Christ with a bomb on his head, or Buddha riding a tricycle and no one would bat an eyelid. So why not other religions too?

This rule does not quite work when it concerns Islam - especially their most sacred prophet: Muhammad.

A lot of Muslims do not equate Free Speech = Human Right + Common Sense That Everyone Should Embrace. Especially now with the current political situation and general world sentiment against Islam, priciples like Free Speech (which we take for granted) is equated with Westernism and all its baggage of political marginalisation.

i.e. It's not just about religion. It's regarded as a personal attack on Muslims as a whole, whether or not the intention is there.

Not to mention, when they say "Sacred history", they mean sacred history.

Here in Malaysia, it's an accepted fact that you can't even show an image of Prophet Muhammad's face. We have a cartoon on our local TV that depicts his life and you can only see his *footprints* and this gigantic ball of light representing PM.

Yes, it can be somewhat hilarious and goodness knows there are a lot of us who don't agree but it's important to understand why and how religion is a very prickly issue with Muslims if you really want to know why everyone gets their panties in a knot when it comes to issues like these.

[misanthrope1.livejournal.com]

I understand what madmaxor is saying. I just don't think it's right. Muslims get offended. Too bad. No religion gets a free pass. I know a lot of things that can be seen as personal attacks. People need to put on their grown up panties and deal. Publish the book. If it's really crappy and doesn't sell, it hits the bargin bin. If it makes a fortune, great.

[hollyxu.livejournal.com]

That's such a stupid and ugly thing to do.

[charisstoma.livejournal.com]

I seriously have a problem with Professor Spellberg.
Professionally she should have talked to the publisher and explained why it was a bad idea to publish the book if she disputed it's accuracy, am assuming that is why she was given an advanced copy to review for them. She could have pointed out too, if the publisher couldn't connect the dots, why the Islamic world would be upset with the treatment of the subject.
If the e-article you linked to is accurate then I think too that she has the height of hypocrisy to threaten to sue if her name is linked to the book. The publisher is not likely to put her name on a book that she reviewed as trash.
One wonders what UT-Austin thinks of their professor.

Per this
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080808063911AAQ5cUu
Professor Spellman is Muslim. Which we all know may or may not be true, but it's interesting.