Sacred Flames
Some of God's more impetuous servants have apparently petrol-bombed the offices of the London publishing company, Gibson Square, which plans to bring out a historical romance called The Jewel of Medina, about one of Muhammad's wives. The wrath of Allah, mediated through his instruments, succeeded in causing "a small fire inside the property".
The book was due to be published last month in the United States by Random House; hoping for a blurb, they sent an advance copy to a professor of Middle Eastern Studies, who responded as one might expect. Among the sillier aspects of the almost entirely inane Guardian film section is the way in which they will occasionally ask a physicist for some words of wisdom on a science fiction B-movie like Sunshine, or an Actual Professional Bugger for an opinion on a subdued, subtitled foreign drama like The Lives of Others. Predictably, neither had anything remotely interesting to say on the quality of the films as films; and the response to The Jewel of Medina by Professor Denise Spellberg, of the University of Texas, was predictably similar. "I don't have a problem with historical fiction," she wrote; "I do have a problem with the deliberate misinterpretation of history"; from which it may be judged how well acquainted Professor Spellberg is with ninety-nine per cent of historical fiction. She also said, "You can't play with a sacred history and turn it into softcore pornography"; well, outside a religious despotism I'm afraid you can. However, Spellberg's email was leaked to the press and Spellberg herself apparently denounced the book to "an editor of a popular Muslim website"; and as a result Random House, poor defenceless little things that they are, got cold feet and cancelled the publication.
Gibson Square, which also published Melanie Phillips' sober and carefully-researched Londonistan: They're Coming To Get You, bought the British rights to the book because the proprietor, Martin Rynja, was "struck by the careful research" of the author, and "completely bowled over by the novel and the moving love story it portrays". Assuming the culprits really are Islamic fanatics and not plain ordinary vandals or members of the Scientologist wing of the Metropolitan Police, we must hope Rynja's delicate sensibilities are not upset by the free publicity.
The book was due to be published last month in the United States by Random House; hoping for a blurb, they sent an advance copy to a professor of Middle Eastern Studies, who responded as one might expect. Among the sillier aspects of the almost entirely inane Guardian film section is the way in which they will occasionally ask a physicist for some words of wisdom on a science fiction B-movie like Sunshine, or an Actual Professional Bugger for an opinion on a subdued, subtitled foreign drama like The Lives of Others. Predictably, neither had anything remotely interesting to say on the quality of the films as films; and the response to The Jewel of Medina by Professor Denise Spellberg, of the University of Texas, was predictably similar. "I don't have a problem with historical fiction," she wrote; "I do have a problem with the deliberate misinterpretation of history"; from which it may be judged how well acquainted Professor Spellberg is with ninety-nine per cent of historical fiction. She also said, "You can't play with a sacred history and turn it into softcore pornography"; well, outside a religious despotism I'm afraid you can. However, Spellberg's email was leaked to the press and Spellberg herself apparently denounced the book to "an editor of a popular Muslim website"; and as a result Random House, poor defenceless little things that they are, got cold feet and cancelled the publication.
Gibson Square, which also published Melanie Phillips' sober and carefully-researched Londonistan: They're Coming To Get You, bought the British rights to the book because the proprietor, Martin Rynja, was "struck by the careful research" of the author, and "completely bowled over by the novel and the moving love story it portrays". Assuming the culprits really are Islamic fanatics and not plain ordinary vandals or members of the Scientologist wing of the Metropolitan Police, we must hope Rynja's delicate sensibilities are not upset by the free publicity.
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