- Hardcover: 272 pages
- Publisher: Atlantic Books (1 April 2009)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 1843548232
- ISBN-13: 978-1843548232
- Product Dimensions: 23.6 x 15.8 x 2.4 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 166,481 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
From Fatwa to Jihad: The Rushdie Affair and Its Legacy
and over one million other books are available for Amazon Kindle .
Learn more
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 Trade In this Item for up to £2.10
Trade in From Fatwa to Jihad: The Rushdie Affair and Its Legacy for an Amazon.co.uk gift card of up to £2.10, which you can then spend on millions of items across the site. Plus, get an extra £5 when you trade in books worth £10 or more until June 30, 2012. Trade-in values may vary (terms apply). Find more products eligible for trade-in.
|
Product details |
More About the Author
Product Description
Review
"'One of the most interesting and perceptive voices operating in the disputed territory where science, culture and politics meet... Few targets escape the reach of his forensic intelligence.' Andrew Anthony, Observer"
Product Description
On the eve of the 20th anniversary of the Rushdie fatwa, "From Fatwa to Jihad" tells, for the first time, the full story of this defining episode and explores its repercussions and resonance through to contemporary debates about Islam, terror, free speech and Western values. When a thousand Muslim protesters paraded through a British town with a copy of Salman Rushdie's "The Satanic Verses" before ceremoniously burning the book it was an act motivated by anger and offence as well as one calculated to shock and offend. It did more than that: the image of the burning book became an icon of the Muslim anger. Sent around the world by photographers and TV cameras, the image announced a new world.Twenty years later, the questions raised by the Rushdie Affair - Islam's relationship to the West, the meaning of multiculturalism, the limits of tolerance in a liberal society - have become some of the defining issues of our time. Taking the Ayatollah Khomeini's fatwa as his starting point, Kenan Malik examines how radical Islam has gained hold in Muslim communities, how multiculturalism contributed to this, and how the Rushdie affair transformed the very nature of the debate on tolerance and free speech.
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
12 of 15 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
I read this book after hearing Christopher Hitchens recommend it to a journalist interested in the state of Islam in the UK. I feel that with the passing of time since I read the book, my memory has faded somewhat, but as I came across the book again on Amazon and nobody had written a review, I thought that I would give an indication as to how much I enjoyed the book. There were several aspects that really struck me about how, in Malik's view, British Muslims were encouraged to group together artificially by councils and other government agencies to present a unified case, and that this is one way in which disparate groups encountering racism and the ills of British city life came to be united.
What made Malik's book so powerful for me is that this is the first account of the Britain of my youth which I really recognise. The racism, the Paki-bashing, the national front, the bigotry, far from being as isolated as some would like to suggest, were pervasive through my youth - and I hated every second of it. I grew up far enough away from Brixton to be aware that there were problems down the road, but close enough to experience the distasteful vagaries of racists and bigots. Malik has supplied me with a book where I can say, 'You want to know what the Britain of my youth was like ... there you are.' I can think of no better compliment to pay a writer.
The more complex problems that Malik investigates are intriguing. Some of his secular friends have become religious and, so Malik seems to suggest, have found an identity, albeit perhaps an inauthentic one (if that is not a disingenuous phrase) in a new form of Islam that is seen as a revitalisation of an old form. Such has the problem of identity become that as in the case where a novelist writes a book, like Monica Ali, it is questioned whether or not she is representative of the community from which she comes. Such an attempt to question whether a novelist should be allowed to write is an offence to every thinking person, to humanity as a whole. It is as much where we are like others, as much as where we differ that makes us who we are. And besides all that a novel is a work of fiction and should be treated as such.
What made Malik's book so powerful for me is that this is the first account of the Britain of my youth which I really recognise. The racism, the Paki-bashing, the national front, the bigotry, far from being as isolated as some would like to suggest, were pervasive through my youth - and I hated every second of it. I grew up far enough away from Brixton to be aware that there were problems down the road, but close enough to experience the distasteful vagaries of racists and bigots. Malik has supplied me with a book where I can say, 'You want to know what the Britain of my youth was like ... there you are.' I can think of no better compliment to pay a writer.
The more complex problems that Malik investigates are intriguing. Some of his secular friends have become religious and, so Malik seems to suggest, have found an identity, albeit perhaps an inauthentic one (if that is not a disingenuous phrase) in a new form of Islam that is seen as a revitalisation of an old form. Such has the problem of identity become that as in the case where a novelist writes a book, like Monica Ali, it is questioned whether or not she is representative of the community from which she comes. Such an attempt to question whether a novelist should be allowed to write is an offence to every thinking person, to humanity as a whole. It is as much where we are like others, as much as where we differ that makes us who we are. And besides all that a novel is a work of fiction and should be treated as such.
4 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
'This is the first book to examine the powerful effect on freedom of speech and expression of the fatwa on Salman Rushdie in 1989. It is one of those rare books that tells you what, the sound and fury apart, is really going on. Malik probes the culture of self-censorship and political posturing that erodes free speech and skilfully questions the positions of the left and liberals. In his words: "If we invite the state to define the boundaries of acceptable speech, we cannot complain if it is not just speech to which we object that gets curtailed."'
The Orwell Prize is Britain's most prestigious prize for political writing. The Book Prize judges for 2010 were Jonathan Heawood (director, English PEN), Andrew Holgate (literary editor, Sunday Times) and Francine Stock (writer and broadcaster).
The Orwell Prize is Britain's most prestigious prize for political writing. The Book Prize judges for 2010 were Jonathan Heawood (director, English PEN), Andrew Holgate (literary editor, Sunday Times) and Francine Stock (writer and broadcaster).
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
