The dangerous idea he articulated was given to posterity and the Enlightenment, it was not an expression of his social and political outlook. Rushdie tells us that towards the end of his life Ibn Rushd was "formally discredited and disgraced on account of his liberal ideas". But then in his eagerness to mould the 12th-century figure into a Rushdian martyr, he jettisons history and context. In time Ibn Rushd (1126-1198 AD) replied with The Incoherence of the Incoherence, generally regarded as a demolition of al-Ghazali. Yet, it is in this complexity that truths resides.Īl-Ghazali (1058-1111 AD) wrote The Incoherence of the Philosophers, a savage attack on scholars whom he accused of elevating philosophy over theology and reason over revelation. However, you should still feel short-changed that the author has squeezed out most of the ambiguities, contradictions and unexpected elements from the central intellectual debate. The novel may serve to exorcise some of the author's demons, but is it, even with magical-realist trickery and name-play thrown in, enough to sustain the reader? If you can buy into the binary – Enlightenment good, Islamic fundamentalism bad, rationalism good, faith in the supernatural dumb – you may feel some warmth generated by a flush of moral superiority. Surely then, the government instead of seizing their passports should be parachuting legions of willing jihadi brides into the Isis caliphate, accompanied by Tornado jets skywriting "Make Luv not War Bro's.
This curious notion, described by Pankaj Mishra as the "genitals-centric analysis of radical Islam" has fixated Rushdie, Amis, Christopher Hitchens and, of course, Boris Johnson. or at the very least willing sexual partners, they lost interest in suicide belts, bombs and the virgins of heaven". Terrorism "was always of particular attraction to male individuals who were either virgins or unable to find sexual partners … when hopeless young men were provided with loving.
This delight is contrasted with those mortals who practise "extreme violence… terrorism". The jinn (in Rushdie's bawdy world) have incredible sex a dozen times a day. The bad guys are ugly photo-fits for Bin Laden, Isis, barbarism, obscurantism, irrationality, bearded stupid preachers, misogynist inadequates and all those who have it coming to them. The good guys are made from bits of Rushdie's self-image, his post-fatwa persecution and his well-known views on the nature of religion, Islamist terrorism, secularism, freedom of speech and so on. Overall, the novel makes for a rather disquieting read and the feeling of having glimpsed someone's personal revenge fantasy. That may be what the publisher desired, but that is not what Rushdie has written.
#AL GHAZALI BOOKS BURNED FULL#
The book-jacket's blurb invites us to expect something "Satirical and bawdy, full of cunning and folly, rivalries and betrayals, kismet and karma, rapture and redemption". However, Rushdie's style, digressions and pop-culture and literary references, moves us far away from the beauty of the stripped-down storytelling of the classical fables. The book's title signposts us to the One Thousand and One Nights stories.
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