Muslims must respond rationally to Rushdies knighting

Muslims must respond rationally to the conferring of a knighthood on Indian-born author Salman Rushdie, speakers at an academic discussion held here, said.

Lahore, July 2 : Muslims must respond rationally to the conferring of a knighthood on Indian-born author Salman Rushdie, speakers at an academic discussion held here, said.

Speakers at the discussion titled 'What is Satanic in Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses?' called upon the Muslim youth to conduct an academic research to give a logical response to such issues and to dispel the false attributions made to Islam and its Prophet.

"Muslim scholars must give a rational response to the blasphemous book (authored by Rushdie) by logical argumentation to expose its malicious contents," said Dr Riffat Hassan, Executive Director of the Iqbal International Institute for Research, Education and Dialogue (IRED), which organised the discussion.

She said that Muslim youth must understand the important aspects of the book such as its structure, themes, language and the reason of its universal condemnation by Muslims.

"Despite giving an emotionally intense reaction, Muslims have made little effort to refute the distortion of facts by the author," the Daily Times quoted her as saying.

Calling the book a deliberate attempt to provoke Muslims, Hassan said it was the duty of Muslim scholars to present the true picture of Islam.

Pointing out that Rushdie had been a student of history at Cambridge University and was well aware of the history of Islam, she said the novel's contents and characters were not fictional as claimed by the author.

"He intentionally distorted facts pretending that whatever was said in the book was a fantasy and that his characters, especially Mahound, had nothing to do with Islam or its Prophet," she added.

Columnist Eraj Zakaria and Professor Naveed Shahzad, the dean of Faculty of Liberal Arts at Beaconhouse National University, also spoke on the occasion.

ANI