EmailThe lawyer who was threatened by terrorists whilst acting for Salman Rushdie has said that Random House US should pay "substantial compensation" to Sherry Jones, whose novel about Muhammad's child bride Aisha was dropped by the publisher over fears it could provoke terrorist attacks. Jones's The Jewel of Medina was described as potentially more controversial than both Rushdie's novel The Satanic Verses and the Danish newspaper cartoons of Muhammad.
Geoffrey Robertson QC, whose latest book The Tyrannicide Brief is published by Random House US and who was under terrorist threat whilst acting for Rushdie, said: "We can't be overcritical of American publishers for cowering under terrorist threats. After all, the Guardian, like every other British newspaper, lacked the gumption to publish the Danish cartoons. But all who care about free speech have a duty to make this sort of censorship counterproductive. Random House should pay this author substantial compensation, and the book should be placed on a website so everyone can read it."
The Jewel of Medina was due to be published by Random House US on August 12, but the publisher dropped the book after consultations with academics and security experts suggested that it "might be offensive to some in the Muslim community, but also that it could incite acts of violence by a small, radical segment". The move has provoked a storm of controversy across the internet, with some bloggers calling on readers to boycott Random House, and others criticising Jones for "insulting the Prophet".
In a statement, Random House said: "We stand firmly by our responsibility to support our authors and the free discussion of ideas, even those that may be construed as offensive by some. However, a publisher must weigh that responsibility against others that it also bears, and in this instance we decided, after much deliberation, to postpone publication for the safety of the author, employees of Random House Inc, booksellers and anyone else who would be involved in distribution and sale of the book." When Rushdie's The Satanic Verses was published in 1988, attempts were made on the lives of his Norwegian and Italian publishers, and the Japanese translator of the novel was killed.
Jones said she did not believe there was any risk involved in publishing the book. "Frankly I'm more afraid of global warming than of terrorist attacks," she said. "I did expect my book would be controversial, just because I'm a pink woman writing about a culture that was not my own and a religion that is not my own … [but] my aim was not to provoke, it was to portray the difficulty of being a woman in that era, and to portray this wonderful heroine who overcame obstacles to become a prominent figure in Islam."
The first person narrative details the life of Aisha, one of Muhammad's wives, from the age of six until 18 when Muhammad dies. Aisha is portrayed as a spirited young woman, distressed by being put into purdah aged six, and keen to be treated as equal to men. "I pulled myself up to my windowsill and peered into the stars, imagining they were the one thousand and one eyes of al-Lah. When He looked at me, what did He see? Inferiority, a shrunken soul, a light that shone more feebly than that of a man? Or did He see what I felt - a bright burning, like the bush He'd inhabited the day He'd revealed Himself to Moses?"
Jones skirts around the edges of Aisha's sexual relationship with Muhammad without going into graphic details. "This was the beginning of something new, something terrible. Soon I would be lying on my bed beneath him, squashed like a scarab beetle, flailing and sobbing while he slammed himself against me. He would not want to hurt me, but how could he help it? It's always painful the first time." The author compared the novel, which was described as "soft core pornography" by one academic, to works such as Anita Diamant's The Red Tent, which retells the story of the rape of Dinah from Genesis chapter 34. "My portrayal of Muhammad is extremely respectful, and of the origins of Islam is very accurate and respectful," she said. "Muhammad says in the Koran that he was a mortal. I assume he did all the things a man does. He had 12 wives – I'm sure he had sex with them."
She said she was hopeful of finding a new publisher shortly. "I'm glad the story has come out because now any publisher who takes it on will do so with eyes wide open. I'm hoping to find someone who is as passionate as I am and my agent is."
Publisher Andrew Franklin, director of Profile Books, said that Random House should not have been deterred from publishing by imagined threats of Islamic extremism. "It's absolutely shocking. They are such cowards," he said. Franklin pointed to Penguin's publication of The Satanic Verses in 1988. "I think Penguin acted with great integrity," said Franklin, who was working for Penguin at the time. "They behaved as any publisher in the west should do, and upheld freedom of publication and freedom of speech. They stuck by their guns at not inconsiderable risk to their senior executives. These are the principles we should live and die by."
