Rushdie's Dastan-E-Dilruba: The Satanic Verses as Rushdie's Love Letter to Islam

Jussawalla, Feroza

doi:10.1353/dia.1996.0006

Cited by 20 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 8 publications

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“…Although in his non-fi ction published after 11 September 2001, Rushdie seems to defend the most dominant stereotypes of Islam, 16 in his novel, The Satanic Verses, he exposes the power of description, most notably, through Saladin's transformation into a devil: he is the literal product of hegemonic stereotyping. Moreover, as Feroza Jussawalla proposes, the novel can be understood as Rushdie's "love letter to Islam", 17 or be defi ned, as Sara Suleri suggests, as a "deeply Islamic" book. 18 Although in his recent political writings, Rushdie seems to align himself with the project of exclusive Western visibility, his fi ction, with its novelistic dialogicity and its multiple catoptric splits, unsettles the monologic nature of this voice and demonstrates that Islam can be an idea that is capable of compromises, even when it is strong.…”

Section: Urban Di-versifi Cationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“Turn Your Watch Upside Down in Bombay and You See the Time in London”: Catoptric Urban Configurations in Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses

Parashkevova¹

2007

The Journal of Commonwealth Literature

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This article reassesses the counter-discursive signifi cance of the urban problematic in Rushdie's The Satanic Verses. It argues that cities in the text unsettle the ideas of historical fi xity and geographical location by continually reconfi guring each other and that urban spatialities and temporalities and urban identities are di-versifi ed, rearticulated and displaced through the production of "satanic", or erosive, migrant verses, spells and stories that undermine offi cial metropolitan narratives. Such di-versifi cations involve strategies that I have termed "catoptric" (from "catoptrics", a term which designates the study of images and light) in order to encompass a variety of mirror effects and illusions and the ways in which they bear on subjectivities, cartographic discourse and travel. Like Lewis Carroll's Alice, Rushdie's characters cross and thus subvert a number of looking-glass frontiers. These catoptric itineraries compromise the concepts of origin, teleological directionality and cultural purity and have cities refl ect each other in new ways.

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Section: Urban Di-versifi Cationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“Turn Your Watch Upside Down in Bombay and You See the Time in London”: Catoptric Urban Configurations in Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses

Parashkevova¹

2007

The Journal of Commonwealth Literature

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“…The answer is a resounding yes. The stories and the tales of the Arabian Nights seem to flow through his veins and flow out of the “tap” of stories, as is witnessed by the layer upon layer of stories of the Prophet's life and adventures Rushdie tells in The Satanic Verses ” (Jussawalla 1996, 67).…”

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confidence: 99%

Teaching Biblical Hermeneutics Through Salman Rushdie's Haroun and the Sea of Stories

Gilmour

2009

Teaching Theology & Religion

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For many students, the transition from noncritical to critical reading of the Bible is a difficult one. They readily assume that the "Book of Life" is in some sense not a book at all. This deeply ingrained habit of thinking of scripture as something distinct from other writings can make it hard for them to take hold of scholarly opinion and analytical tools used for interpretation, particularly those that explore facets of the composition history and literary dimensions of the biblical writings. Their appeal to belief in divine inspiration and the tendency to minimize the human processes behind the biblical text runs counter to the emphases of my hermeneutics course, where we consider such matters as the sources biblical authors build on, evidence of their editorial activities, and the rhetorical strategies they employ. For those unaccustomed to approaching the sacred text with attention to artfulness and design, this requires a significant shift in thinking.The perennial challenge I face, teaching in a relatively conservative environment, is introducing students to the wide world of biblical criticism without making light of their cherished, sometimes long-held presuppositions. What follows are reflections on one approach to teaching in such an environment that students (so they tell me) enjoy, one that serves as a buffer as they try to make sense of old and new ways of looking at the Bible.I now incorporate a range of creative writings into my course syllabus. If there are concepts of biblical interpretation that I can illustrate with the aid of a noncanonical, relatively modern writing, I discuss that text first (usually briefly). In this way students can observe, for instance, ways writers integrate and rewrite sources, follow and adapt literary conventions, develop plot and characters, and construct arguments that will recommend particular conclusions for their readers. We discuss such literary concerns in these non-canonical texts before we examine analogous phenomena in the biblical text. The possibilities for this kind of comparative work are endless and allow for study of class material in a relatively innocuous way. To introduce this pedagogical strategy, I begin with two short anecdotes that illustrate how the integration of fiction contributes to lectures on literary critical issues. The first example concerns genre analysis, and the second involves source and redaction criticism of the Gospels.First, I encounter predictable responses from students accustomed to reading the stories of the Bible as literal when I propose that the Book of Jonah is a parable. They balk at the idea, hearing in such a claim a denial that miracles occur. A similarly negative reaction follows the suggestion that Jesus' story about Lazarus and Dives is parabolic, as opposed to a literal account of postmortem existence (Luke 16:19-31). The challenge here, is convincing students that fiction IN THE CLASSROOMUsing Media To Teach Theory

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‘Of What Fusions, Translations, Conjoinings Is It Made?’: Intertexts and Questions of Tradition

Smale¹

2001

Salman Rushdie

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Rushdie's Dastan-E-Dilruba: The Satanic Verses as Rushdie's Love Letter to Islam

Cited by 20 publications

References 8 publications

“Turn Your Watch Upside Down in Bombay and You See the Time in London”: Catoptric Urban Configurations in Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses

“Turn Your Watch Upside Down in Bombay and You See the Time in London”: Catoptric Urban Configurations in Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses

Teaching Biblical Hermeneutics Through Salman Rushdie's Haroun and the Sea of Stories

‘Of What Fusions, Translations, Conjoinings Is It Made?’: Intertexts and Questions of Tradition

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