From The Sunday Times
September 28, 2008
Muslim gang firebombs publisher of Allah novel, Martin Rynja
Scotland Yard's counter-terrorist command yesterday foiled an alleged plot by Islamic extremists to kill the publisher of a forthcoming novel featuring sexual encounters between the Prophet Muhammad and his child bride.
Early yesterday armed undercover officers arrested three men after a petrol bomb was pushed through the door of the north London home of the book’s publisher.
The Metropolitan police said the target of the assassination plot, the Dutch publisher Martin Rynja, had not been injured.
The suspected terror gang was being followed by undercover police and the fire was quickly put out after the fire brigade smashed down the front door.
The foiled terrorist attack recalled the death threats and uproar 20 years ago following the publication of Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses, and the worldwide protests that followed the publication in a Danish newspaper in 2005 of cartoons deemed offensive to Islam, in which more than 100 people died.
Security officials believe Rynja was targeted for assassination because his firm, Gibson Square, is preparing to publish a romantic novel about Aisha, child bride of the Prophet Muhammad. The Jewel of Medina, by the first-time American author Sherry Jones, describes an imaginary sex scene between the prophet and his 14-year-old wife.
It was withdrawn from publication in America last month after its publisher there, Random House, said it feared a violent reaction by “a small radical segment” of Muslims. It said “credible and unrelated sources” had warned that the book could incite violence.
Random House reacted after Islamic scholars objected to its contents, saying it treated the wife of the Prophet as a sex object. One of them, Denise Spellberg, of the University of Texas at Austin, described the novel as “soft-core pornography”, referring to a scene in which Muhammad consummates his marriage to Aisha. She called it “a declaration of war” and a “national security issue”.
At the time, her warnings were dismissed by the author. “Anyone who reads the book will not be offended,” said Jones. “I wrote the book with the utmost respect for Islam.” However, Jones admitted receiving death threats after the book was withdrawn.
Yesterday, Natasha Kern, Jones’s agent, said she was shocked to learn of the attack.
“I honestly believe that if people read the book they will see it is not disrespectful of Muhammad, and moderate Muslims will not be offended. I don’t want anyone to risk their lives but we could never imagine that there would be some madmen who would do something like this. I’m so sad about this act of terrorism. Moderate Muslims will suffer because of a few radicals.”
The Jewel of Medina is due to be published next month. more
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Firebomb attack on book publisher
Firm had bought rights to a controversial novel about the Prophet Muhammad's child bride
Author Sherry Jones explains why Random House Publishing canceled her book on the prophet Muhammad's first wife, The Jewel of Medina. Photograph: James Snook/ AP
The London home of the publisher of a controversial new novel that gives a fictionalised account of the Prophet Muhammad's relationship with his child bride, Aisha, was firebombed yesterday, hours after police had warned the man that he could be a target for fanatics.
A petrol bomb is believed to have been thrown through the door of Martin Rynja's £2.5m town house in Islington's Lonsdale Square, which also doubles as the headquarters of his publishing company, Gibson Square. Three men have been arrested on terrorism charges.
Written by US journalist Sherry Jones, the book was due to have been published in August by US giant Random House. But amid controversy the company halted publication, a move denounced by Salman Rushdie, author of The Satanic Verses, as 'censorship by fear'.
Rynja bought the UK publishing rights earlier this month. 'The Jewel of Medina has become an important barometer of our time,' Rynja said at the time. 'As an independent publishing company, we feel strongly that we should not be afraid of the consequences of debate.'
The book, despite being described by one critic as 'a rarity in Islamic-themed literature: an attempt by a Western woman to fictionalise the personal life of the Prophet and to bring to a wider audience one of the great feminist heroines of the Middle East', has attracted criticism. One sex scene has been described as 'softcore pornography' by an American academic, Denise Spellberg, an influential professor of Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Texas.
Spellberg made the comments after Random House sent her the book hoping for a favourable comment to publish on its jacket. Instead, in an email that was leaked to the US press, Spellberg described the novel as a 'very ugly, stupid piece of work'.
'I don't have a problem with historical fiction,' Spellberg wrote. 'I do have a problem with the deliberate misinterpretation of history. You can't play with a sacred history and turn it into softcore pornography.'
It appears Spellberg was instrumental in drawing attention to the book among segments of the Muslim community. In April, Shahed Amanullah, an editor of a popular Muslim website, claimed Spellberg had told him the book 'made fun of Muslims and their history'.
The resulting furore prompted Random House to pull the book, a move that dismayed its author, who received a $100,000 advance. 'To claim that Muslims will answer my book with violence is pure nonsense,' Jones told a German newspaper last month. 'Anyone who reads the book will see that it honours the Prophet and his favourite wife.'
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