There is such a thing called Diplomacy, if you dont believe in that then there is no way to convince you that in certain cases you refrain from doing something, not because others dictate that to you but because it is to you own advantage

And there is such a thing as called being an ambassador for your country whenever you travel abroad.  For we are in a way.  But we are also free to state what we like and dont like here at home.  And if the Queen is just a higher profile citizen of the UK, then she must also have the same rights as the ordinary citizens. 

Again, it is a matter of degrees, not concepts.  She sets no foreign policy, she is just more renowned than Jake Bull.

I agree with you LW, it seems that TA is basing his opinion on the simple fact that what ever this writer put in his book somehow got some Muslims mad enough to call for his death, yet he has not really bothered (or at least he has not made it seem that he has) to know what exactly was it that bothered them. Instead he took their quest for the mans death as "it must have been that bad" when we all have seen the little things done that have created chaos, death and destruction by Muslims, the cartoons for example.

Actually this does not always hold true. Parliament are those who actually set foreign policy. If they do not agree with what the Queen has said or do doesn't mean that they will change their policy to match her. And only the queen can bestow "knighthood" on someone for whatever reason she so desires. Parliament has no say in that matter. I mean good god, she made Paul McCartney and Elton John knights of the realm. What the hell did "they" do to deserve that?

How's that for sticking to topic?

I am asking you if you have any idea WHY this honor pissed them off. Why the book did. I'm curious to see if you can even begin to understand why this work of fiction was seen by some to be sufficiently egregious to warrant the murder of the author.

it seems that TA is basing his opinion on the simple fact that what ever this writer put in his book somehow got some Muslims mad enough to call for his death,

Ok, Now we can start talking about what the issues are. If You had started that way , i would have answered you. I dont like to start by questioning your knoweldge and i expect the same. Now to the main issue.

First, i assure you that i not only read the book, but also have a background related to what he said and how it impacts Muslims that i doubt you can imagine.

Second, I know first hand how Muslims look at their prophet. I dont Know how much you , Gid and Charles know about that. But from what i hear and read about how most people in the west generally get surprised by Muslims' response to anything negative about their prophet i can say without a boubt that those people have no idea whatsoever how Muslims look at their prophet. I hope you are more informed than most, but from your responses i still can say that you dont appreciate what is involved.

Third, to muslims, Muhammad is a messenger from God. He is the perfect Human. He is Human but perfect. His life and sayings (his "Seerah" which means his life biography) are their "Sunna" (which means, the model for behavior). Not only that, their worship is modeled after how he did it. they even consider people who say Qura'an is the only reference for Islam outside the main stream of Islam (they call it Scholars consensus , Ghama'a in Arabic). Accordingly his sayings are authenticated to a degree that people who are not aware of how it is done can rarely appreciate it. just to give you an idea: out of more than 20,000 sayings, only about 2000 are considered beyound boubt and they are the ones who could be used to judge any action, along with Qura'an of course.

Because of the above, they just dont look at him as others look at their prophets. They dont worship him or treat him other than a perfect human that God sent to them and to the world (and to the Jinns too). But for them, he is the Perfect human Muslim. In other words, for Muslims, insulting him or making fun of him is the same as doing it to Islam. I dont think most of us in the west realize that.

Now to the book and why it is touching such a raw nerve for Muslims.

The background :After long years of trying to discredit Mohammad, Quraish (his tribe in Mecca) decided to compromise with him. They said, acknowledge our highly regarded gods (Idols) Allat, Manat and Uzza and we will acknowledge the God you say HE sent you. Mohammad refused and called a gathering of all the people in Mecca to announce his decision. He told them he will never accept that because Allah is the least in need of a partenership. Quraish looked at these Idols as representative of Allah on Earth. In Fact Quraish, and the Arabs in general at the time, actually believed in Allah. They just didnt believe that he sent Mohammad with Qura'an. And they believed that Those idols are Allah's true representatives on Earth.

While he was talking Archangel Gebraiel came to him and revealed the verses of a whole Sura (Chapter) called Alnajm (The Star).

In this Sura Allah confirms that these verses are coming from Him and Gebraiel is the authorized angel to carry them to mohammad. and in a very poetic way the Sura turns to the highly regarded Idols, saying the following " Did you see Allat And Uzza ?!!!!!", "And Manat the third one?", "You take the males and the females are for Him?!!!!", "This is a lousy way of sharing", "These are names you and your fathers came up with them, Allah never instituted them ..... etc. Just remember that last part.

The surah goes on, in a very emotional way telling them they will suffer the consequences and at the conclusion of the Surah tells them the following (the verses in Arabic are really mesmerising to a point that you can say hypnotizing) : "This is one warning of the initial warnings", "The End is Near", "Nothing reveals it but Allah". Then it finally concludes with this :" From this sayings you are astonished?", "And you laugh and not cry", "And you are in a daze", "Then: Bow to Allah and Worship"

At the moment of hearing that last verse, Every single person present fell to their knees and bowed. Including the non-believeing Quraish. When all got up, the believers and Mohammad himself were astonished to Quraish's action. They thought they became believers.

Quraish realized what they did. It is a physical fact that they Bowed just like Muhammad and his followers. they could not dispute that. What they did is this.(AND THIS IS THE GREAT CONTROVERSY WHERE RUSHDIE INJECTED HIMSLEF WITH HIS NOVEL):

Quraish said they were satisfied with what mohammad said and that is why they Bowed. And what was that? the Muslims asked. Quraish said the following:

They claimed that after the verse where Allat ,Uzza and Manat were mentioned (see above), they heard Mohammad reciting the following : 'They are the Exulted Gharaneeq (means some kind of flying swans i think)', 'Their intercession we wish'.

Muslims denied completely that they ever heard that and Mohammad recited the surah again as it is now in Qura'a which has nothing like that.Actually the Surah declares that they are not anything but names and Allah never institued them or certified them. Scholars debated this issue for a long time. and they said there is a possibility that what Quraish heard were from Satan who made them hear these verses but he was not able to do the same for the believers because God protects His words from Satan manipulations. This View rests on a verse in Qura'an which says " With each prophet Satan tries to intercept Allah's message and inserts his own falsehoods but Allah always protects his message"

Rushdie's playing on that incident presented Muhammad as a possed man who is confused between what Allah reveals and what Satan tells him and actually usued the Quraish verses in his novel.

To Muslims, this by itself is a blasphamy to Allah and his prophet. Add to that that Rushdie used another incident related to the prophets' young wife Aisha in which she was accused of infidelity and was declared innocent by Allah in Qura'an to present her in a way Muslims consider blasphamy as well.

Using these two incidents in particular awakened episodes that muslims consider settled and done with. To start the arguement about them again is a big deal to muslims not unlike the fact that the war in Iraq awakened the rift between Shia and Sunnis that had been, almost, burried centuries ago.

This is , i think enough for now. hope you now have a good idea why Muslims got so upset, and they will always do that whenever anyone insults or ridiculed their prophet.

I mean good god, she made Paul McCartney and Elton John knights of the realm. What the hell did "they" do to deserve that?

Amen to that. I think it degrades the title. or may be i consider it more prestigious than most.

I think you mean LW not Gid. I'm honest when I say I know very little except for what I have seen and read. That alone is enough to tell me that they are very over-protective towards their religion and their prophets. That still does not give them the right to call for death every time someone says something bad about them. I'm sorry dude but I will not spend the rest on my life looking over my shoulder and thinking 10 minutes ahead of time trying to make sure I don't offend Muslims just because they might want to strike me down right then and there. I'm starting to think that Gene Roddenberry got the concept of the Klingon's from the Muslins.

But you know what, TA? I cannot recall a single incident in which any Christian, (leader or laymen) put a price on Dan Brown's head, and promised salvation for whoever killed him.

Very true. and i think i said that before on this thread. People are different and smart people, which i suppose we are, deal with people according to their mentality. not to let others tell us what to do but to use what we know about them to our advantage.

The stories are similar. (Islam and Christianity share more similarities than many realize.) The offense is identical--blasphemy, heresy, apostasy. The presentation of the Divine Prophet (Jesus Christ/Muhammed) in a less than divine light, or in a way incompatible with certain issues decided long ago. (Jesus' divinity was 'decided' at the Council of Nicea, and only those Gospels which supported this were allowed to be included in the new 'official' Bible. The men who decided these things were considered to be divinely inspired, even today.)Only the reaction is different

Again i agree and i know, from talking and dealing with them that Muslims (at least most of them) get upset of what is said about Jesus too. I remember that they even did not permit showing "the Ten Commandment" because just showing a prophet represented by any one is to them an insult to that prophet. They also did not permit any of the movies dealing with jesus. this by the way is done regardless of the movie's content. even if it was a good content. they still say, Prphets are above that. no one have the right to pretend to be them.

the same with dealing with the Bible, even though they say many in the current Bible is not authentic, just because it has many things that they consider authentic, they respect it and honor it and do not allow any disrespect to it. The same with Torah.

True, they dont get up in arms in the same way. but that is due to the fact i dont think you realize how emotional these people are about their prophet. believe it or not, they are not emotional about "Allah" in the same way. Their logic is this: Allah is the God of us all, we dont have a personal claim to him more than anyone else, besides, HE can take care of that himslef. But Mohammad is "our" prophet and we must protect him from these kinds of disregard. Others should do the same with "their" prophets, not our business if they dont. That is their logic.

It doesnt matter what WE think about that. we just have to deal with them with that understanding. If we can use that to our advantage, and if we are smart, we should do that. That is my whole point.

As for grammer and spelling ( and hand writing if you care to know), i am hopeless. Hey, you cant be perfect in everything LW.

You are, i know i know. but there is only one LW in this world. God help humanity, if we get another one

I think you mean LW not Gid. I'm honest when I say I know very little except for what I have seen and read. That alone is enough to tell me that they are very over-protective towards their religion and their prophets. That still does not give them the right to call for death every time someone says something bad about them.

Sorry Charles, and i agree completely with that. They are very over-protective. And by the way most of Muslims, actually all outside Iran, did not agree with that Fatwa. They said discredit Rushdie yes but kill him it is not allowed. But there are fanatics and these are the ones causing all the trouble for us and for the majority of Muslims.

Self-censorship to avoid offense may be a desireable act in your opinion, and in fact, it is the basis of all diplomacy.

Isnt that what i said? I was hoping that the Queen acts with that in mind. that was what my point is all about. But all of a sudden the comments started talking about Free Speech and excusing them and all other things that i never said or implied. But at least finally we cleared that. That is what discussion is all about.

Thanks to all for these lively, informattive and sometimes heated comments.

Do you not see this Knighting as an exercise in free speech? Or do you think the members of the House of Windsor are not entitled to what we Americans see as a God given right to it? Please clarify the exact nature of your problem!

Amazing LW. Did i say they dont have that right? of course they do. I also have the right to say they used that right in the wrong way in the sense it undermines our collective war effort against terrorism. May be others dont think that, but i think so.

It seems to me that you are not able to differentiate between having a right and using (or not using) that right to your advantage. I think i said the following earlier: " Having the right to do something doesnt mean you use it even if it hurts your own cause."

dont i have that right too? why are you objecting to me saying that they are wrong? you think they are not. that is ok. we just disagree on that. not on whether they have that right. Hope that clarifies things for you

I'm sorry TA, I just don't think you quite get it yet. Yes we should be careful sometimes with what we say, but that does not mean we should deprive ourselves of the freedom to say what we think. The same if someone thinks you are a great writer even if one of you books is something a certain group of people find insulting.

I dislike Michael Moore, I dislike how he cherry picks and takes out of context things to prove his point. And even though he has had many awards that I think he did not deserve, I do not take away his right to think that way, to make movies or books about what he thinks and too promote his beliefs. If people are dumb enough to swallow what he says thats their problem.

Wrong way is in the eye of the beholder. So far Muslims who have complained have shown that insults towards their religion is not the only thing that makes them wanna call for death.

Muslims who have complained have shown that insults towards their religion is not the only thing that makes them wanna call for death.

Those who are calling for death are not the ones whom i am talking about. The Muslims who condemned calling for death are the ones i am saying we should understand their sensibilities (even if we disagree with them) if that is to our advantage. How in the world this infringes on anyone's right to write or give awards? please explain that (in bold italics) to me. Explain this point not any other since this is the only thing i am after in the article. having the right is one thing, using or not using it is a right too. isnt it?

Wrong way is in the eye of the beholder.

Very true. and since this war on terror is essentially an ideological war. it is in no way a purely military one. it cant be won that way. The 9/11 commission, The Iraq Study Group and others concluded, correctly, that it is an ideological not a military conflict . Even this Administration, as dumb as it is, recognizes that. if that is the case, the effort to entice the moderate Muslims to our side should be a major objective. Not alienating them is equally a major objective. If you can achieve that by just not declaring your high regard for something they consider insulting, why not do it? If you dont do it, then you dont know how to use diplomacy to your advantage. That is my opinion. Others may differ but that doesnt mean it is wrong.

i will not become Muslim to get the Muslims on our side and that is what you are saying that we have to do.

the Muslims are not concerned about our sensibilities

I am saying that???????

What a strange way of understanding what you read..... !!!!!!!