The Jewel of Medina was written by a journalist called Sherry Jones. It recounts the life of Aisha, a girl who really was married off at the age of six to a 50 year old man called Mohammed ibn Abdallah. On her wedding day, Ayesha was playing on a see-saw outside her home. Inside, she was being betrothed. The first she knew of it was when she was banned from playing out in the street with the other children. When she was nine, she was taken to live with her now-53 year old husband. He had sex with her there and then. When she was fourteen, she was accused of adultery with a man closer to her own age. Not long after, Mohammed decreed his wives must cover their faces and bodies, even though no other women in Arabia did.
You cannot read this story today -- except in the Koran and the Hadith. The man Mohammed ibn Abdallah became known to Muslims as 'the Prophet Mohammed', so our ability to explore this story is stunted. The Jewel of Medina was bought by Random House and primed to be a best-seller -- before a University of Texas teacher saw proofs and declared it "a national security issue." Random House had panicked visions of a rerun Rushdie or MoToons affair. But her publishers have pulped it. It's gone.
More HERE.
No comments:
Post a Comment