Serbia: 'Jewel of Medina' withdrawn, Muslims not satisfied

The Islamic Community in Serbia said on Monday it was not satisfied with the withdrawal of Sherry Jones' novel, The Jewel of Medina, from the country's bookshops.


Referring to the book released by Belgrade publisher Beobuk three weeks ago, the organisation's leader Muamer Zukorlic said it was "offensive to Muslims" and demanded all of the published copies be handed in.


He also called for director Aleksandar Jasic to repent for what he had done.


After an initial complaint from the Islamic community, Jasic apologised saying the company "had no intention of insulting Muslims in Serbia" and announced the book would not be available in any bookstore in the country.


But Zukorlic said on Monday that this was not enough.


"Jasic needs to sincerely repent because of the incident he caused," Zukorlic said.


Zukorlic has already compared The Jewel of Medina with the Mohammed cartoon controversy in Denmark.


The Danish cartoons, deemed offensive to Islam, led to worldwide protests when they were first printed in September 2005.


"Obviously someone wishes to join the ranks of those who produced the cartoons in Denmark several years ago and it is an insult to all Muslims of the world, especially for us here in Serbia," said Mufti Zukorlic.


The book was due to have a world premier in Serbia, since its US publisher decided against selling the book fearing the reaction of radical Muslims.


Jasic explained that Macedonia, Croatia, Spain and France had also bought the rights for the book.


The novel is a love story about the life of Aisha, the seventh wife of the Islam prophet Mohammed, and follows her life from her betrothal to the prophet when she was six-years-old.


According to the novel, Aisha was Mohammed's favourite wife and he died in her arms.


Source: AKI (English)

10 comments:

FreeSpeech said...

Has the Mufti ever seen the cartoons?

Daphne said...

Seen them? They drew them.

Ahmed Akkari, a Muslim immigrant to Denmark - described by some as one of the 'lying imams' who added fake Muhammad cartoons to the original set in order to stir up resentment and violence in the Middle East - has been saved by the same degenerate and godless Westerners he attacked. He and his family have been evacuated from Lebanon by the same Danish embassy burned by rioters.

http://atheism.about.com/od/danishcartoonsofmuhammad/Danish_Cartoons_of_Muhammad_Free_Speech_vs_Submission_to_Religion.htm

Qualis Rex said...

Wow. Since when do Serbs cow-tow to Mohammedans? I thought Serbs were the last people Mohammedans would want to provoke, especially on their own "turf".

Anonymous said...

That is so ridiculous. I've said many times before how important it is to 'provoke' Muslims (by living our lives as we always have) into accepting free speech or going back to countries without freedom of speech or freedom of the press. That said, from what I've read about 'Jewel of Medina' it does not sound inflammatory at all, and if anything it paints Aisha as an intelligent, respectable woman, when in reality she was a perpetually 6-year-old retard who never had an independent thought in her life even during the time which in remotely intelligent people would be referred to as one's 'formative period,' and who never learned to read despite having 44 years after Perv Mo died to sit on her butt, cloistered in a harem behind a curtain, with nothing to do, and who let goats run around in her bedroom so they could eat her precious Koran. Tactful chick.

Randon House has refused to publish the book. Their UK website has this disclaimer (http://www.randomhouse.co.uk/Clarification_Statement.pdf):

"Clarification statement from Random House Group UK about The Jewel of Medina by Sherry Jones
Further to recent media reports about a novel called The Jewel of Medina by Sherry Jones, Random House UK would like to make clear that the title was never acquired for release in the UK.

It was due to be published by Random House Inc US which has different publishing lists to
the UK-based company. Random House UK has no detailed knowledge of the book nor any influence over its US release status.
For Random House Inc US media enquiries please contact:
Carol Schneider: cschneider@randomhouse.com"

So if you want to stand up for freedom of speech write Random House UK at emarketing@randomhouse.co.uk and Random House US at this website with the proper form for doing so: http://www.randomhouse.com/about/faq/index.php?ToDo=contact

Let them know whose side you think they're on in the war between civilization and barbarity, literacy and ignorance, equality and supremacy, democracy and despotism, the 21st century and Dark-Age Arabia, culture and cultural genocide. It worked two weeks ago with Tyson Foods when they had to turn off their phones and fire their union for appeasing Muslims at the expense of American values and traditions.

Esther said...

Hi jdamn13,

I really don't think Tyson Foods 'caved in' to pressure. They just rephrased what they had agreed to before.

Anonymous said...

Hi Esther,

They fired their union. They had taken away Labor Day and given workers the Eid festival off. Now all employees have Labor Day off, they only have the Eid off this year, and they still have their one personal holiday that they always had. But they had to give their employess an extra holiday this year for a total of 9 days, when every other year they had/will have only 8 holidays including their personal holiday and the Eid will not be one of the holidays in the future: http://michellemalkin.com/2008/08/08/tyson-foods-reinstates-labor-day-holiday/ . The firing of the union came after this move but it received less coverage.

Esther said...

Hi jdamn13,

1. I think the 'personal holiday' is an addition.


Beginning in calendar year 2009, a worker who does not observe Eid
al-Fitr will have the option of selecting another day as a paid
Personal Day at their discretion.
(source)

2. Even it wasn't, the employees work labor day anyway. So from the employees' point of view, what is the big change now that they 'got' labor day back? (source)

Nothing changed, everybody is happy.

Esther said...

Also, do you have a source for the 'firing their union' story?

I think every company would love to fire its unions. This is not something that's really up to the company.

BENGAL UNDER ATTACK said...

Serbia and Europe should fear Islam implode on them. France & Germany did not support the US war on Iraq because of its ethnic 10% Islamic population. A far great danger lurks though.

http://bengalunderattack.blogspot.com/2008/11/900-growth-of-islamic-population.html

P-nut said...

It's so sad that people allow these cave dwellers to intimidate then into silence. Islam is a joke.