Paranoid Muslims are the problem, says Rushdie

Author argues that Islam must be depoliticised
Salman Rushdie, who fell foul of Islamic fundamentalism over his book The Satanic Verses, today identifies "paranoid Islam" as one of the prime factors in the war being waged against Afghanistan and Osama bin Laden.

Rushdie, writing in today's Guardian, says the US president, George Bush, and the prime minister, Tony Blair, are wrong when they insist the war in Afghanistan is not a war against Muslims but against terrorism.

"Let's start calling a spade a spade. Of course, this is 'about Islam'," he says. He describes the view of Islam held by the vast number of Muslim men as "jumbled" and "half-examined".

He criticises Islamist fundamentalists found in Egypt, Algeria, Iran and Afghanistan: "This paranoid Islam, which blames outsiders, 'infidels', for all the ills of Muslim societies and whose proposed remedy is the closing of those societies to the rival project of modernity, is presently the fastest-growing version of Islam in the world."

The late Iranian leader, the Ayatollah Khomeni, issued the fatwa against Rushdie in 1989. The fatwa meant he was potentially a target to be killed by any Muslim and required a bodyguard. As part of the restoration of diplomatic relations between Britain and Iran, the fatwa was lifted four years ago.

Rushdie says he does not accept the present war is as simple as the west versus Islam because the Islamists are opposed not only to the west and "the Jews" but to their fellow Islamists. He cites the antipathy between the Taliban and Iran.

But some Muslims question this fundamentalist form of Islam, Rushdie writes, and he calls for those moderate Muslims who favour trying to reconcile Islam and the modern world to be encouraged. "The only aspect of modernity in which the terrorists are interested is technology, which they see as a weapon that can be turned against its makers. If terrorism is to be defeated, the world of Islam must take on board the secularist-humanist principles on which the modern is based, and without which their countries' freedom will remain a distant dream."

Mr Bush and Mr Blair have so far failed in their attempts to avoid the war being portrayed as being against Muslims. Politicians and the media in the Arab and Muslim world portray it as a battle against them.

Rushdie says: "If this isn't about Islam, why the worldwide Muslim demonstrations in support of Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida? Why did those 10,000 men armed with swords and axes mass on the [Pakistan-Afghanistan] frontier, answering some mullah's call to jihad?"

Other examples were the three British Muslims killed fighting for the Taliban, and Imran Khan, the Pakistan politician and former cricketer, demanding to be shown proof of Bin Laden's guilt.

Rushdie asks: "Why all the talk about US military infidels desecrating the sacred soil of Saudi Arabia if some sort of definition of what is sacred is not at the heart of the present discontents?"