Media, God talk, and The Jewel of Medina: The Latest Example of Cultural Incompetency in Pop Culture

If proponents of history and religion stand on the fence when it comes to pop culture, it is because of the tension between religious and/or historical narratives and the liberties taken by the media giants in their manipulation of such narratives. The Jewel of Medina, albeit in its own modest way, is but the latest example of the cultural and historical incompetency of pop culture and its inability to bring us together.

About three months ago, Random House abandoned publication of Sherry Jones’ novel The Jewel of Medina fearing that it might incite a violent reaction in the Muslim world in the manner of Rushdie’s Satanic Verses and the Danish Cartoons Controversy. Thomas Perry, deputy publisher at Random House Publishing Group, said in an interview about the novel that they had received “from credible and unrelated sources, cautionary advice not only that the publication of this book might be offensive to some in the Muslim community, but also that it could incite acts of violence by a small, radical segment.” In the last few weeks, the book and the story of its rejection by prominent publications has increasingly gained press. This piece is an attempt to raise some important concerns about the book and to change the dynamics of the debate surrounding it. I want to start by talking about the book and where it just does history wrong.

Jones’ novel claims to be a work of historical fiction. It tells the story of Aisha the daughter of Abu Bakr and the beloved wife of the Prophet Muhammad beginning with her marriage to him at the age of 9 until the Prophet’s death when she is 18. But what’s historical and what is invented by Jones can only be discerned by one literate in the religious and historical traditions. Whereas historical fiction makes an honest attempt to capture events, characters, and the social context in which the figure(s) lived, Jones relies on her imagination when the chronicles are silent; and in the process, she makes bold and irresponsible revisions to the historical narrative(s). Aisha is refashioned into a modern-day Western feminist, who challenges the norms of Arabian society. She denounces the “purdah,” the practice of polygamy, and traditional views of women as disempowered with all the flare and savviness of a twenty-first-century “feminist.”

Up until her consummation with the Prophet, which Jones says occurred at the age of 14, Aisha is seen as an oversexed, jealous, and fiery young girl. Perhaps to match that temperament, Jones describes her with a marvelous crown of red hair and sultry green eyes. But that’s not all. To entice the reader further, Jones goes on to invent an ongoing love affair (never consummated) between Aisha and Safwan the son of al-Muattal. Taking the controversial story of “The Story of the Slander” (hadith al-ifk) as a point of departure, the novel opens up with an embellished retelling of the story with all the intrigue, sex, lust, and deceit that Jones can muster up. In historical accounts of the incident, Aisha accompanies Muhammad after a victorious battle and leaves camp to relieve herself. She returns only to discover that her necklace has fallen. When she sets out to find it, the caravan leaves and she is left behind. Safwan, who is following the caravan, finds her alone. He has her mount his camel and leads her back to Medina On their return, rumors abound, and some of the locals accuse them of adultery. Aisha’s reputation is ultimately cleared by an act of God, i.e. revelation.

The story, incredibly controversial even in the Muslim tradition, becomes a site for massive editing by Jones. Although little more is known about Safwan in historical accounts, Jones manufactures a complex and stormy love affair between the two beginning with the steamy prologue to the novel and its very first chapter. Safwan and Aisha in Jones’ view apparently have a long history together. As children, they are the best of playmates and childhood sweethearts. Love-struck, Aisha wants to marry Safwan rather than Muhammad, deeming the latter an old man. Even after Aisha’s marriage to Muhammad, Safwan continually appears in the novel, urging Aisha to run off with him, cast aside her sexual inhibitions, and fulfill her fantasies of becoming a Bedouin and/or a woman warrior fighting on behalf of the greater community (umma). The moments Safwan appears are key moments in Aisha’s life, when she is beset by disappointed hopes, a burgeoning sexual drive, and feelings of inadequacy. On the whole, hadith al-ifk is transformed from an empowering story of a woman’s trust and faith in being vindicated by God for her innocence into a conflicted and tumultuous love scene where Aisha, disturbed by the Prophet’s refusal to consummate their marriage (thinking her too young), finds herself alone in the arms of Safwan, a man who clearly desires her and proves to be a willing partner. Consummation is stalled however when young Aisha announces to Safwan that she is still a virgin. The shocking news halts Safwan in his tracks. Afraid that deflowering Aisha will emasculate Muhammad, Safwan withdraws, and the affair is averted.

In Jones’ version, the consummation of Aisha and Muhammad’s marriage eventually ensues but it remains a site for gross misunderstanding between the couple as does her early marriage to him. Aisha’s complaints of being a young girl forced into a marriage against her will with someone she sees as a father figure and her squashed dreams of roaming the desert veil-less eventually receive the audience of the Prophet, only to be followed by the Prophet’s silence, Aisha’s overflowing tears ducts and a shocking fall that leads to a miscarriage. Aisha’s mysterious pregnancy, never mentioned in the history books, is yet another one of Jones’ embellishments to excite reader imagination.

If Oriental harems have been the topic of interest to Western writers and artists for centuries, Jones is no exception. Muhammad’s harem however must fit Jones’ overall vision of Aisha. Jones quickly dismisses the stereotype of the subjugated, silenced woman. If anything, every single one of Muhammad’s wives is characterized as a powerful woman who wields power in her own right. At the same time, competition for the favors and attentions of the Prophet, jealousy, and sexual politics are all important themes of Jones’ harem. And yet, the novel, as the author has maintained, has not one a single, full-blown sex scene. Why all the enticement? A closer look reveals Jones’ agenda. Aisha’s coming of age story is a story about becoming a certain type of woman. It is meant to be provocative and tantalizing insofar as Aisha is a figure who pushes against all sorts of Arabian norms as she tries to climb to the top. Alienated by her sister-wives for her fiery temper, impulsive indiscretions, thoughtless candor, and favored position with the Prophet, Aisha eventually earns the position of “hatun,” or head of the harem. But only when she casts aside her own jealousy and thinks of the desires and aspirations of her sister-wives. Sisterhood and solidarity apparently have the same salience in seventh-century Arabia as they do in the twenty-first-century, and Aisha proves to be a leader in all the ways that would matter to a modern-day Western “feminist.”

Angry, bored, and impoverished, Muhammad’s wives are disenchanted with life with the most powerful man of the Hijaz. Aisha however proves indispensible in injecting vibrancy, femininity, and empowerment into the harem. She concocts an entrepreneurial scheme to put the wives to work, empower them with wealth, and offer an important service to the community as coiffeurs, henna-artists, wedding dress designers, and make-up artists, each sister-wife taking up a specific role. But before money can pour into the harem, Umar, the famous Companion of the Prophet and the second caliph of the Muslim Empire, hears of their enterprise, steps in, and squashes their efforts.

Known for his severity in religious affairs and in gender relations, Jones’ Umar is an uncompromising sexist who beats up women. He is a brute who at one point in the novel raises his hand to Aisha; not to be intimidated by any man, Aisha faces him defiantly. The scene is further dramatized by the entrance of the Prophet who knows nothing of his wives’ activities and sees the whole scheme as a blow to his reputation. Not having been consulted, he is upset, and his wives proceed to complain of their lack of suitable clothes and their impoverished states. Aisha ends the scene by telling Muhammad he has transformed from a “liberator of women into an oppressor of them.” On the whole, this is the worst Muhammad fares. Overall, Jones depicts him generally as a gentle man and a shrewd politician, who has albeit a tough time pleasing his wives.

But if Umar and occasionally Muhammad are disparaged, then no less than Ali, the cousin and son-in-law of the Prophet and the fourth caliph of the Muslim Empire. Seen as Aisha’s nemesis from the onset, Ali is portrayed as insanely jealous of Aisha; moreover, his harsh and severe exchanges with her and his schemes to be the next caliph results in a gross caricature of a complex historical figure and an injustice to a rich historical narrative. But Jones’ desire for a sequel is not to be underestimated. One of the last few scenes of the book foreshadows the Sunni-Shi’a split as al-Abbas, the Prophet’s uncle (implicating the Abbasids) and Ali (implicating the Shi’a) secretly bury the Prophet so that Abu Bakr cannot lead his funeral prayer and wield the authority associated with that position. Jones’ reading back of history through the Sunni-Shi’a split is yet another instance of her blatant anachronism and incompetency. Moreover, the novel is deeply problematic because where it is history, it is completely selective and subjective, leaning towards one version of history.

But why all the clamor you ask? I mean bad literature is just bad literature isn’t it? It shouldn’t sell. Well, the sad fact is in a post 9/11 world where Islam is a burgeoning market and bad books on Islam abound, bad literature does sell, and it educates people in all the wrong ways. If it didn’t, why would the Obama Nation be the number one book on the New York Times Bestseller List? As Americans, we are living in a time where cultural competency and self-definition must go hand-in-hand. As a nation, we boast of freedoms that our human brethren simply do not share. Our freedom of speech is one of our most important freedoms and this piece is not intended to say that it is not or that it should be dismissed. Instead like all freedoms, it should be exercised responsibly. We often forget that in the age of the internet, the world is small and growing smaller, and this book for all its value-laden judgments and gross inaccuracies may have far-ranging effects amongst an international readership who (1) is simply illiterate in this literature and in the throes of religious and ethnic conflicts where such texts fuel the fire rather than build bridges and (2) ascribe to the Muslim faith and would find Jones’ revisions insulting, inflammatory, and a gross misrepresentation of their traditions.

This novel is just another instance of cultural incompetency, where popular culture is trying to tap into the new market of Islam. If at least 40 percent of Americans claim they read the Bible at least once a day — then no doubt, religion sells. Why should you care as a reader? Well, if more and more people are relying on popular culture as a source for religious literacy, then it matters. Similarly, if in the post-9/11 world, Islam sells, and more and more people are relying on pop culture as a source for Islamic literary, then it matters. Sherry Jones is just the latest example of someone trying to jump on the bandwagon and sell a fantastic story. Let’s not get distracted and reduce this move by Random House into censorship, terrorism, and fear. Our administration does that enough. The fact is Jones got the narrative all wrong. Should it be published? No, it’s going to anger people and for all the right reasons.

Publishers if you take on Jones’ book, then a lot of challenges lie ahead, the worst of which one cannot know. This is about incompetence and accuracy in a time when America needs to re-engage the hearts and minds of a global world and emerge as a pioneer and leader. Some Americans may see this as another opportunity to defend our freedom of the speech absolutely, without even reading the book. There are people on stand-by to do so. But people in other parts of the world will see this as just another example of Americans misinterpreting their traditions for an exploitative purpose. It will cause anger and further aggravate and alienate people against America. And then we’ll ask the question: Why do they hate us and our freedom? What happens next is an old cycle that we have already lived through. This novel, for all its literary worth or lack thereof, will be defended and paraded around as representative of America’s Freedom of Speech. It may even win the Nobel Prize for Literature. And for the unfortunate amongst us, we will once again be pulled into another debate ad nauseum to defend a book that just doesn’t make the cut. It’s time to sing a different tune and to reconsider our freedoms more responsibly in a world where information and access to information is instantaneous. In a world where people in Jakarta, Madrid, Stockholm, Medina, New York City, Costa Rica, Damascus, and Delhi all drive down the same information highway (accessing websites, blogs, podcasts, youtube videos, et al.), where anyone can publish anything, we need to be cultural ambassadors and make more culturally competent and historically sound arguments, especially when writing about other peoples’ history. It is also best to be mindful that American values are hardly homogenous much less representative of the values of other cultures and histories. We live in such times when popular culture should bring us together by producing culturally literate peoples not burn more bridges.

As an American, a historian, and a person of color, this novel is offensive to me because of what it does to our notions of accurate representations of history. And in this, I side with the likes of Denise Spellberg, a learned historian who has already spoken out on the historical inaccuracy and the inflammatory content of the novel. In a time when we are literally rewriting our classroom textbooks so that they represent not just the plights of African Americans, the atrocity of the slave trade, and the Holocaust in an even-handed way, but also the rich cultures and histories of the rest of the world, it shocks me to see a novel like this try to pass itself off as historical fiction. And it further disappoints me that we as Americans are not informing the ongoing debate about freedom of speech with attention to competency, accuracy, and a global audience, an audience that does not necessarily espouse our homegrown values.

As a feminist and a Muslim, I am shocked by Jones seamless and monolithic narrative of what empowers women. Her rejection of aspects of my faith with the stroke of her pen makes me shudder. That she set out to write this novel as part of the feminist project and vindicate the Prophet Muhammad as a feminist alarms me deeply and speaks to the widening disconnect between our attempts to build bridges and deepen solidarity across all lines and reality. Have we learned nothing from the waves of feminism that beset this country in the last two centuries? Did we not realize that the feminist project had to be as inclusive and as diverse as possible such that it could speak to the deepest desires and aspirations of all women, irrespective of color, race, religious affiliation, and sexual orientation?

As a Sunni, I am utterly offended by the narratives that Jones has adopted and her racy and scheming depictions of historical figures, her invention of inflammatory scenes, particularly those related to Ali and Umar, both venerated figures to me and my religious tradition.

As a woman who has completed higher education in American, British, and Arabic literature and boasts of a great love for literature, I chime in with Asra Nomani that literature moves civilizations forward and that Muslims have a rich and sophisticated literary heritage. But I have yet to see how Jones’ The Jewel of Medina brings “Islamic history to life in a uniquely captivating and humanizing way.” I wonder if Jones’ characterization of Aisha is merely intended to make her more palatable to a Western audience. If so, then even on that front, I have no doubt that Sherry Jones has failed the feminist project.