Click to play videoNew York: He has been one of the most controversial writers of our times.
But controversy certainly doesn’t seem to stop Salman Rushdie from jumping into the debate raging in the West over the linkages between Islam and extremism.
As he prepares to enter the world of academia from Emory University and plans his next novel and also a possible autobiography, he is also deeply engaged with the issue of militant Islam.
At an event organised by the Center for Inquiry in New York, Rushdie - blunt as always - spoke for nearly 45 minutes on the ongoing debate in America and Western Europe over Islam and terrorism and did not mince his words.
Rushdie called for a reform movement in Islam including a reinterpretation of the Quran to take it away from the "literalists".
“Nobody who reads the text neutrally can avoid the conclusion that it's a bit of a mess. When people like me argue that there's a need for a reform movement inside Islam, it's not just to say, ‘No, we don't want terrorists,’ it's to say in order to unshackle this philosophy from the literalists, literalist chains, we have to create a world in which people can question the first principles, you have to create to world in which people can rethink the core of the text. And until that happens you will have a paralysed culture,” he said.
Rushdie felt the Quran should be viewed in its historical context not simply as the uncreated word of God.
In an exclusive interview to CNN-IBN after his speech, the writer, who lived under a fatwa following the publication of his earlier book The Satanic Verses, went one step ahead of former British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw and declared that the veil oppresses Muslim women.
“I just come from a tradition in the Muslim world of the subcontinent which rejected the veil completely. If you had asked my grandmother to wear a veil, she would probably have hit you. There's no woman I know in India or Pakistan, in my entire acquaintance, who would have been willing to wear a veil. So my view of the veil is it's an antiquated thing which oppresses women. And it seems to be perfectly proper to say so,” he said.
That, of course, wasn't all for the outspoken author. He also said that Pope Benedict XVI need not have apologised for the references to Prophet Mohammed in his speech, which had offended Muslims.
Rushdie argued that "frank" discussion was necessary even if it proved "upsetting" at times, making it obvious that years of living under a fatwa had not mellowed him.
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