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Table of Contents

Societal pathogens: Interplay of Western capitalism and conservative Islam in Salman

Rushdie's “The Prophet's Hair”

1. Introduction……………………………………………………………………….2

2. Rushdie's Capitalist Critique: A Societal Immunodeficiency ………………..2

3. Rushdie's Islam: Opportunistic Infection in the Absence of Reason …..…...3

4. Conclusion…………………………………………………………………….…..3

5. Works Cited…………………………………………………………………….…4

6. Plagiatserklärung………………………………………………………………....5
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1. Introduction

Within the world of literature, Salman Rushdie has acquired renown for relentlessly

pushing the boundaries of political and religious satire. This endeavour can be traced

throughout his critically acclaimed œuvre of fictional writing, which belongs to the

genre of magical realism. Fairytale as they may be, his short stories are designed not

to provide an escapist refuge into an alternate universe of the unfathomable, but

instead, as he himself suggests, methodologically used to lend expressiveness to his

social criticism (Slen 00:28:10 - 00:28:35). More recently, in the light of the attacks on

the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, Rushdie reaffirmed his views and voiced that

“religions, like all other ideas, deserve criticism, satire, and . . . our fearless disrespect”

(Feeney 1). However, much of the secondary literature on Rushdie almost exclusively

addresses his religious jibes, often “dramatizing the charges of blasphemy levied

against Rushdie” (Adkins 13). We therefore run into the danger of neglecting to

appreciate the well-balanced criticism of societal doctrines of both Eastern and

Western origin that Rushdie gives voice to.

“The Prophet's Hair”, a short story exemplary of Rushdie’s magical realism,

reading like a fable from “One Thousand and One Nights”, therefore allows us to

examine Rushdie's portrayal of the negative compounded interplay of both cultural

domains. In his short story, the British Indian novelist brews a volatile concoction of

blind religious fanaticism and unenlightened pseudo-rationalism, thereby suggesting

their pathogenic potential. He does this by examining the myriad of dire social

ramifications on social constructs that, according to him, pertain to the set of beliefs

of Eastern conservative Islam and Western capitalism.

2. Rushdie's Capitalist Critique: A Societal Immunodeficiency

There is a yawning gap between poverty and wealth in the sickly dystopian

textual microcosm that Rushdie's characters move in, which causes a void of morality
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and is unmistakably evocative of Brecht's Marxist “Three Penny Opera” motif: “First

food, then morals”.

Hashim’s agency in the market fundamentalist practice of chrematistics inflicts

partially hidden damage that presents itself in the form of the precarious financial

situation of his clients and an overly labile family construct.

The patriarch’s unquenchable pleonexia, that is the endless proliferation of his

possessions, admiration of Western capitalism and pseudo-rationalism, provides a

nourishing petri dish environment for the outbreak of his rapid religious radicalisation.

3. Rushdie's Islam: Opportunistic Infection in the Absence of Reason

Single ownership of the religious relic precipitates the harmful mutation of a

mind already not able to reason clearly and later culminates in a violent slapstick

catastrophe.

In Rushdie’s short story, the Prophet’s Hair “fulfills a metaphysical need”

(Almond 1142) in Hashim and becomes the ultimate item of idolatry within his

collection of quasi-cultic paraphernalia, thus “bundling capitalism together with faith

as . . . belief systems” (1141-1142)

4. Conclusion

Rushdie's short story features poignant satire on neoliberalism that is also prevalent

and equally unheeded in many other works of his. In “The Prophet's Hair”, he clearly

conducts a surreal in vitro experiment of two equally destructive forces. It is therefore

not only an outspoken criticism of indiscriminate political and religious ideologies, but

also, and maybe even more importantly so, a scornful reproach of the “outrage-culture

refrain “satire: can it go too far?” (Adkins 15).

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Works Cited

Adkins, Alexander. “Neoliberalism, Moralism, and Critique in Salman

Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses.” Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction, vol. 58, no.

1, Apr. 2016, pp. 12–27., doi:10.1080/00111619.2016.1144556.

Almond, Ian. “Mullahs, Mystics, Moderates and Moghuls: The Many Islams of

Salman Rushdie.” ELH, vol. 70, no. 4, 2003, pp. 1137–1151. JSTOR, JSTOR,

www.jstor.org/stable/30029916.

Feeney, Nolan. “Salman Rushdie Says ‘I Stand With Charlie Hebdo’ After Paris

Attack.” Time, 7 Jan. 2015, time.com/3657541/charlie-hebdo-paris-terror-attack-

salman-rushdie/.

Myre, Greg. “From Threats Against Salman Rushdie To Attacks On 'Charlie

Hebdo'.” National Public Radio, 8 Jan. 2015,

www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2015/01/08/375662895/from-threats-against-salman-

rushdie-to-attacks-on-charlie-hebdo

Slen, Peter. C-SPAN, CSPAN Book TV, 2010, www.c-span.org/video/?296722-

1/depth-salman-rushdie.
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Plagiierte Hausarbeiten

Ein Plagiat liegt dann vor, wenn Texte Dritter ganz oder teilweise,

wörtlich oder nahezu wörtlich übernommen und als eigene

wissenschaftliche Leistung ausgegeben werden. Ein solches Vorgehen

widerspricht nicht nur guter wissenschaftlicher Praxis, es ist auch eine

Form geistigen Diebstahls und damit eine Verletzung des Urheberrechts.

(Resolution des deutschen Hochschulverbandes vom 17. Juli 2002).

Handelt es sich bei einer Hausarbeit nachweislich um ein Plagiat –

z.B. indem im Internet zugänglich gemachte Hausarbeiten anderer auf die

oben beschriebene Art und Weise übernommen wurden –, wird sie als

ungenügend bewertet. Auch eine Wiederholung (im Rahmen des

entsprechenden Seminars) ist nicht möglich. ´

Erklärung der / des Studierenden

Hiermit versichere ich, dass die vorliegende Arbeit über _________________________

_______________________________________ selbstständig verfasst worden ist, dass

keine anderen Quellen und Hilfsmittel als die angegebenen benutzt worden sind und

dass die Stellen der Arbeit, die anderen Werken – auch elektronischen Medien – dem

Wortlaut oder Sinn nach entnommen wurden, auf jeden Fall unter Angabe der Quelle

als Entlehnung kenntlich gemacht worden sind.

_____________________________________

(Unterschrift / Datum)