The Low-Down on the Satanic Verses of the Prophet Muhammed (Mahound)

Hey all, I found this useful excerpt from Joel Kuortti's Place of the Sacred: The Rhetoric of the Satanic Verses Affair (1997) that help explain the purported blasphemy that is expounded on in Chapter 2 ("Mahound") and later Chapter 6 ("Return to Jahilia"). Here's the link:

http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/anglophone/satanic_verses/2.html

An interesting note: I was talking with a Muslim friend the other day who TA's for Professor Kia's Islamic Civilizations class and he had a hard time finding anything blasphemous about Rushdie's treatment of Muhammed. He figured that inconsistency is bound to exist within religion and as long as the main feature of Islam is the honoring of Allah alone, he has no problems with Rushdie's Muhammed and his initial honoring of the goddesses as archangels. Of course there may be many reasons for his interpretation (sect, etc.), but it was interesting to talk to him about it.