The Jewel of the Medina, a first book by Sherry Jones...

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A romantic novel about Aisha, the child bride of the prophet Muhammad, has been withdrawn because its publisher feared possible terrorist acts by Muslim extremists.

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The novel is a luridly written amalgam of bodice-ripper and historical fiction centred on Aisha, the favourite wife of the prophet Muhammad. "Married at nine to the much-older Muhammad, Aisha uses her wits, her courage, and her sword to defend her first-wife status even as Muhammad marries again and again, taking 12 wives and concubines in all," the summary reads.

At one point the novel imagines the consummation of the marriage between Muhammad and Aisha: "The pain of consummation soon melted away. Muhammad was so gentle. I hardly felt the scorpion´s sting. To be in his arms, skin to skin, was the bliss I had longed for all my life."

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Jones was released from her contract to try to sell the book elsewhere.

the guardian link

Interesting story... and such stories exist for Jesus and other biblical characters. It is a shame that people have to worry about violence and have to censor their imagination.

An Honour has a different meaning in a certain culture.

NO ONE knows just how many Muslim girls and women are murdered each year in the name of family "honor," since their deaths frequently go unreported and unpunished. The cases that do come to light are ghastly. "Women and young girls are set ablaze, strangled, shot at, clubbed, stabbed, tortured, axed, or stoned to death," a United Nations report noted in 2004. "Their bodies are found mutilated with their throat slit, or they are chopped into pieces and thrown in a ditch."

The report singled out as especially horrifying the honor killing in Pakistan of "a 16-year-old girl who was reportedly electrocuted to death after being drugged with sleeping pills and being tied to a wooden bed with iron chains." Her offense: marrying a boy from the wrong community. Countless others have lost their lives for refusing an arranged marriage, wearing Western-style clothing, having a boyfriend, or even being raped.

Recently, the Saudi human rights activist Wajeha al-Huwaidar wrote a scathing essay characterizing honor killings as a scourge peculiar to the "Greater Middle East," with its entrenched culture of misogyny and male supremacy. Her article was prompted by the lynching of 17-year-old Du´a al-Aswad, a Kurdish girl stoned to death by a mob of Iraqi men. (The essay has been translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute, which also provides a link to a gruesome cellphone video of the lynching.) "From Pakistan and Afghanistan through Iran, the Middle East, and all the way to Morocco," Huwaidar wrote, "this entire part of the world [is full of] defeated and dejected men, whose only way to gain some sort of victory is by beating their women to death."

In the last few months, there have been news reports of a Jordanian man murdering his daughter "to cleanse the family´s honor" after she kept leaving home without permission; another Jordanian, 22 years old, who gave the same reason - "family honor" - for killing his pregnant sister; a Saudi woman beaten and shot by her father after he discovered her having an online correspondence with a man on Facebook; and two Arab brothers in Israel, who strangled their sister after learning that she was involved in a romantic relationship.

But while honor killings may be more prevalent in the Middle East, no longer are they unknown in the West.

In the Atlanta suburb of Jonesboro last month, a Pakistani immigrant allegedly strangled his 25-year-old daughter with a bungee cord because she was determined to end her arranged marriage and had gotten involved with a new man. According to the Atlanta Journal Constitution, Sandeela Kanwal´s father, Chaudhry Rashid, "told police he is Muslim and that extramarital affairs and divorce are against his religion [and] that´s why he killed her." In court last week, a detective quoted Rashid: "God will protect me. God is watching me. I strangled my daughter."

In Upstate New York a few weeks earlier, Waheed Allah Mohammad, an immigrant from Afghanistan, was charged with attempted murder after repeatedly stabbing his 19-year-old sister. The Rochester Democrat and Chronicle reported that Mohammad was "infuriated because his younger sister was going to clubs, wearing immodest clothing, and planning to leave her family for a new life in New York City" - she was a "bad Muslim girl," he told sheriff´s investigators.

On New Year´s Day in Irving, Texas, the bullet-riddled bodies of the Amin sisters - Sarah, 17, and Amina, 18 - were found in an abandoned taxi. Police issued an arrest warrant for their father, an Egyptian immigrant named Yaser Abdel Said, who had reportedly threatened to kill them upon learning that they had boyfriends. According to the Dallas Morning News, Yaser Said was given to "gun-waving rants about how Western culture was corrupting the chastity of his daughters."

Islamic religious tradition does not sanction honor killing, but it has long been accepted in many Muslim societies nonetheless. Perpetrators are typically punished lightly, if at all. In 2003, Jordan´s parliament overwhelmingly defeated a proposal to impose harsher penalties for honor killings; Islamists objected on the grounds that more lenient punishments would violate religious traditions and damage Jordanian society. It is appalling that such lethally barbaric attitudes persist anywhere - all the more so now that the shame of honor killing has made its way here.

speaking of the female killings, we should take a look at how female children are killed in China

http://www.gendercide.org/case_infanticide.html

Female Infanticide

The phenomenon of female infanticide is as old as many cultures, and has likely accounted for millions of gender-selective deaths throughout history. It remains a critical concern in a number of "Third World" countries today, notably the two most populous countries on earth, China and India. In all cases, specifically female infanticide reflects the low status accorded to women in most parts of the world; it is arguably the most brutal and destructive manifestation of the anti-female bias that pervades "patriarchal" societies.

in September 1997, the World Health Organization´s Regional Committee for the Western Pacific issued a report claiming that "more than 50 million women were estimated to be ´missing´ in China because of the institutionalized killing and neglect of girls due to Beijing´s population control program that limits parents to one child." (See Joseph Farah, "Cover-up of China´s gender-cide", Western Journalism Center/FreeRepublic, September 29, 1997.) Farah referred to the gendercide as "the biggest single holocaust in human history."

It´s considered a shortcoming to defend one´s own mistake by pointing at another. (Like mummy, he did it too...!!)

This is very good, perfect. However, it is not a counter-argument to the islamic female degradation. I believe you are making it a personal fight with zhang ziyi (as he is obviously biased and indeed he does not recognize his country´s problems), but what he says about women in islam is true. You are taking this a little bit too personally tamikidakika. But in any case, it was a good article that you quoted. It only shows how women are denigrated all over the world, it´s despicable.

And... pointing fingers when someone else does it (I´m speaking of tamikidakika of course). In which case, he is also hypocritic about what he does. Tamikidakika has never accepted any problems in his own country.

the target of my post was zhang zyi and his biased arguments. Do you approve his incentive to hijack every thread about muslims? the thread was about aisha. Can smn tell me what the correlation between aisha and honor killings is ?

and how does this relate to the problems in my country?

It doesn´t relate. I just meant to say that you also, always point fingers at others and never accept any criticism of your own country or traditions. In a way similarly to zhang ziyi.

So does killing of children in China justify killing of women in Arab countries? Now that´s hypocrisy. But also the only way Tami arguments his opinions - he calls everyone hypocrites without giving reasons and if somebody criticises his part of the world/culture he points the finger. Very mature and convincing.

I already told that my post wasn`t meant to justify anything, so you better read the posts before attacking people personally.

I didn´t attack you personally, I just can´t help commenting and laughing on your debating methods

"That is if anybody still considers you a serious debate partner"

How am I supposed to interpret this sentence if not attacking smn personally?

I just expressed my doubt, didn´t attack you. How should I know if other people want to spend time providing arguments for somebody who, eventually, will end up saying - you are not clear, christians/chinese/westerners did bad things - that´s basically how you end all your "debates." You don´t debate but dig out something that has nothing to do with the subject and consider the thing done.

İ think tamikidakika was applying the principle ,

´´İf you arent sinful,then you can throw the rock  ´´

He was pointing it out to ZZ in a practical way by showing him that the same exist there.

Not by saying he is justifying it,or by saying they are right actions either way.

ZZ try to show Muslims are the devils by all means,and in every thread too related or not related to that thread.

tam and handsom too tried to say,the devil can be every where !