A little over a week ago, we got word that the NYTIMES wanted to interview my father in part on his upcoming fiction book on Muhammed, A Story of the Last Prophet. Largely because of the controversy surrounding the Ground Zero Mosque (which isn’t really a Mosque and isn’t really at Ground Zero – but that’s another story), the fact that Deepak Chopra had a book coming out detailing the life of Muhammed seemed like a pretty good hook. At first blush, it was a dream scenario, even for an author as accomplished as Deepak Chopra who over the last two decades or so has written over 50 or so books, several of which have appears on the NYTIMES Bestseller list itself.
But then the more we thought about it, and discussed it around the dinner table, a certain dread emerged. Why? After all my father had already written two similar fictional accounts by two other equally accomplished prophets – Jesus and Buddha – both of whom had riled pockets of people but not really created anything to really worry about. And yet, messing with Islam and extremist Muslims was a whole different ballgame. You’know Fatwas and all that. The last think anyone wants to do is jab the wrong Jihadi.
And then came the interview itself. In its aftermath, my father shared the substance of his discussion with the reporter named Deborah Solomon. They’d talked in depth about a lot of elements in the book, but one area had concerned him which centered on the oft debated idea that Jewish scribes may have been involved in recording parts of Muhammed’s divine revelation. It was an area that Ms. Solomon pressed my father on. He admitted that historically it had been suggested by various scholars, and yet in his book he had made very clear that during the actual moments of Muhammed’s ecstatic revelations, no Jewish scribes were in the room. Eli – the scribe in question in my father’s book specifically – is very clearly asked to leave the room before Muhammed does his thing. For papa – that’s what we call him in our house – that was partly because there was no other way to verify the presence of Eli or any other Jewish scribes, but also out of respect to Muslims, mostly who believe that their Holy book, the Koran is the uninterrupted divine revelation of the the prophet Muhammed. To suggest otherwise would be, in short, disrespectful.
In the days subsequent to the interview papa shared with me some emails back and forth between Ms. Solomon and him in which he reiterated his perspective on this historical detail. Ms. Solomon acknowledged it accordingly but also remarked that she didn’t seem to understand why he was so concerned about such a small detail – especially one that has been debated through the centuries.
Easy for her to say, I thought to myself. In fact the more my sister and I thought about it, the more my sister Mallika and i became agitated and worried. We shared our concern with our father who said he understood our concerns, but also relied on the fact that he wrote his book based on the facts as he could understand them, but also with inordinate respect for a faith that a billion plus people around the planet live by. "Whatever happens happens," he concluded.
Not good enough, Mallika and i concluded. We decided we wanted to get ahead of things — just in case. I called up some friends and coordinated a camera crew to shoot a short Q&A with my father on the substance of the book. I’d tee up the Q’s and he’d knock down the A’s. But then we started…and it kept going and going and going.
We ended up with 18 different mini spots from my dad starting with this one. Over the next few weeks we’ll roll them out so you can hear straight from him why he wrote this book, how he managed some of the more sensitive issues around it, and why in the end – ironically – he discovered something deeply empathetic and uniquely powerful about the prophet Muhammed, that in some ways made him even more special to my father than the enlightened beings Jesus and Buddha.
Back to the NYTIMES. This morning when I read the article, I got a little pissy. Sure enough there was emphasis in it on that one specific area concerning the Jewish scribe Eli and the idea that he may have played some role in recording the substance of the Koran. And sure enough there was no mention of the detail that in the book itself, papa made clear that Eli was never in the room during Muhammed’s divine revelation.
Alas…I started another conversation around the virtual dinner table (the family is all separated this weekend) about media literacy, how we wall ultimately see the world from our own perspectives – even journalists for the NYTIMES. In fact, where the story goes from here will largely depend on who actually comes to it (and hopefully the book) and the perspective they bring with them. For our family, we know the prejudices that our ancestors brought with them – specifically against Islamic people with whom they lived in India (my father tells that story in the first paragraph of the aforementioned NYTIME article) – and we are sensitive to them. We also know that our debates our not just about Prophets, but also about profits (my brother in law is a venture investor) as well as Jihads, Jingoism, science, spirituality, technology, Disney’s Camp Rock (my niece is 8 years old) and Dora and Diego (my son is 3 years old). And oh yeah Dogs too – a good chance to plug my own upcoming book with my father WALKING WISDOM.
Oh, and for the record, because i have been asked today: my family is not Muslim, nor claim to be Hindu, Buddhist, or any other formal faith. Like many, we’re a bit of a cut and paste job from many different faiths and religions and like to call ourselves more spiritual than religious – whatever that means…
As for what Deepak thinks about that whole non-Ground Zero non-Mosque, here it is for the record:
"Human beings pretend to make rational decisions even though they are bristling with emotions that overwhelm all logic. The rational decision would be for the Cordoba House to be built at the proposed location. It would show the world that America honors its commitment to freedom and also makes no link between the work of Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf and Daisy Khan’s work on reconciliation over several years and the 9/11 terrorists attack.
Remember that the proposed center would also have a facility honoring those that died on 9/11 and a place for reflection and silence in honor of those victims."
So there you go. I wanted to say all this is 140 characters or less, but every once in a while, it’s important to say it all. Have a great Labor Day weekend!
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