Islam as Nation: Finding Its Slippage in The Satanic Verses

I'd like to suggest another angle from which Bhaba's DISSEMINATION essay might be applied to The Satanic Verses.  It requires the leap of consideration of religion as nation.  I'll posit that an organized religion, such as Catholicism or Islam, may be treated theoretically in similar terms as nation, that it is similarly an essentialist entity that is written and narrated in a liminal space between pedagogy and performativity, a "cultural construction ... as a form of social and textual affiliation" (Bhaba).  And it is through a comparable "process of splitting that the conceptual ambivalence of modern society becomes the site of writing the" religion.

That religion is by its nature pedagogical is clear.  Consider the Zen send-up of organized religion, The Cat in the Temple:

One day, a cat came into the temple, and began meowling, which disturbed the daily prayers.  The Master ordered that the cat be tied up outside the temple.  After the prayers, the cat was released to go free.

The next day, the cat returned, and again, the Master directed that it be tied up outside the temple.  This day, out of compassion, the Master ordered the Disciples to put a bowl of water and a bowl of food outside for the cat.

The next day, the cat returned, and again was tied up outside and given a bowl of water and a bowl of food.

This continued, day upon day, month upon month, and on and on…

Eventually, the Disciples moved on, and new Disciples came.  And eventually, the Master, who was very old, grew older, and finally died.

A new Master came, as did new Disciples.

Eventually, the cat, who was very old, grew older, and finally died.

So the Master ordered that a new cat be found, and tied up outside the temple.

Centuries later, many great works had been written about the importance of having a cat tied up outside the temple during prayers.

Point taken.  The "homogeneous, visual time of the horizontal" religion resides in its catholic (small c) historicity.  However, the codes of conduct, rites, and rituals of religions are not static turgid codes, but dynamic beasts ridden by the people.  Further, the geographic and cultural boundaries of Islam, for example, are little more fixed than those of nations.  And, finally, the memberships of religions are plastic and similarly subject to modernist, feminist and postcolonial temporalities.

The Satanic Verses may not be about Islam, as Rushdie asserts in In Good Faith, but as he makes clear in that same essay, parts of the novel do indeed address the slippage that exists between the pedagogy of the religion and the performativity of many of its followers.  Specifically, the novel and the essay both address the disconnect between the pedagogy and performativity as it regards women.  Note that the role of women in society has been the central area of discourse and debate in the Muslim world over the last three to four decades, not unlike in the Catholic nation.  Rushdie's contribution to this discourse in The Satanic Verses has been overshadowed by other obvious front-burner issues, but it has not gone unnoticed.  The novel has offered an important voice in the debate and has done so by painting the slippage, back to and before the "beginning of time."