Norwegian Publisher Cancels Biography of Muhammed
The Norwegian historian and journalist Halvor Tjønn has written a biography of the founder of Islam, Muhammed. The book was announced by the Oslo publisher Kagge in last year’s fall catalog. But now the publisher has suddenly pulled out — and refuses to provide any explanation of why it no longer wishes to publish the book.
According to the newspaper Aftenposten, Kagge says that it doesn’t consider it dangerous to put out such a book, but at the same time it refuses to give a reason for its turnaround:
It was five years ago today that Jyllands-Posten published the drawings that led to the cartoon crisis. In Halvor Tjønn’s planned Muhammed biography there are no illustrations. Tjønn delivered the manuscript of his book, which is based largely on Muslim historians’ accounts of the prophet’s life, as early as late January last year. The historical records the author has used as the basis for his book are from the eighth and ninth centuries.
Advertisement”We have now agreed with the author that we will not publish this book.We wish him luck with another publisher,” says Anne Gaathaug, Kaage’s publishing director.
”Does the decision have anything to do with the powerful reactions by Muslims to the Muhammed cartoons and with your fear that the book might cause trouble?”
”It’s an internal matter. I have no further comments,” says Gaathaug.
“Has the publisher received threats in connection with the publication?”
”The publishing house has not received threats. And we did not consider it dangerous at all to publish the book. That’s not the reason why we don’t want to give it out,” says Gaathaug.
Halvor Tjønn, who works as reporter on Aftenposten’s foreign desk, says he is surprised by the publisher’s decision. Tjønn, as well, is not especially willing to talk about the reason for the differences over the book, but we understand that it’s not about the book’s quality:
“It goes without saying that if the publisher had objections to the book’s quality, that would have come up much earlier in the process, and not after a year and a half,” he says
Nonetheless, Tjønn does not wish to detail the reasons he has been given for the rejection.
“It has to be up to Kagge Publishing to give an account of the assessments they have made,” he says.
Maybe:
(a) there’s just no market for it, or
(b) maybe it’s not a very good book?
Nope!!!…MUSLIM MAFIA
AT WORK AGAIN…
“But nobody at Kagge Publishing will say why it is best, in their view, that another publisher take on the book.”
Because they’re afraid. Whenever you’re afraid of printing something because you fear the response from Muslims, especially in Europe, freedom of speech is lost. Whenever you’re afraid to say something because you fear the response from Muslims, ESPECIALLY in Europe, freedom of speech is lost. If this were not true, then Salman Rushdie would be freely walking the streets today. If this were true, then Geert Wilders wouldn’t need bodyguards. If this were not true, then Ayaan Hirsi Ali would not have had to flee for her life from Holland to the United States, where she still lives in fear. Face it, Muslims, ESPECIALLY in Europe, don’t take criticism well, from anybody. The Europeans have a bigger problem with this than we do at the moment, but when a cartoon like South Park is afraid of retribution from Muslims because of a show they made and then decides to edit that show because of it, then you know we’re not far behind. Stand up to the bums. Always.
Mathew @1.
If only the publisher would have said so, it would have been the end of the speculation….(perhaps??)
Because people are afraid.
Muslims are killers…sorta like a mafia of their own.
AND no one protects the victims. This book was already listed!!
Of course they deny threats or any such thing. It’s humiliating to have a group of killers target you in the world press and you hide and run for your very life because you print a cartoon, write an article, publish a book. The Muslim Mafia
Let’s cut to the heart of the matter, or better yet, to the dhimmifying of the west, particularly in Europe.
The self censorship, from the ever enlightened, self smug Euro elite has not occurred in a vacuum. Rather, it is a DIRECT result of a deal with the Islamic devils.
It was during the 1970′s Arab oil embargo when the nexus between Arab Muslim leaders and Euro elitists became cemented.
Anyone who wants to understand how the heretofore unthinkable,(self censorship) has now become thinkable, must read, Eurabia-for starters. All of the assertions in this masterpiece are sourced and researched to the max.
To wit, one finds that the once free Europe has now become an outpost of Arabia, therefore, NO mention of Mohammed is tolerated.None.
The US, in all its leftist permutations is not far behind……
lol
…the USA is not far behind. the term is “in lock step”
Your point being……..?
…the point being that the freedom of speech and dhimitude is there in the USA now as well.
I hope it reverses ..time will tell
I concur.The fact that FOX is considered more of a danger to the Republic than Islamic terror-words the Obama regime are incapable of stringing together-is more than enough proof that dhimmitude is seeping in.
Moreover, DESPITE several terror attacks-including the FT Hood Islamic attack-within US cities, US leadership pretends that Islam is unrelated to terror.
Case closed.
It’s not like it never happened here:
The cartoons removed by Yale University Press from Brandis Professor Jytte Klausen’s book “The Cartoons That Shook The World” regarding the furor caused by the 12 editorial cartoons showing Islam’s prophet published by the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten on Sept. 30, 2005. Not so bad, are they? The book was published Oct. 13, 2009 sans cartoons and can be found on Amazon with customer tags “cowardly” “censored” and “Yale shame”.
It could be that the publishing house didn’t think they could make money on the book (unlikely, given the times), but then why not just say so? I think it’s more likely that the publishers started getting death threats in anticipation of the book’s publication, in the “Muslims fear backlash over tomorrow’s bombing” mode.
Very alarming. LIke the British, the Norwegians who were once so brave in resisting the Nazis have become bedwetting cowards. Why would anybody want to visit countries where our most treasured values are considered worthless? Europe, we hardly knew ya.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwegian_heavy_water_sabotage
Whats the Heavy Water story got to do with Norways dhimmitude? It is non enlightenment,(Lack of knowledge of Islam) socialists and socialism which is Islams Trojan horse in Norway, Britain and the rest of Europe. Therefore dont paint everyone with the same brush! In time majorities in these countries, including Norway and Britain will change their governments (Britain has made a good start) and the influence and importance of Islam will hopefully begin to recede; quickly!
Regards,
BD Norway
Fear of the religion of peace.
The book must not paint a very flattering “picture” of Mohammed. The editors probably had the idea Mohammed was a benign, Jesus-like figure. Then they read this guys book and the Holy Shit hit the fan.
Islam is pure evil. Publish the book in the USA and extol it. Let the islamic barbarians seethe.
Obviously the author came up with some very unpleasant facts about the prophet of the “religion of peace.” This spooked the editors. No doubt they had several hand-wringing meetings about the book. Then they took the cowardly route: dump the book. So cowardly. Norway has no backbone. For shame. Islam is the religion of the devil.
>The book had already been listed in last year’s catalog. Why was it pulled?
Because the publisher is afraid of getting his head cut off by a muslim.
What else ya got for me?
Q: The book had already been listed in last year’s catalog. Why was it pulled?
A:The guy doesn’t want to be beheaded?
Muhammed is Islam’s Achilles heel, and Muslims know it.
As Goebbels infamously proclaimed “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”
The great lie that Muhammed was some kind of holy man, a moral role model with a direct connection to God is the biggest fraud ever perpetrated upon humanity. It is a massive lie that is propagated by Islam’s power to repress inquiry, dissent and the truth by fear, intimidation and violence.
But the truth about Muhammed cannot be suppressed, because the truth can be found in the Islamic ‘holy’ texts, the Koran, Ahadith and Surah Rasul Allah, recorded in black and white for the whole world to discover.
The Koran 68:4 upholds Muhammed as “…an exalted [standard of] character.” Islamic tradition upholds Muhammed as ‘al-insan al-kamil’ or ‘the perfect man’, to be emulated by all Muslims.
But the hard truth about Muhammed, as recorded in the Islamic ‘holy’ texts, is that far from being a a ‘holy prophet’ Muhammed was a sadistic sociopath, a 7th century Arabian Hitler – only worse, a successful Charles Manson, only creepier and more evil.
Muhammed was a murderer, torturer, amputator, decapitator, mutilator, slaver, looting stealing thief, rapist, human trafficker, sex trafficker, child rapist, sexual deviant, misogynist, perfidious liar, genocidist and self proclaimed terrorist.
By any objective standard, Muhammed was one of the most vile and disgusting men in the pantheon of human history, a brutal barbarian, a self important narcissistic consumed by unquenchable sexual lust, greed and power.
Muhammed should have been incarcerated not venerated, and he should be reviled not revered.
Every pathology that afflicts Islam comes directly from this sick man, Muhammed, and the world suffers because of him.
This is the man who inspires Muslims?? Muslims must be challenged to defend their barbarian prince, to defend the indefensible. They can’t…and they know it.
~The Infidel Alliance
Infidel Alliance
You nailed it sir. Muhammad is the worst possible person to base a religion on. One can know this only by reading a fair biography of the man and it looks like Norway just chickened out. No Muslim can write a fair biography of Muhammad because they consider him the perfect man. Any unbiased Muslim author would be murdered and his family attacked
Robert Spencer wrote a good biography of Muhammad
http://www.amazon.com/Truth-About-Muhammad-Intolerant-Religion/dp/1596980281
Muhammad definately fits no moral criteria that are relevant for us today, but so are many other ancient leaders. Look at King David for instance:)
The thing is that we dont take them as role models “in toto”, just the better parts of their legacy.
Infidel Alliance-great moniker-you are precisely on point.Moreover, your reasoning is exactly why Muslims go ape s-it every time his name is mentioned, or a picture is drawn. People think it is because of the ‘holiness’ of their ‘prophet’.Not exactly. It is because they know full well that mentioning him will bring the spotlight onto his deviant proclivities.
Therefore, IF they threaten mayhem and terror for doing so, they automatically squelch ANY conversation.They are an Islamic Cosa Nostra.Period.
“Allah said, ‘A prophet must slaughter before collecting captives. A slaughtered enemy is driven from the land. Muhammad, you craved the desires of this world, its goods & the ransom captives would bring. But Allah desires killing them to manifest the religion.’”- Ibn Ishaq:327
Allah’s Apostle Muhammed said “I have been made victorious with terror.”- Bukhari (52:220)
Of consequence, Osama bin Laden’s full name is Osama bin MOHAMMED bin Awad bin Laden.
These men are also named after the ‘holy prophet’ of Islam:
1) MOHAMMED Atta, 9/11 airline jihadist
2) Abdulhakim Mujahid MUHAMMED, Little Rock recruiting center assasin
3) MOHAMMED Reza Taheri-azar, UNC SUV jihadist
4) MOHAMMED Ajmal Amir Kasab, Mumbai jihadist
5) Husayn MUHAMMED al-Umari, Pan Am Flight 830 bomber
6) Fahd MOHAMMED Ahmed al-Quso, USS Cole bomber
7) Khalid Sheikh MOHAMMED, beheader of Daniel Pearl
8 ) MOHAMMED Sidique Khan, London Tube suicide jihadist
9) Ramzi MOHAMMED, convicted London Tube jihadist
10) Whabi MOHAMMED, London Tube ‘5th’ bomber
11) Fazul Abdullah MOHAMMED, Tanzanian embassy bomber
12) MAHMOUD Ahmadinejad, despotic Shia leader of Islamic Republic of Iran
13) MOHAMMED Bouyeri, savage Islamist killer of Theo Van Gogh
14) MOHAMMED Ali Hamadei, airline hijacker
15) MOHAMMED Safady, Munich Olympics terrorist
16) AHMAD Marrouf al-Assadi, Achille Lauro hijacker
17) MEHMET Ali Ağca, Islamist who attempted to assasinate Pope John Paul
18) MOHAMMED Atif Siddique, Scottish terrorist conspiritor
19) Kafeel AHMED, Glasgow Airport bomber
20) Abdulla AHMED, ‘Liquid’ bomber
21) John Allen MUHAMMED, mass murdering sniper
23) MOHAMMED Haydar Zammar, al-Qaeda recruiter who assembled the Hamburg cell
24) Jaish-e-MOHAMMED, Pakistani jihadist terror organization
25 & 26) Abdirahman Mohamud Ahmed, 25, and Wissam Mahmoud Fattal, 33, NSW Australia jihadists
Mohammed…..Muhammed….Mahmoud….Mehmet….Ahmed…..and on, and on, and on….
All slaughtering in the name of Islam, Allah and Muhammed.
~ The Infidel Alliance
They should take the easy way out. To show they’re NOT cowards and are WILLING to criticize religion, they should publish a book instead saying Jesus was a bastard (literally), or that Judaism is evil, or something.
Much safer. They might get letters from people swearing to never buy another book you publish ever again, but not much chance of letters from people swearing to kill them.
Muhammad was assassinated in slow motion by a Jewish woman Zainab whom he intended to rape. She poisoned him and he suffered every day for the rest of his life, three years. That’s why the Shi’ites at least say that the Jews killed Muhammad. There was another Jewish woman named Asma, who distributed satirical poems, their news media of the day, warning the people that this guy was dangerous. He had her murdered. You get the full story from the 19th century historians Heinrich Graetz and William Muir.
hmm, given the source, Rita Karlsen, I would assume that this book was somehow a part of the islamophobic wave that can be seen in the comments here. Maybe, just maybe, the publisher decided that to insult 8% of the main citys population was not a very good idea?
contrary to popular belief, the muslim population in Oslo is functioning very well, with the exception of a few somali youths. Maybe he saw no reason to publish religious bigotry in the face of this?
Fnord — it is only religious bigotry if the biography was full of untruths or slander. If it was truthful to the facts, then it is not bigotry.
In Islam’s case, the TRUTH hurts, thus the necessity for cover-ups.
When the truth is called “bigotry”, he who sings out “bigot” serves evil.
That a religion could not be fundamentally evil is an illogical ideology. Why not?
fnord smugly flings out “religious bigotry” as a trump card, his illogical ideology precluding the need to actually defend the religion. It is a trump card only in the sick postmodern minds of those for whom ideology trumps truth – for whom, indeed, there is no such thing as truth, just a narrative. Hence the magical incantation, “bigot!”, pronounced as a “turning point” in the narrative, overpowers facts in the thoughtless, diseased and demented brain such as fnord possesses.
Mohammad killed thousands of people, stole from thousands more. The Islamic sources extol this as virtue. A story well known in the Muslim world is about a few converts who stole sheep from Mohammad. Mohammad the merciful punishment was cutting off there hands and feet then burned out there eyes. Compare that to stories of Jesus and Buddha.
An honest book on Mohammad would pop the liberal dilution he was a holy man of spiritual merit. When in fact he was the moral equivalent of Attila the Hun. It was fear of the left that made the publisher cancel the book.
Wow! The news of this book not being published has hit the pedophile community of the world really hard.
…Tjønn thinks that there is little in the book that would cause Muslims to react negatively.
Throwing a tantrum over very little is what Muslims are best at.
And, anyway, if there is little in the book that would upset them, then he didn’t do a very good job researching his subject!
Speculation, like nature, abhors a vacuum. We don’t know that they’re axing the project because of fear of Islamic radicalism. But the fear is certainly out there in Scandinavia, so it’s tempting to jump to that conclusion. Thanks for the report, Bruce!
why not just put it on the Pirate Bay, and let us all read it?
Earth to clueless: You don’t need “publishers”, just a blog or the ability to put stuff on line.
Absolutely!
I agree with what Libertyship 46 said, and admire his or her
courage, – and the conclusion, -”stand up to the bums always.”
It seems that the only publisher left that will not succumb to fear of reprisal from Muslims is Amazon’s Kindle. I could not find a publisher for my suspense novel, “We Three Kings,” which I finished in 1987, not for any ostensive (and usually fatuous) editorial reasons (e.g., “We don’t think there’s a market for this kind of novel”), but for self-censorship reasons. It features an American entrepreneur hero who comes into possession of a rare British gold coin as a reward for saving a man from a savage beating by thugs. Unfortunately, a Saudi prince wants the coin – he’s collected every example of the coin that was ever minted – and won’t take no for an answer. Our State Department gives him carte blanche to deal with the hero. The Saudi gets the worst of it in the end. So, after numerous requests by fans of my other novels, I put it up on Kindle. No problem. No chewing of fingernails or chattering teeth. But I’d rather see it as a real book. I’d rather American publishers give Muslims and Islamists their choice of hand gestures. But very, very few of them have the courage or the conviction.
How sad but true that the sales proposition didn’t seem high enough in your case for conventional publishers to take the risk of offending Muslims. Not entirely clear is whether your book is insulting to them or only to the Saudi monarchy. (Meanwhile, Amazon is providing a series of services and therefore may not have the exposure that conventional publishers face.)
What I want to respond to is your notion that publication through Amazon’s Kindle isn’t real publication. One might argue that real publication comes with an advance, but for most authors these are fewer and much lower than previously. Or one might argue that real publishers put promotion money behind their publications, but this amounts to doing the usual with authors doing most of the publicity and promotion work. (For nonfiction authors, bringing an author’s platform of potential book buyers to the publisher’s table is very important.)
As a writing coach, I help authors prepare proposals and manuscript samples to send to literary agents (or publishers’ editors for nonfiction). And not every proposal finds a place in the trade-bookstore channel. Sometimes I advise a client that his or her approach has not met with a good deal of success in the past. Some want to try it their way; others are more willing to reshape things. (For example, could you have invented a Muslim country?)
Authors who find or establish an outlet to their readers generally are excited. Real publishing, to my mind, is just that connection.