Sebastian Faulks apologises if his comments about the Koran have offended Muslims

There seems to be an almost inevitable irritation when novelists in Britain and America, with their long history of free speech, touch on matters Islamic.

I am not the first and probably won't be the last to have ruffled some feathers, though I feel sad about this, because my new novel, A Week in December, is carefully researched, and, among its main characters, presents a hugely sympathetic and loving Muslim family; it is furthermore made clear that the parents' kindness and good citizenship spring not just from being naturally good eggs but from their devotion to the Koran. [telegraph.co.uk] Read more

Sorry seems to be the easiest word The New Humanist blog reports that author Sebastian Faulks has got into a spot of bother. In an interview with The Times, our wordsmith with a disciplined pen but a careless tongue expressed the following opinion: The Quran is very disappointing from a literary point of view and lacks an ethical dimension. [Harry’s Place] Read more

The Koran: not a patch on the Bible .... He's a brave man to put it in quite such direct, indeed brutal, terms, but Faulks's experience is a common one. Many non-Muslims feel they ought to take some sort of look at the Koran, because Islam is in the news a lot, or because it's an important part of world culture that everyone should know about, or because they've heard it's full of inspired poetry.

And the vast majority, in my experience, are distinctly underwhelmed. They assume they're going to find a profound, immortal classic of spiritual wisdom. Instead they find things like this (from Sura 9, which I selected entirely at random from an online Koran): [Heresy Corner] Read more

Faulks baulks The novelist Sebastian Faulks made some frank and accurate comments about the Koran in an interview with the Sunday Times, only to abjectly apologise for them in Monday’s Daily Telegraph. To be fair to Faulks, he probably did not expect his comments to be picked up by controversy-hungry hacks at the Mail and The Express, always keen to write self-fulfilling predictions about Muslim anger. Then again, what has he got to apologise for? [MediaWatchWatch] Read more