Ha Ha Ha Ha.

As much as a cleric’s vocation is to instill religious value and order in the pious follower’s lives, satirists also fulfill a prominent role appealing to a specific niche in society. Take for instance the literary satirist Salman Rushdie. Much like religious followers look to stories, examples, and answers to explain otherwise unanswerable questions, Rushdie uses satire to combat these explanations. In Rushdie’s collection of novels entitled, East, West he brings to head thoughts and ideas of, what is sacred? What is good? And what is a miracle?

The story titled, The Prophets Hair tells a tale entangled in Islamic lore and questions principles and ideas such as sacredness, good, and miracles. The tale tells of the Prophet Mohammed’s idolized strand of hair being stolen from its shrine. Sacred ideas and thoughts are at center stage here for Rushdie to play with both figuratively and metaphorically. Take for instance the tale evolving the prophet’s hair. This sacred item, which was said and thought to be holly, was associated with theft, thievery and bad luck through out the short story. Rushdie tells this story packed with foul imagery and misfortune involving every day people likens these circumstances to merely acts of fate and conditions to the prophet’s hair.

Rushdie also provided social commentary entailing the question, what is good. A father disabled his children at birth so that when they were older they could earn their living as street people. The father did this looking out for the good of his children, and in turn they were able to live successful lives depending on the good tidings of people in their society. However Rushdie uses satire answering his question of ‘what is good’ when he provides information at the end of his story explaining that after the prophets hoar miracurssly caused the boys to be healed, they in turn prophited less from their fortunes.

All of this social commentary that is laced through out Prophets Hair is Rushdie commenting on the institution of religion and in this particular case, Islam. The platform that he is using in his accusations against the traditional convention through satire. Building on the old Monty Python skit where the actors poke fun and through satire about people trying to find meaning and answer to question that may or may not warrant or even have answers. Through satire the writer’s of the skit and Rushdie, the author of the story played to audiences acknowledging the fact that people go to great lengths justifying an ends when there is no such ending. The idea behind satire and poking fun at an idea or event is a skill that must be taken with a grain of salt by an on looking viewer. The satire being exemplified by Rushdie or Monty python take into account the idea that although some may recognize the seriousness of some matter, others find it comical rather than lifealtering.