The Jewel Of Medina cancelled

Publication of The Jewel Of Medina: A Novel, written by Sherry Jones, has been cancelled by Random House, due to fears of possible attacks by extremist Islamic groups. The novel is a fictionalised biography of Aisha, Mohammed's eleven-year-old bride. On Wednesday, The Wall Street Journal printed a quotation from the novel, describing Aisha's wedding night experience: "the pain of consummation soon melted away. Muhammad was so gentle. I hardly felt the scorpion's sting. To be in his arms, skin to skin, was the bliss I had longed for all my life". (Their conjugal relations were also the subject of an especially provocative Nekschot cartoon.) The prologue to The Jewel Of Medina is available online, and a Serbian translation of the book has been published by Beobuk in Belgrade.