After an act of jihadi terrorism in the UK has stalled British publication of a book about MuhammadÂ’s pre-pubescent child-bride Aisha, its American publisher has decided to push the release date up by nine days to this coming Monday.

With British publication in doubt for Sherry Jones' "The Jewel of Medina," the U.S. publisher of her controversial novel about the Prophet Muhammad has moved up the release date from Oct. 15 to Monday.

"By speeding up the publication, we wanted to reduce or eliminate the chance of violence," Eric Kampmann, president of Beaufort Books, said Thursday, noting that three men were arrested in London last weekend for a fire-bomb attack on the offices of publisher Gibson Square.

"What had occurred in London, we didn't want to have occur here. We wanted people to have a chance to read the book. Once they read the book, we thought the violence part of this story would disappear and people would be focusing on the story, and the book and Sherry."

Publication in this country was stalled once by an Islamic backlash ginned up by a professor from the University of Texas in the People’s Republic of Austin. We must act to guarantee that such books can be freely published here – and one way to do so is to purchase them when they are published. I don’t have a lot of spare cash, but I will guarantee you that I will be seeking a book at my local book store four days from now, on October 6. I urge the rest of you to do the same – it is important.

And to any Muslim who feels obliged to respond violently to the exercise of a human right protected by the First Amendment, I can only say “Allahu screw you!”

Posted by: Greg at 01:03 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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