In an earlier post, I talked about why I thought it was important to defend The Jewel of Medina. I wrote the post at the beginning of the Jewel scandal, before the book’s publication, when any argument about the work was necessarily abstract. The Jewel of Medina scandal, at its heart, had nothing to do with The Jewel of Medina: it was about manufactured outrage, authorial rights, religion, and violence. Now, however, The Jewel of Medina is available to the public, and I’ve finally had a chance to read it in full.

I’ve been in touch with Sherry Jones since the beginning of this brouhaha. I thought it was important for her to know that whatever disagreements we might have, there were people in the Muslim community who thought her book should never have been pulled from publication. I believe Sherry’s intentions were both earnest and honest, and I’m glad her good faith was ultimately rewarded. This is a book that finally allows us to have a real conversation about the place of Islam in western literature. It will not be a comfortable conversation, and at the end neither side will feel good about itself. But it will be a real conversation, and that, in this decade of bombast and propaganda, is something.

Jewel is as good a book as it is possible to write without any direct experience of Islam or Muslims. But that experience is crucial to developing an authentic voice, and lacking it, the book falters. The criticism it has received online is very telling: as irritated as many Muslims are at the book’s historical missteps, their anger is eclipsed by that of the Islamophobes, who feel Jones apologizes for the pedophilia of the Prophet Muhammad. Having read the book I think both complaints are valid.

Let’s start with the first. Jewel’s historical inaccuracies follow a pattern particular to the portrayal of eastern cultures in western literature. They are not of the Braveheart variety—a few locations here, a few events there, a made-up love story or two. In Jewel, the protagonist Aisha is confined to the house after her engagement, in a practice known as purdah. It is one of the seminal events of the story's first act. Purdah is a tradition that originated among the Hindus of the Indian subcontinent. Not only is there no concept of purdah in Arabia, there is no letter ‘P’ in Arabic. The word itself cannot be written in the language the characters are theoretically speaking. Later, Aisha becomes part of a systematized harem, in which wives hold titles and distinct ranks. This system was an invention of 15th century Turkish sultans, and would probably have scandalized the original Arab Muslim community.

That may mean nothing to you, so let’s get back to Braveheart. Here’s a comparable historical disparity: it’s as if a cadre of Spanish conquistadors were to show up with their guns to help William Wallace fight the British. Not to be outdone, the British bring in a phalanx of Spartan warriors, who, unprepared for the cold weather, declare an Olympic peace and throw javelins around until summer. If you were to read that in a book, you would probably close it with an exclamation of disgust and put it away. So it should come as no surprise that this was the first impulse of many Muslims.

Why is it acceptable to be this cavalier with eastern history, and Muslim history in particular? The answer is hardwired into our cultural identity. To give it up is to give up part of what makes us, us. It’s the belief that the cultures and histories of the East are so inferior that they are interchangeable. Eras, ethnicities, languages, movements, beliefs: they are all part of one exotic mass. We are excused from distinguishing between them because they are not part of our superior cultural narrative. Foreign peoples are exciting, scintillating, and evocative, but they are not worthy.

Giving this up, this license to swap and exoticize the histories of other peoples, temporarily cripples the western imagination. To us, freedom to speak is also freedom to lie—and we have lied so many times about the East that we no longer notice this tendency in ourselves. Our perception of the East is instinctual, and overcoming it requires conscious, sustained psychological effort. Artists who successfully break free, transcending the saffron-colored daydream to create fully realized characters, produce masterpieces. The Poisonwood Bible. Indochine. The Conservationist. Kalimantaan. But these books and films are far outnumbered by recycled versions of the same culturally conditioned half-truth.

Jewel does not transcend that half-truth, but it is preferable in many ways to its predecessors. There is clear respect and appreciation for Aisha, Muhammad and their contemporaries. The author’s effort to be sympathetic is visible through and through. But the book stops short of real empathy. Neither Aisha nor Muhammad is driven by emotions or ideas any of us would recognize. In one of the strangest scenes in the novel, Muhammad confronts a young Aisha, who is now “ripe” (menstruating) and finally suitable for intercourse, and suggests they go to bed together. To put him off, Aisha picks up one of her dolls and talks to Muhammad through her, inviting him to play instead. At this point, any healthy adult male would be horrified, realizing he has made a terrible mistake in judgment. Not so Muhammad, whose response verges on the autistic. He smilingly intones: “Though your body may be ready for me, I fear your heart is not.”

It was at this point that I understood what the Islamophobes were so upset about. This Muhammad is at best oblivious, and at worst a pervert. Jones seems to struggle to find any other way to realize his relationship with Aisha. In the end, she simply dresses it up. I think the reason for this is twofold: one, there is a basic misunderstanding about premodern marriage practices in both Europe and the Middle East. Two, Muslims are not immune to this misunderstanding, and spread it among themselves. The dialogue surrounding Islam today is dominated by Muslim fundamentalists. Since many fundamentalists are themselves perverts, as evidenced by their treatment of women, minorities, animals, land, and God, they see nothing wrong with the idea of bedding a nine year old. So they either justify Muhammad’s marriage to Aisha, or become indignant at the idea that it must be justified.

During the Middle Ages in Europe, it was not uncommon for nobles to be married as young as four or five in order to cement allegiances between families. Usually one of the youngsters would be fostered in the household of his or her spouse until the married couple came of age. This was the arrangement between the Young King (son of Henry II) and his French bride Marguerite, who were engaged when he was five and she was only two. King John (brother of Richard the Lionheart) married Isabella D’Angouleme when she was twelve. He was thirty-three. The dates of the consummation of these marriages are not recorded. A similar practice was in place in Arabia during the time of Muhammad. Scholars vary about when Muhammad became engaged to Aisha, but most say she was between six and nine. At either nine or twelve, according to these same accounts, she was fostered into Muhammad’s household. Once again, the date of consummation is not recorded. Some scholars disagree and say that Aisha must have been older when she was engaged and fostered, because she was said to be present at events that would otherwise have taken place before her birth. Either way, the age at which Aisha began sharing a bed with Muhammad is uncertain. What we do know is that Muhammad’s enemies, who were eager to use any hint of scandal against him, never accused him of sexual immorality. Whenever his marriage to Aisha took place, it was within the norms of the day.

What occurs in Jewel is a modern, western projection of what this premodern practice of engagement, fosterage and marriage might have looked like. The two worldviews mesh very uncomfortably, so what we end up with resembles pedophilia. Adolescence is a celebrated time for westerners—so celebrated, in fact, that what was once an interlude of five or six years now stretches from the age of twelve to the age of thirty. Jones cannot imagine a world in which adolescence is brief or nonexistent. Even today, most Arabs (both men and women) go straight from their childhood homes to their marriage beds. There is no interim of personal independence, no ‘singlehood’. The Aisha of Jewel never seems to be genuinely from such a society. Her ideas and their expression, though set against camels and deserts, remain identifiably American.

In the end, Jewel does not escape its inherent limitations. But it has convinced me of something important: there is great secular literature waiting to be written about prophethood. Someday, an author will put aside fears and preconceptions and hesitations and show us, on the printed page, the kind of shattering charisma these axial figures must have had. Such a book may not satisfy the prurient expectations of the faithful, but it will help anyone who reads it understand the world better. And for that, its value will be unquestionable. The Muhammad of Jewel was not my prophet. But he was a man, with footprints and breath and a body, and on some level it was helpful—good—for me to be reminded that the real Muhammad had these also.