Money, Power, and Religion

Salman Rushdie is most known for his book The Satanic Verses, which did not have the best results for him.  Since the book was basically promoting the religion of Islam, the Muslim people started having violent protests about the book.  Eventually Rushdie was issued to death or Fatwa as they call it.  Hearing this Rushdie decided the need to hide away.  He spent nearly ten years hidden out underground.  While he was underground he continued his writings.  He put together a book called East, West, which is a book of short stories.  One of the short stories in that book is The Prophet’s Hair. 

One of the main themes in The Prophet’s Hair is the theme of money and power and also the theme of religion.  “The wealthy moneylender Hashim” (41) shows the theme of money.  Hashim is introduced as “not a godly man, but he set great store by ‘living honourably in the world’” (41), which shows the theme of religion.  “In that spacious lakeside residence, all outsiders were greeted with the same formality and respect, even those unfortunates who came to negotiate for small fragments of Hashim’s large fortune, and of whom he naturally asked an interest rate of over seventy percent” (41) shows both the themes of money and power.  Hashim definitely has power over these people because of the large fortune that he has.  Although Hashim makes it sound like he is not so religious by saying that he is “not a godly man” (41) this can all change.   

This all changes when Hashim becomes in possession of the prophet’s hair.  This vial was stolen from a local temple.  When Hashim comes into possession of this, his views on religion completely change.  He basically decides that he is going to go back and right every wrong that he had done, which ultimately results in the destruction of his own family.  Hashim feels that he is doing Mohammed a favor by holding onto this vial.  He says “the Prophet would have disapproved mightily of this relic-worship…so, by keeping this hair from its distracted devotees, I perform…a finer service than I would by returning it” (44).  Hashim feels that while he holds this vial that he has all of the power.  He starts setting new rules in his home.  This turns to complete disaster because he is trying to overpower all of the others in the home.  Finally after turning into the hypocritical power that he was, his wife goes insane and has to leave the household.  This may have been the best for her, because the family members all started dying away, and the family slowly vanished. 

Rushdie hits the nail on the head with the themes of money, power, and religion.  Money results in power and religion can change easily which isn’t always for the best.  Here all it took was Hashim to come into contact with the vial, which results in him all of a sudden being more religious and decides to flex his power.  This can easily happen in the world today which makes this story seem so believable.