Review on The Prophet’s Hair by Salman Rushdie
The Prophet’s hair is a magical realistic short story from the book ‘East, West’ written by Salman Rushdie. Rushdie is an author, novelist, essayist and sometimes a critic. He blends myth and fantasy in a world of reality and that is what he is famous for. The prophet’s hair is based on the story of the theft of the prophet Muhammad’s hair. Whoever comes in contact with this relic, faces strange or miraculous events.
The story takes place in the early 1980’s during winter season in a rural area called Srinagar in India. Srinagar is a Kashmir valley. This story also depicts a setting that can be assumed as the beginning of the 20th century where religion and government structures were reaching its heights. The social environment revolves around money, honor, respectable values and religion; in this case the Islam. Every character is concerned about his place in society and his greed for money. The story is written in third person omniscient point of view. The writer as he describes the setting, moves from character to character narrating the story.
In this short story, Hashim is the protagonist. He is the father of Huma and Atta. Hashim comes upon the stolen hair accidentally. He does not return the relic as greed consumes. He justifies his act as a community service basing it on the Islamic views of deity. Hashim turns into a religious hypocrite from a secular person. Hashim’s son Atta knows the truth about the hair and steals it from his father to return it to the mosque, but he fails. Atta’s sister Huma notices that her father keeps the hair with him all the time and decides the hair must be stolen. She hires a thief to do this job, his name is Sheikh Sin, hoping that they will be relieved from the curse once the hair is removed and returned. The thief steals the hair, but things escalate dramatically. Hashim