The rantings of a schizophrenic

“Wot, no fatwa?” asks one of our Gaytheist discussion group members (see sidebar), after the UK’s Telegraph printed a story saying that the author Sebastian Faulks “risks Muslim anger after calling Koran the ‘rantings of a schizophrenic’ ”

Faulks says the Koran has “no ethical dimension” and that the words of Mohammed the “rantings of a schizophrenic”.

“He said the Islamic holy scripture was a ‘one-dimensional book’ that has little literary value,” writes Lucy Cockcroft, “and added that when compared with the Bible its message seemed ‘barren’.”

She continues, “Faulks, who is known for his meticulous research, has recently read a translation of the Koran to help him write his latest novel, A Week in December, to be published in September.”

Of the Koran, Faulks says, “It’s a depressing book. It really is. It’s just the rantings of a schizophrenic. It’s very one-dimensional, and people talk about the beauty of the Arabic and so on, but the English translation I read was, from a literary point of view, very disappointing.”
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UPDATE: Mysteriously, the link to this story given by the Telegraph itself if you search on “Koran” now gives an error message. Has the story been pulled? You can, however, read a version in the Express