I exercised yesterday in a state of bewilderment–to hear Salman Rushdie express thoughts and feelings about Islam that could just as easily have been written by me about Mormonism (if I were a better writer, of course). A big thanks to my pal Russ for the recommendation.

If you have any time on your hands, please check it out.

I promise you will not be disappointed.

P.S. Watt Mahoon–did your name come from the Satanic Verses per chance?

4 Comments

  1. Watt Mahoun July 19, 2006 at 11:56 am

    Hi John,

    Very good recommendation. Thank you.

    I actually picked the name up from the comments in a post entitled “Freemasonry, Magic, the Temple, and Secret Combos” on 2Think. It was part of an excerpt from one of Quinn’s books discussin the origins of the term ‘Master Mahan’. Apparently ‘Mahan’ or ‘Mahoun’ is a corruption of ‘Mahomet’ or ‘Muhammad’ which association reflects the belief that Muhammad was Satan himself.

    I’m sure Rushdie takes the use in his book from the same folklore/poetry that Quinn refers to.

    Watt (the blogger otherwise known as Matt Elggren)

  2. John Dehlin July 19, 2006 at 12:27 pm

    Hey Matt!

    When I kept hearing Rushdie say “Mahoun”….I couldn’t stop thinking about you.

    I wonder how he spells it in his book?

    Anyone know?

  3. Mat Elggren July 19, 2006 at 1:49 pm

    Looks like he spells it ‘Mahound’ as appears in the TOC here. Obviously with a soft ‘d’ since it sounds like ‘Mahoon’ in the podcast.

  4. John Dehlin July 19, 2006 at 2:30 pm

    Nice sleuth work, Matt!!!

Comments are closed.