Fear of violence kills a book:

A romance novel about the child bride of the prophet Muhammad has been withdrawn because its publisher feared possible terrorist acts by Muslim extremists.

The Jewel of the Medina was to have been released on August 12 by Ballantine Books, a division of Random House, with an eight-city tour for first-time novelist Sherry Jones, 46.

But the publishers apparently panicked after a professor in Texas who had been approached for a pre-publication blurb, strenuously objected to the work.

Denise Spellberg, who teaches Islamic history at the University of Texas at Austin, later described the novel as “soft core pornography”.

Jones rejects the charge. “It’s ridiculous,” she told the Guardian today.

“I must be one heck of a writer to have produced a pornographic book without any sex scenes. My book is as realistic a portrayal as I could muster of the prophet Muhammad’s harem and his domestic life. Of course it has sexuality, but there is no sex in my book.”

The withdrawal of the novel, first reported this week by the Wall Street Journal, set off an intense debate on the web among feminists, young Muslims, and academics.

Many of the bloggers recalled the death threats and uproar 20 years ago following the publication of Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses.

There were also references to the global upheavals that followed the publication of cartoons in the Danish newspaper, Jyllands-Posten, deemed offensive to Islam. More than 100 people died in the ensuing protests.

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The novel became a topic of discussion on a number of Muslim websites, with one blogger putting forward an action strategy to email blast the publisher.

Spellberg also raised her concerns with Random House. “Denise says it is ‘a declaration of war ... explosive stuff ... a national security issue’,” said an email from Jane Garrett, an editor at another Random House imprint that was quoted in the Journal.

“Think it will be far more controversial than the satanic verses and the Danish cartoons.”

The email from Garrett went on: “thinks the book should be withdrawn ASAP”.