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A review essay on seven books by Salman Rushdie, a literature about hatred & blasphemy. His refusal to adjust to the realities of the misunderstanding his work engendered, even in the wake of bloody riots in his beloved Bombay, India, is judged grossly irresponsible. To end the sordid affair surrounding the publication of The Satanic Verses (London: Viking, 1988), it is hoped that Rushdie make amends with the admittedly beloved religious & national communities of his origin, & that Muslim intellectuals appeal to the new leader of the Islamic Republic to live up to the intent of his declaration of 17 Feb 1988 & lift the ominous sentence against Rushdie. It is also hoped that the Muslim people will view Rushdie in the light of mercy & tolerance that has for centuries prevailed in their civilization. Modified AA

It is argued that Leo Strauss's polemic against the social sciences seems effective only because he attacks a straw man of his own creation; neither Max Weber nor the majority of social scientists would find themselves fairly represented in Strauss's reconstruction of his worthy opponent. Neither does Strauss offer a novel alternative to the relativistic solution to the problem of intercultural understanding; he merely invites his disciples to rely on the apparent self-evidence of Western superiority & thus his solution consists in overlooking the problem. Weber's theory of intercultural understanding cannot be heuristically classified with either the essentialist or relativistic positions. His view could be expanded to include a universal theory for studying historically & geo-culturally distant peoples. Pivotal to this theory is the recognition of the value-relevant interests of the historians & anthropologists in the peoples & the problems that they choose to study. The one-sidedness of this understanding cannot be eliminated, but it may be reciprocated by the subjects of the study. The differences in the ideal types of mutually reflecting cultures does not vitiate the scientificity of either but is constitutive thereof. Modified AA