English
The moral parable of The Prophet’s Hair was written by Salman Rushdie as a part of the East, West compilation of short stories in 1981. Rushdie was born in Bombay, India in 1947. He studied at the King’s College in Cambridge, England and now resides in New York City. This story belongs to the literary genre of magical realism, in which magical elements are inserted into an otherwise realistic setting.
The main character, Hashim, is a businessman with a family who starts out as kind and caring. He unsuspectingly finds a religious relic, a silver vial containing a lock of hair from the beard of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. He knows it has been stolen from its rightful place within a shrine in the Hazratbal mosque in Kashmir. Hashim considers returning the relic, but instead decides to keep it for his personal pleasure, justifying this to himself by believing that Muhammad would have disapproved of the object worship and that his appreciation of the item is based solely on its beauty in itself. This action sets off a chain of events which lead to the destruction of his family and, ultimately, his own death.
This story demonstrates the truth of the fact stated in the Bible that no man can serve two masters; he will love one and hate the other. Centered around the theme of money versus morals, Rushdie’s story is filled with symbolism. Greed battles with religion and virtue throughout the internal struggle which plagues Hashim and the other characters in this tale.
Prior to keeping the prophet’s hair, Hashim is comfortable with his place in the world. Afterwards, his guilt over money consumes him. He becomes an intolerant religious zealot, converting to a radical interpretation of Islamic law. He is cruel, physically beating his wife and children and subjecting them to moral confessions designed to unburden himself at their emotional expense. Hashim admits to cheating on his wife and calls his children disappointing embarrassments. He also burns books and punishes people who are unable to pay their monetary debts. All of this is an extreme change of character for him. His words and actions do not agree. Stating that he “lives honorably” but adhering in practice to false religion, Hashim acts as judge and jury with the people in his life. Failing to return this hair is comparable to stealing. The karmic results are catastrophic.
The children realize the hair is to blame for the change. They just want the family back to normal. The son and daughter each make a separate attempt to remove the vial from dad’s possession. Son Atta is attacked and robbed, losing the hair. Unbelievably, dad finds it a second time and makes the same decision again. Daughter Huma hires a burglar, appropriately named Sin as he embodies all that his wrong with human nature, to rid the family of the accursed hair. This final act of desperation incites a conclusion in which all who have been involved in the theft are doomed. Sin, Atta, Huma and Hashim all die. His wife lives, but is driven insane.
Secondary themes can be found in the reading. Both miracles and disasters befall the possessor of the precious hair, as well as their families. People cannot control what happens in their lives, but they can control their reaction to events. Human desires must be kept in check, actions motivated by greed must be controlled lest terrible consequences result.
This story is still entirely relevant today, maybe even more so than when it was originally written. Money makes people do crazy things. Religious virtue cannot be substituted for real morality. Most of all, in the end, it usually works out that people get what they deserve in so far as you reap what you sow.
References
Basith, Abdul. “Short Story Analysis of The Prophet’s Hair by Salman Rushdie” Retrieved from http://www.scribd.com/doc/98370314/Short-Story-Analysis-of-The-Prophet-s-Hair-by-Salman-Rushdie#scribd April 25, 2015.
Derwent, Michael. “The Prophet’s Hair by Salman Rushdie” Retrieved from http://www.academon.com/analytical-essay/the-prophet-hair-by-salman-rushdie-146558/ April 25, 2015.
