A review of the molotov-cocktail-magnetic Jewel of Medina wonders what all the fuss is about.

Its cancellation by Random House came after a scholar of Aisha, Denise Spellberg, denounced the novel as a “very ugly, stupid piece of work,” and expressed concern it would trigger violence.

That reaction now looks overwrought and tone-deaf. The Jewel of Medina, granted, isn’t Proust. No sooner do we encounter, on page 3, “Pain wrung my stomach like strong hands squeezing water from laundry, only I was already dry,” than we understand Jones is not Aristotle’s sought-after “master of metaphor.” When Muhammad replies to his cousin Ali, “Divorce my Aisha? I would rather cut out my own heart,” we miss the poetry of the sutras.

But neither is The Jewel of Medina tripe. Jones claims she read scores of books on Islam and Aisha. It shows. Jewel faithfully tracks the known story, dramatizing celebrated moments.

Its departures from solid historical facts – one of Spellberg’s chief complaints – lie within the normal ambit of historical fiction. Its sympathies tilt completely toward Muhammad and Aisha. Controversial aspects – Aisha’s possible flirtatiousness and fibbing, her jealousy, her sharp tongue (she once implied that Muhammad made up a Quranic sura only to justify marrying Zaynab) – all stem from Islamic history itself.

]Only a Muslim who rejected Muhammad’s lifelong insistence that he was a man like other men could find The Jewel of Medina objectionable or anti-Islam. They, and perhaps a scholar like Spellberg, author of Politics, Gender and the Islamic Past: The Legacy of Aisha bint Abi Bakr (Columbia, 1994), who didn’t like a mere journalist muscling in on her territory.

What’s precious about The Jewel of Medina is its unapologetic reimagining of a marriage that may outrage some, but inspire millions more. The Wall Street Journal article that stoked the brouhaha over The Jewel of Medina screamed, “You Still Can’t Write About Muhammad.”