Pubisher Eric Kampmann says he does not believe The Jewel of Medina, by Sherry Jones, above, will offend Muslims. (Associated Press)

As The Jewel of Medina arrives in bookstores Monday, its publisher says he believes the early release of the book will quell the controversy that surrounds it.

The book, a first-person account of the life of the Prophet Muhammad's favourite wife, Aisha, has been criticized as potentially offensive to Muslims and its U.K. publication is stalled after a firebomb was thrown into the publisher's home and offices.

But Eric Kampmann, the publisher behind New York-based Beaufort Books, says he expects that kind of extreme response to blow over as the book by Spokane, Wash., author Sherry Jones is reviewed.

"When her voice is heard I think to a certain extent that's going to mitigate the situation with the fear and trembling that people have on all sides of this question of whether this is an assault on Islam. I absolutely think that it's not," he told CBC cultural affairs show Q on Monday.

"That's what I'm staking my hope on, that the violent controversy will disappear and that we'll have more intellectual controversy, which is fine."

Kampmann, who says he bought former Canadian publisher Beaufort Books in 1984 and has been struggling to revive the label for the past three years, says he moved up release of the book from Oct. 30 in the hope of clearing the air.

"First of all because we don't think this book should be offensive to anybody, and we thought that because it's in the news that I would be sending a signal that I was reluctant to release it. It was already printed, so really the question was, when do we ship it, not do we print it," he said

Most of the people responding to controversy about the book have not read it, he added.

The controversy won't completely disappear because of the book's history, he said.

Random House paid $100,000 US for the novel, although it was a first novel. Then it abandoned publication in August, saying it feared the book would be offensive to Muslims.

"So I think there will be a certain level of controversy, but in my opinion it's not going to be like the Danish cartoons, nor like Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses. I don't think it's that kind of book," Kampmann said.

A denunciation of the book by an Islamic scholar in Texas, Denise Spellberg, as "soft-core pornography" has added to the backlash.

"A professor at the University of Texas decided to came out very strongly against the book and really attacked it not only in the publishing community but in the Muslim community," Kampmann said.

But Kampmann said he himself has not been threatened, though he has consulted with the New York police anti-terrorism unit as a "precaution."

The attack on British publisher Gibson Square and the home of Martin Rygja caught him by surprise, Kampmann said.

"I was astonished. I didn't expect it. I knew that this was a controversial book, but it's a novel," he said.

He compared The Jewel of Medina to works of Christian historical fiction, such as The Robe.

"Trying to depict characters in a normal life that have had such a huge impact on history — I wonder if that's such a terrible thing. I know that, in the Christian tradition... it is not a terrible thing," he said.

Kampmann said he has taken personal precautions against violence, but doesn't expect it.

"I plan to deal it with it as it comes," he said.

Early reviews of the book dismiss the charges of soft-core pornography, but say Jones's inexperience as a writer shows.

A Los Angeles Times review found the characters unbelievable and the depiction of Aisha unconvincing.

"The Jewel of Medina is a second-rate bodice ripper or, rather, a second-rate bodice ripper-style romance (it doesn't really have sex scenes)," the L.A. times critic wrote. "It's readable enough, but it suffers from large swaths of purple prose."