The Satanic Verses controversy

The Satanic Verses controversy, also known as the Rushdie Affair, was the heated and frequently violent reaction of Muslims to the publication of Salman Rushdie's novel The Satanic Verses, which was first published in the United Kingdom in 1988. Many Muslims accused Rushdie of blasphemy or unbelief and in 1989 the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini of Iran issued a fatwa ordering Muslims to kill Rushdie. Numerous killings, attempted killings, and bombings resulted from angry Muslims over the novel.

The Iranian government backed the fatwa against Rushdie until 1998, when the succeeding government of Iranian President Mohammad Khatami said it no longer supported the killing of Rushdie. However, the fatwa remains in place.

The issue was said to have divided "Muslim from Westerners along the fault line of culture," and to have pitted a core Western value of freedom of expression—that no one "should be killed, or face a serious threat of being killed, for what they say or write"—against the view of many Muslims—that no one should be free to "insult and malign Muslims" by disparaging the "honour of the Prophet" Muhammad. English writer Hanif Kureishi called the fatwa "one of the most significant events in postwar literary history."

Even before the publication of The Satanic Verses, the books of Salman Rushdie had stoked controversy. Rushdie himself saw his role as a writer "as including the function of antagonist to the state". His second book Midnight's Children angered Indira Gandhi because it seemed to suggest "that Mrs. Gandhi was responsible for the death of her husband through neglect". His 1983 roman à clef Shame "took an aim on Pakistan, its political characters, its culture and its religion... [It covered] a central episode in Pakistan's internal life, which portrays as a family squabble between Iskander Harappa (Zulfikar Ali Bhutto) and his successor and executioner Raza Hyder (Zia ul-Haq)... 'The Virgin Ironpants'... has been identified as Benazir Bhutto, a Prime Minister of Pakistan".

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