Salman Rushdie, The Satanic Verses

Vassilena Parashkevova (University of Surrey)
Download PDF Add to Bookshelf Report an Error

On 14th February 1989, Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini pronounced a

fatwa

(death sentence) on Salman Rushdie's life because of the alleged blasphemous representation of Islam and the life of Mohammed in his novel,

The Satanic Verses

. Subsequently, Rushdie was forced to go into hiding until the

fatwa

was revoked in September 1998. Many other events have since been included in the so-called “Rushdie Affair”: the demand of the British Union of Muslim Organizations for criminal prosecution of Rushdie; India's ban of the book; its ritual burnings in Bolton and Bradford; and the murder of its Japanese translator. Such extreme, prejudicial responses, no doubt involving many who have not read the book, have tended to obscure the novel's main emphases, such as the notion of identity as always under…

2559 words

Citation: Parashkevova, Vassilena. "The Satanic Verses". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 16 November 2005 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=7647, accessed 19 March 2024.]

7647 The Satanic Verses 3 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

Save this article

If you need to create a new bookshelf to save this article in, please make sure that you are logged in, then go to your 'Account' here

Leave Feedback

The Literary Encyclopedia is a living community of scholars. We welcome comments which will help us improve.