The Rushdie Affair: The Novel, the Ayatollah and the West

The publication in 1988 of Salman Rushdie’s novel The Satanic Verses triggereda furor that pitted much of the Islamic world against the West over issues ofblasphemy and freedom of expression. The controversy soon took on theaspect of a confrontation of civilizations, provoking powerful emotions on aglobal level. It involved censorship, protests, riots, a break in diplomaticrelations, culminating in the notorious Iranian edict calling for the death ofthe novelist. In The Rushdie Affair, Daniel Pipes explains why the publicationofThe Satanic Verses became a cataclysmic event with far-reaching politicaland social consequences.