Iran has recently accused the British government of insulting Islam by awarding a knighthood to Salman Rushdie, author of The Satanic Verses.
The problems
Parts of the novel - such as the parallels between one of the main characters, a shady, businessman-turned-prophet, and the prophet Mohammed - were judged to be blasphemous. Muslims took great offence and Iran became the main source of disapproval, with protests, riots and copies of the Satanic Verses being burned in the streets.
Outside Iran, bookstores were firebombed and several people died during protests in the Indian city of Mumbai, with other demonstrations in parts of Kashmir. British Muslims also stood up to the author with angry protests and even death threats.
Ayatollah Khomeini, who was then leader of Iran, issued a fatwa, condemning the author to death, which helped to plunge diplomatic relations between Britain and Iran towards new lows. Salman Rushdie went into hiding for the next nine years while arguments circled around his book and his life. He moved safe houses thirty times between 1989 and 1998 until a new, reformist government took power in Iran and gave assurances that it no longer wished him any harm. But the fatwa has never formally been rescinded.
Salman Rushdie
In June 2007, the British Government awarded him a knighthood for his “services to literature”. This includes his award-winning novel, Midnight’s Children, which was published in 1981 and became an exam text for thousands of teenagers in the UK, wining the Booker Prize. He went on to win a further award for the book when it was judged the ‘Book of Bookers’ as the best novel in the award’s first 25 years.
Much of Rushdie’s later works centered on the disjointed relations between the East and the West, which has won him both criticism and acclaim. He has also influenced a generation of writers, both Eastern and Western.
Religious Belifes
Salman Rushdie was raised as a Muslim but now describes himself as an atheist. He has supported arguments for Muslim women to ditch the niqab and also angered some Muslims by arguing for Islam to reform into more of an open-minded religion beyond tradition, in which they cold see “the revelation of their religion as an event inside history, not supernaturally above it”.
The Debate
Although many arguments surrounding Salman Rushdie have begun to fade, this recent decision to award him a knighthood has again ignited the flames for some Muslims. The real question is whether religion can be separated from everything else in life or whether it is too interlinked to see them individually. Rushdie is undoubtedly a popular and talented author for many people, yet whether his views are blasphemous or constitute freedom of speech seems to depend on subtle religious differences and an understanding of his literary aims.
