The Satanic Verses controversy

The international political and religious dispute sparked by Salman Rushdie’s 1988 novel The Satanic Verses, involving protests, bans, diplomatic crises, and threats against the author.

The Satanic Verses: A 1988 novel by Salman Rushdie that interweaves migrant life in Britain with dream sequences involving religious history. Its fictional episodes and treatment of sacred material became the immediate focus of objections.
Salman Rushdie: British-Indian novelist whose works include Midnight’s Children and The Satanic Verses. Rushdie wrote the novel and became the central target of threats after the controversy began.
Hitoshi Igarashi: Japanese scholar and translator of The Satanic Verses who was murdered in 1991. His killing highlighted the danger faced by people connected with the novel’s translation.
Freedom of expression: The right to communicate ideas and information without undue interference by public authorities. The controversy became a defining dispute over whether blasphemous or offensive fiction merits legal protection.
Ruhollah Khomeini: Iranian Shia cleric and political leader who founded the Islamic Republic and served as its supreme leader from 1979 to 1989. His 1989 fatwa calling for Rushdie’s death transformed the dispute into an international crisis.
1980s Islamism: A period of political movements that sought to shape public life and government according to Islamic principles. The dispute unfolded amid struggles over religious authority, political legitimacy, and Muslim identity.
Ettore Capriolo: Italian translator of The Satanic Verses who was attacked and seriously injured in 1991. The assault on Capriolo was one of several attacks on the novel’s translators.
Blasphemy: Speech or action regarded as showing irreverence toward a deity or sacred beliefs. Accusations of blasphemy underpinned many objections to the novel.
Fatwa: A nonbinding legal opinion issued by a qualified Islamic jurist in response to a question about religious law. Khomeini’s declaration is often called a fatwa, though its status and reach were disputed.
Iranian Revolution: The 1979 revolution that overthrew Iran’s monarchy and established an Islamic republic. The post-revolutionary state’s political authority shaped Iran’s response to the novel.

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