The Satanic Verses

by Salman Rushdie

The Satanic Verses is Salman Rushdie's fourth novel, first published September 26, 1988 and inspired in part by the life of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. As with his previous books, Rushdie used magical realism and relied on contemporary events and people to create his characters. The title refers to the satanic verses, a group of Quranic verses that refer to three pagan Meccan goddesses: Allāt, Uzza, and Manāt. The part of the story that deals with the "satanic verses" was based on accounts from the historians al-Waqidi and al-Tabari. In the United Kingdom, The Satanic Verses received positive reviews, was a 1988 Booker Prize finalist (losing to Peter Carey's Oscar and Lucinda) and won the 1988 Whitbread Award for novel of the year.

Documented challenge/ban history: Religious content; banned in several countries, prompting a state-issued death decree against the author — Read about this book on Wikipedia · Historical censorship record
  • 1988 — Banned in India within days of publication (Oct 5), the first of more than a dozen countries to ban it
  • 1989 — Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini issues a fatwa (Feb 14) calling for Rushdie's death over the novel; copies are publicly burned in the UK
  • 2022 — Rushdie is stabbed multiple times on stage in Chautauqua, New York (Aug 12), losing sight in one eye

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