The Satanic Verses

Salman Rushdie was an author who wrote a book that wasn't even specifically about Islam.

Satanic verses?

That's it.

Satanic verses.

I felt I always knew who Salman Rushdie is... the author of this eerie sounding novel called The Satanic Verses.

And then came the Satanic Verses and it changed everything.

It was nominated for the Book of Priors, so it did pretty well.

After the Satanic Verses, for a long time nobody wrote about me as a funny writer; they saw me as dark and obscurely theological.

Long before I read literary fiction, he just sat in my consciousness as the author of this eeriesounding novel called The Satanic Verses, a novel so somehow dangerous he had to go into hiding after the Supreme Leader of Iran said he and anyone involved in it should be killed for blaspheming Islam.

And then came the satanic verses and it changed everything.

No, I think he wrote the book. Satanic versus.

He was on the fucking list to begin with. Iran. The state of Iran put out a fatwa on him.

He wrote the satanic verses like a decade ago.

They got a ton of people associated with the book. They were killing like Purdue, like publisher. They killed.

That wasn't his sin, depicting an image of the Prophet Muhammad, but he wrote that book that obviously has been deemed deeply problematic.

And there was a fatwa issued on him and he was just attacked.

He's blind in one eye, he has three serious wounds in his neck, one hand is incapacitated because the nerves in his arm were cut, and had about 15 more wounds in his chest and torso.

He was attacked by a man who rushed the stage and stabbed him repeatedly, identified as 24 year old Hadi Matar, a Faribault, New Jersey, who's now pleaded not guilty to second degree attempted murder.

Salman Rushdie hasn't been dealing with this since 1989.

And, you know, I was living in Sweden for a while where this became an actual issue of debate. There was a far right newspaper in Sweden was associated with the far right party. Legitimate far right people. I mean, they were not people that I enjoyed, but they published the cartoons that the Danish newspaper had initially published in, I think, 2005 or six. And the government intervened and I think shut down their server or took it offline basically.

And, you know, I was living in Sweden for a while where this became an actual issue of debate. There was a far right newspaper in Sweden was associated with the far right party. Legitimate far right people. I mean, they were not people that I enjoyed, but they published the cartoons that the Danish newspaper had initially published in, I think, 2005 or six. And the government intervened and I think shut down their server or took it offline basically. And I said, you know, this is kind of crazy. And in Denmark at the same time, they were reanimating a blasphemy law, a blasphemy law in Denmark because of the power of particular lobbyist saying this stuff shouldn't happen. And so when it happened to the US in a way that I found really disconcerting, which was initially a woman named Molly Norris, who has disappeared from the face of the earth. That's right. Disappeared. Her crime, she disappeared. I believe she changed her name and there was it. She was doing kind of cartooning or something. She's an alt weekly cartoonist. For Seattle Stranger. So Pacific Northwest. And she does in everyone draw Muhammad thing. This is actually where the real Genesis came from. And she did this kind of wry, silly thing. And this was woman's not political at all. And is a picture of a teacup. And teacup says, I'm Muhammad. And it's like an I am Spartacus thing with like everyday household items saying I'm Muhammad.

And if you think of the Salman Rushdie thing, someone survives. And I know someone reasonably well. And I've talked to him about it a number of times.

And it was a difficult thing in his life. But it was even more difficult for people tangentially involved. His Norwegian translator, Rashad, his Japanese translator, I believe was shot or stabbed. One of them died. So, I mean, this was their, you know, the Danish cartoons were published in thousands of people died because there were embassies burned all across the world. And it was and I took a step back and I was like, these are cartoons.

tied to a decadesold religious edict issued after Rushdie published the Satanic Verses.

Mattar also wounded another man who was on the stage with Rushdie. Matt Murphy, Fox News. The Israeli military just confirming strikes on two ports in Yemen. Targeting sites they say Houthi rebels are using to transfer weapons as the Iranbacked Houthis target Israel. Ukraine and Russia uphold their first direct talks in more than three years. But the session in Turkey lasted for less than two hours. They did agree to swap prisoners of war, 1,000 from each side. A mystery in the country where the first lady was born. A bronze statue of Melania Trump vanishes with a trace. Police say the statue was chopped off at the ankles and removed. This isn't the first time that a statue of the first lady near her hometown in central Slovenia has been vandalized. The first one, made of wood, was burned to a crisp in 2020, and the bronze lifesize sculpture that replaced it was unveiled later that year. Police confirm they were informed about the incident on Tuesday, adding they're working to track down those responsible. The original statue featured the first lady in a blue dress and heels and had been carved out of a tree with a chainsaw by a local artist. The replica bronze statue has no obvious resemblance to the first lady. CJ Papa, Fox News.

Matt Murphy, Fox News. The Israeli military just confirming strikes on two ports in Yemen. Targeting sites they say Houthi rebels are using to transfer weapons as the Iranbacked Houthis target Israel. Ukraine and Russia uphold their first direct talks in more than three years.

Rushdie, who is 77 and best known for his book Satanic Versus, was left blind in one eye and suffering nerve and liver damage as a result of the attack, which happened in front of a live audience.

When the Supreme Leader of Iran issued a fatwa ordering his assassination, that was the reaction to his 1988 book, The Satanic Verses.

When the Supreme Leader of Iran issued a fatwa ordering his assassination, that was the reaction to his 1988 book, The Santanic Verses.

He did a public reading of the Satanic Verses with various other artists at the time that Salman Rushdie had the fatwa put on him, and he would do a lot of things like that.

Apparently, over the course of the last few days in case you missed it, Salman Rushdie is a famous author of the Satanic Verses.

Salman Rushdie has had a fatwa on his head for decades based on his book The Satanic Verses which talks about verses supposedly excised from the Quran.

And I sat down and wrote the final draft of the Satanic Verses.

And I discovered that not only landmines could make a big bang, sometimes books could make them too.

Rushdie's 1988 book, The Satanic Verses, angered many Muslims and prompted a religious fatwa calling for the author's death.

Rushdie's 1988 book, The Satanic Verses, angered many Muslims and prompted a religious fatwa calling for the author's death.

Rushdie has been living in the U.S. for many years after Iran's former leader Ayatollah Rouhala Khomeini ordered Muslims to kill him for his 1989 novel The Satanic Verses.

Rushdie has been living in the U.S. for many years after Iran's former leader Ayatollah Ruhala Khomeini ordered Muslims to kill him for his 1989 novel The Satanic Verses.

Rushdie has been living in the U.S. for many years after Iran's former leader Ayatollah Rouhala Khomeini ordered Muslims to kill him for his 1989 novel The Satanic Verses.

linked to the edict issued by Iran on Rushdie's life following the 1988 publication of his novel, the Satanic Versus, where she spent years in hiding.

Nearly four decades after India banned the import of Salman Rushdie's satanic verses, it's now possible to bring the book into the country because of a legal loophole.

Writer Salman Rushdie spent years in exile after the publication of his 1988 novel, The Satanic Verses. A fatwa by Iran's then supreme leader had called for his death. Even his birth country, India, had banned the importation of his novel.

Salman Rushdie Sentenced to death by the Iranian Ayatollahs in 1989 for the sin of writing a novel

He lived under the shadow of a fatwa until two years ago On a stage like this one, he was viciously stabbed But he survived And undaunted this week, of course he published a book about it

It was 33 years after Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini called for Rushdie's death as punishment for writing the novel The Satanic Verses.

To the Ayatollah, it was a righteous way to punish Rushdie for having written the 1988 novel The Satanic Verses, which to the Ayatollah was blasphemous in its treatment of Islam and the Prophet Muhammad.

It had been 33 and a half years since the Atilla Ruhala Khomeini's notorious death order against me and all those involved in the publication of the satanic verses.

To the Ayatollah it was a righteous way to punish Rushdie for having written the 1988 novel The Satanic Verses which to the Ayatollah was blasphemous in its treatment of Islam and the Prophet Muhammad.

It had been 33 and a half years since the Aytelaruhu-la-Chomeini's notorious death order against me and all those involved in the publication of the Satanic verses.

Salman Rushdie is kind of a famous figure because all the way back in the 1970s and 80s he wrote a book called The Satanic Verses.

Now in the Satanic Verses there were provocative passages written it's like a fictionalized work about Islam, the prophet Muhammad and more.

an actual fatwa was issued against his life by the ayatollah of Iran, Ayatollah Khomeini.

He's a celebrated author of 12 novels, including Midnight's Children, The Satanic Verses.

He wrote that book where they put a jihad on his life... he wrote the Satanic Verses and then he went into hiding for like 20 years.

The author has lived under constant threat of violence for over three decades after he published his novel, The Satanic Verses.

The perceived sin was blasphemy. That he had insulted the Prophet Muhammad. That he had written things about the origin story of Islam.

And so for the next 10 years, Rushdie lived like a fugitive in England and then came to America and lived much more freely in the past 20 years.

if we are in a situation where a novel like that, of that kind of daring, is not getting published, then that's a very, very sad state of affairs.

Yeah, Hanif Qureshi, who unfortunately is now in a hospital bed having suffered a terrible fall. And he's tweeting about it, live tweeting about it. We talked about him on the podcast a few weeks ago. You know, and terrific person and himself ran into trouble early in his career with a film called My Beautiful Landerette, but nothing like Salman's situation. Yeah, Qureshi said that it's hard to imagine that anybody would write that novel or publish it.

And it's enormous. It sounds crazy in the light of our conversation, but it's enormous fun. It's a kind of fantastical telling of the creation of a South Indian empire in medieval times.

The Satanic Verses, considered blasphemous by some Muslims.

Rushdie, who became the target of a fatwa issued in 1989 by Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini over his novel The Satanic Verses, spent years in hiding.

A court has decided that a New Jersey man accused of stabbing Salman Rushdie, author of this satanic verses, may obtain information about Rushdie's planned memoir about the incident prior to going on trial.