The Satanic Verses  

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'''''The Satanic Verses''''' is [[Salman Rushdie]]'s fourth novel, first published in 1988 and inspired in part by the life of [[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 [[Quran]]ic verses that allow intercessory prayers to be made to three [[Quraysh (tribe)|Pagan Meccan]] goddesses: [[Al-lāt|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 [[Muhammad ibn Jarir al-Tabari|al-Tabari]]. '''''The Satanic Verses''''' is [[Salman Rushdie]]'s fourth novel, first published in 1988 and inspired in part by the life of [[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 [[Quran]]ic verses that allow intercessory prayers to be made to three [[Quraysh (tribe)|Pagan Meccan]] goddesses: [[Al-lāt|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 [[Muhammad ibn Jarir al-Tabari|al-Tabari]].
-In the United Kingdom, ''The Satanic Verses'' received positive reviews, was a 1988 [[Booker Prize]] finalist (losing to [[Peter Carey (novelist)|Peter Carey]]'s ''[[Oscar and Lucinda]]'') and won the [[1988 Whitbread Awards#Novel|1988 Whitbread Award]] for novel of the year. However, [[The Satanic Verses controversy|major controversy]] ensued as Muslims accused it of blasphemy and mocking their faith. The outrage among Muslims resulted in a ''[[fatwā]]'' calling for Rushdie's death issued by [[Ayatollah]] [[Ruhollah Khomeini]], then [[Supreme Leader of Iran]], on 14 February 1989. The result was several failed assassination attempts on Rushdie, who was placed under police protection, and attacks on several connected individuals such as translator [[Hitoshi Igarashi]] (leading, in Igarashi's case, to death).+[[The Satanic Verses controversy|major controversy]] ensued as [[Muslims]] accused it of [[blasphemy]] and mocking their faith. The outrage among Muslims resulted in a ''[[fatwā]]'' calling for Rushdie's death issued by [[Ayatollah]] [[Ruhollah Khomeini]], then [[Supreme Leader of Iran]], on 14 February 1989. The result was several failed [[assassination attempt]]s on Rushdie, who was placed under police protection, and attacks on several connected individuals such as translator [[Hitoshi Igarashi]] (leading, in Igarashi's case, to death).
==Plot== ==Plot==

Revision as of 20:58, 12 March 2018

One of the first well-known fatwas was proclaimed in 1989 by the Iranian Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, against Salman Rushdie over his novel The Satanic Verses. The reason was an allegedly blasphemous statement taken from an early biography of Muhammad, regarding the incorporation of pagan goddesses into Islam’s strongly monotheistic structure. Khomeini died shortly after issuing the fatwa. In 1998 Iran stated it is no longer pursuing Rushdie’s death; however, that decree was again reversed in early 2005 by the present theocrat, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

In 1991, Rushdie's Japanese translator, Hitoshi Igarashi, was stabbed to death in Tokyo, and his Italian translator was beaten and stabbed in Milan. In 1993, Rushdie's Norwegian publisher William Nygaard was shot and severely injured in an attack outside his house in Oslo. Thirty-seven guests died when their hotel in Sivas, Turkey was torched by locals protesting against Aziz Nesin, Rushdie's Turkish translator.

In February 2016, in celebration of the anniversary of the fatwa against Rushdie, Iranian state-run median agencies added $300,000 to the estimated $3.3 Million bounty for the death of Rushdie.

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The Satanic Verses is Salman Rushdie's fourth novel, first published in 1988 and inspired in part by the life of 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 allow intercessory prayers to be made 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.

major controversy ensued as Muslims accused it of blasphemy and mocking their faith. The outrage among Muslims resulted in a fatwā calling for Rushdie's death issued by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, then Supreme Leader of Iran, on 14 February 1989. The result was several failed assassination attempts on Rushdie, who was placed under police protection, and attacks on several connected individuals such as translator Hitoshi Igarashi (leading, in Igarashi's case, to death).

Contents

Plot

The Satanic Verses consists of a frame narrative, using elements of magical realism, interlaced with a series of sub-plots that are narrated as dream visions experienced by one of the protagonists. The frame narrative, like many other stories by Rushdie, involves Indian expatriates in contemporary England. The two protagonists, Gibreel Farishta and Saladin Chamcha, are both actors of Indian Muslim background. Farishta is a Bollywood superstar who specialises in playing Hindu deities. (The character is partly based on Indian film stars Amitabh Bachchan and N. T. Rama Rao.) Chamcha is an emigrant who has broken with his Indian identity and works as a voiceover artist in England.

At the beginning of the novel, both are trapped in a hijacked plane flying from India to Britain. The plane explodes over the English Channel, but the two are magically saved. In a miraculous transformation, Farishta takes on the personality of the archangel Gabriel and Chamcha that of a devil. Chamcha is arrested and passes through an ordeal of police abuse as a suspected illegal immigrant. Farishta's transformation can partly be read on a realistic level as the symptom of the protagonist's developing schizophrenia.

Both characters struggle to piece their lives back together. Farishta seeks and finds his lost love, the English mountaineer Allie Cone, but their relationship is overshadowed by his mental illness. Chamcha, having miraculously regained his human shape, wants to take revenge on Farishta for having forsaken him after their common fall from the hijacked plane. He does so by fostering Farishta's pathological jealousy and thus destroying his relationship with Allie. In another moment of crisis, Farishta realises what Chamcha has done, but forgives him and even saves his life.

Both return to India. Farishta kills Allie in another outbreak of jealousy and then commits suicide. Chamcha, who has found not only forgiveness from Farishta but also reconciliation with his estranged father and his own Indian identity, decides to remain in India.

Dream sequences

Embedded in this story is a series of half-magic dream vision narratives, ascribed to the mind of Farishta. They are linked together by many thematic details as well as by the common motifs of divine revelation, religious faith and fanaticism, and doubt.

One of these sequences contains most of the elements that have been criticised as offensive to Muslims. It is a transformed re-narration of the life of Muhammad (called "Mahound" or "the Messenger" in the novel) in Mecca ("Jahiliyyah"). At its centre is the episode of the so-called satanic verses, in which the prophet first proclaims a revelation in favour of the old polytheistic deities, but later renounces this as an error induced by the Devil. There are also two opponents of the "Messenger": a demonic heathen priestess, Hind bint Utbah, and an irreverent skeptic and satirical poet, Baal. When the prophet returns to the city in triumph, Baal goes into hiding in an underground brothel, where the prostitutes assume the identities of the prophet's wives. Also, one of the prophet's companions claims that he, doubting the authenticity of the "Messenger," has subtly altered portions of the Quran as they were dictated to him.

The second sequence tells the story of Ayesha, an Indian peasant girl who claims to be receiving revelations from the Archangel Gibreel. She entices all her village community to embark on a foot pilgrimage to Mecca, claiming that they will be able to walk across the Arabian Sea. The pilgrimage ends in a catastrophic climax as the believers all walk into the water and disappear, amid disturbingly conflicting testimonies from observers about whether they just drowned or were in fact miraculously able to cross the sea.

A third dream sequence presents the figure of a fanatic expatriate religious leader, the "Imam", in a late-20th-century setting. This figure is a transparent allusion to the life of Ruhollah Khomeini in his Parisian exile, but it is also linked through various recurrent narrative motifs to the figure of the "Messenger".

Controversy

The Satanic Verses controversy, also known as the Rushdie Affair, was the heated and frequently violent reaction of some Muslims to the publication of Salman Rushdie's novel The Satanic Verses, which was first published in the United Kingdom in 1988. Many Muslims accused Rushdie of blasphemy or unbelief and in 1989 Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini of Iran issued a fatwā ordering Muslims to kill Rushdie. Numerous killings, attempted killings, and bombings resulted from Muslim anger over the novel.

Victims

  • March 29, 1989: Abdullah al-Ahdal El Hasi, 36, imam and manager of the Islamic and cultural center of Brussels (then placed in charge by the Belgian authorities of Islam in Belgium, with an emphasis on the selection of Islamic teachers paid by the Belgian authorities; this so-called "Grand Mosque" was controlled by the Saudi-based Muslim World League)
  • Hitoshi Igarashi

See also

See also




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