The Satanic Verses

The Satanic Verses, magic realist epic novel by Indian-born writer Salman Rushdie that upon its publication in 1988 became one of the most controversial books of the late 20th century. Some Muslims considered its fanciful and satiric use of Islam blasphemous, and Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini of Iran condemned the book and issued a fatwa in 1989 calling for the killing of Rushdie as well as his editors and publishers. Violent demonstrations followed in Pakistan; copies of the novel were burned in Britain, where several bookstores were bombed; and the work was banned in several countries.

Summary

The complex and multilayered plot focuses on two protagonists, both Indian Muslims living in England. Gibreel Farishta is a successful film actor who has suffered a recent bout of mental illness and who is in love with an English mountain climber, Alleluia Cone. Saladin Chamcha is a voice actor who has had a falling out with his father. Gibreel and Saladin meet on a flight from Bombay (Mumbai) to London, and the plane is hijacked by Sikh terrorists. During an argument the terrorists accidentally detonate a bomb, destroying the aircraft over the English Channel. The book opens with Gibreel and Saladin, the sole survivors, falling into the Atlantic Ocean.

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As Gibreel descends, he is transformed into the angel Gabriel and has a series of dreams. The first one is a revisionist history of the founding of Islam; the details of this subplot are what generated the controversy around the novel. The character based on Muhammad is called Mahound, and he is attempting to found a monotheistic religion in the polytheistic town of Jahilia. As in an apocryphal legend, Mahound receives a vision allowing the worship of three goddesses, but, after realizing that the confirming revelation was sent by the devil, he recants. A quarter century later one of his disciples ceases to believe in Mahound’s religion, but the town of Jahilia converts. Prostitutes in a brothel take the names of Mahound’s wives before the brothels are closed. Later Mahound falls ill and dies, with his final vision being of one of the goddesses.

Saladin is transformed into the devil as he falls, and he later grows horns and goat legs with cloven hoofs. The two men crawl onto the coast, and Saladin is arrested as an illegal immigrant. After being hospitalized, he escapes, only to find that his wife is having an affair with one of his friends. His misfortunes continue as he loses his job. However, his rage at Gibreel for failing to intervene when he was arrested eventually transforms Saladin back into a fully human man. In the meantime, Gibreel is reunited with Alleluia, but an angel tells him to leave her and spread the word of God in London. He is hit by the car of an Indian film producer, who plans a trio of religious films in which Gibreel will star as an archangel. Later, Gibreel and Saladin meet at a party, and Saladin decides to kill him. However, although he has various opportunities, he does not murder Gibreel and instead induces him to believe that Alleluia has several lovers. Gibreel eventually realizes that Saladin has tricked him and resolves to kill him. However, when Gibreel finds Saladin in a burning building, he rescues him.

Upon learning that his father is dying, Saladin returns to Bombay and reconciles with him. He inherits a substantial sum of money and reconnects with a former girlfriend. Separately, Gibreel and Alleluia also travel to Bombay, and a jealous Gibreel murders her and then kills himself.

A third story line is introduced through another dream of Gibreel’s. It begins in the village of Titlipur, where a young girl named Ayesha and her adoptive parents, Mirza Saeed Akhtar and his wife, Mishal, live. Ayesha declares that an angel, named Gibreel, has revealed to her that Mishal has breast cancer but that if the entire village walks to Mecca, Mishal will be healed. The pilgrimage is long and arduous, and many pilgrims die along the way. Others lose faith. When they reach the sea, Ayesha says that the seas will part for them, but they do not, and the pilgrims drown.

Response

Rushdie responded to India’s banning of The Satanic Verses by saying that “the book isn’t actually about Islam, but about migration, metamorphosis, divided selves, love, death, London and Bombay.” The thematically complex work earned Rushdie a Whitbread Book Award for novel of the year, and it was short-listed for the Booker Prize, both in 1988.

The book was overshadowed, however, by the blasphemy controversy. Rushdie was put under police protection after the issuance of Khomeini’s fatwa, and he spent the better part of the next decade in hiding before the government of Iran declared in 1998 that it no longer sought to enforce it. Others connected to The Satanic Verses were victims of violence, though the attackers’ motives were not definitively known in all cases: a Japanese translator, Hitoshi Igarashi, was murdered in 1991; an Italian translator was stabbed in 1991 but survived; and in 1993 the novel’s publisher in Norway was shot but also survived. A bounty put in place by an Iranian foundation in 1989 to reward anyone who would kill Rushdie was increased several times into the 21st century. Rushdie recounted his experience of living in seclusion in his 2012 third-person memoir Joseph Anton, which was an alias he used during that time. In 2022 Rushdie was stabbed multiple times at a public appearance in Chautauqua, New York; he was seriously injured, losing sight in one eye, but survived.