Encyclopedia of Islam

Rushdie, Salman

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identities that come with being Asian in London. 

The main character is Gibreel Farishta (which 

translates from Urdu as “the Angel g

abriel

”). It 

is this character who assumes the persona of the 

angel Gabriel and has a series of dreams that begin 

in the second chapter of the book, “Mahound.” 

Mahound (a name for the prophet Muhammad in 

medieval Christian polemic against Muslims) is 

an orphan, a businessman living in a city named 

Jahilia, who through revelation begins to preach 

a religion named “Submission,” which represents 

Islam. In another chapter, Gibreel also has a series 

of encounters with another character, an exile, 

known simply as “the imam,” who represents 

Khomeini.

The book was first banned in India on October 

5, 1988, at the urging of several Indian Muslim 

politicians. Subsequently, the book was banned in 

South Africa (November 24, 1988), burned pub-

licly in Bradford, England (January 14, 1989), and 

protested against in Islamabad, p

akistan

 (where 

six people died during a riot on February 12, 

1989) and Bombay (with 12 people killed in a riot 

on February 24, 1989). On February 14, 1989, 

Khomeini pronounced his death sentence on 

Rushdie. While distancing itself from Khomeini’s 

death sentence, the 11th session of the Islamic 

Law Academy of the m

Uslim

 W

orld

 l

eagUe

 (held 

in  m

ecca

 from February 10 to 26, 1989) issued 

a statement declaring Rushdie an apostate and 

recommending that he be prosecuted in a British 

court and tried in absentia under the 

sharia

 laws 

of an Islamic country.

On the whole, North American responses 

were much more muted and peaceful than in 

other countries. To take the case of Toronto, the 

city with Canada’s largest population of Muslims, 

there was a deliberate effort made by various 

Muslim communities to keep the protests nonvio-

lent. The protests in Toronto, as well as in major 

American cities such as Los Angeles and New 

York, were not used for political purposes, in the 

way that they were used in, for example, i

ran

 or 

India. No Muslim leaders in North America used 

the book as an occasion to develop or consolidate 

their own power. Many Muslims in the U

nited

s

tates

 and c

anada

 felt hurt by the book. Unlike 

in some other countries, such as Pakistan, there 

was also some sympathy and tolerance for Rush-

die in North America, and, in fact, a small number 

of Muslims did not want the book to be banned.

During his time in hiding, Rushdie became 

quite a celebrity, but he was still able to publish 

a number of works. These included a children’s 

story written for his son, Haroun and the Sea of 

Stories (1990); a collection of nonfiction, Imagi-

nary Homelands (1991); a collection of short 

stories, East, West (1994); and a novel, The Moor’s 

Last Sigh (1995). Rushdie’s marriage to the nov-

elist Marianne Wiggins also ended during his 

time in hiding. Changes in the governments of 

both Iran and Britain led to an end to the fatwa, 

announced on September 24, 1998, in a joint 

statement issued by the foreign ministers of Iran 

and Britain. Since coming out of hiding, Rushdie 

has written four other novels; The Ground Beneath 

Her Feet (1999), Fury (2001), Shalimar the Clown

(2005), and The Enchantress of Florence (2008).

In 2000 Rushdie moved from London to New 

York City. He continues to write and has pub-

lished several short pieces on Islam. These are col-

lected in his second anthology of nonfiction, Step 

Across This Line (2002). In 1993 he was awarded 

the Booker of Bookers for Midnight’s Children. In 

2005, Iranian leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei reaf-

firmed the fatwa that called for Rushdie’s death. 

In 2006 Rushdie accepted a teaching position at 

Emory University, where his official archive will 

be housed. In 2008, he won the Best of the Booker 

for Midnight’s Children.

See also 

apostasy

;  e

Urope

; J

ahiliyya

;  s

atanic

v

erses

.

Amir Hussain