Twenty years ago this month, on September 26 1988, Salman Rushdie’s fourth novel, The Satanic Verses, a work in the magical-realist tradition, was launched at a party for the literary elite. The book’s two main protagonists survive a fall from a wrecked aircraft and turn into an angel (Gibreel, or Gabriel) and the devil (Shaitan, or Satan). The book also contains a series of transgressions against Muslim sensibilities: the title itself referred to a much-disputed passage in the Koran in which Mohammed was apparently tricked by Satan. Not long after this launch party, the book’s publishers, Viking Penguin (owned by the FT’s parent company, Pearson), and Margaret Thatcher’s government received angry calls from Muslims for the book’s withdrawal. India forbade its publication, and bans followed in Bangladesh, Sudan, South Africa and Sri Lanka. By early 1989 this reaction had spread to other countries with sizeable Muslim populations: Kenya, Thailand, Tanzania, Indonesia, Singapore and even Venezuela. Then, in February 1989, Ayatollah Khomeini, the supreme leader of Iran, issued a fatwa, or ruling on Islamic law, calling for Rushdie’s murder. Though the author swiftly made a statement regretting the distress caused by the publication, Khomeini’s office wrote: ‘Even if Salman […]