Has anyone read the 'satanic verses' by Salman Rushdie?

Question

What was so particularly blasphemous in the book that made the Ayatollah pass a 'fatwa' against the poor guy?

Answer 1

I just finished it and could see where all the controversy came from. It wasn't just the fact that that Mohammed initially assumed that the verses were "Satanic"--there was much more than that.

Some of the things that caused major issues were how they basically said that Mohammed was making up the Koran out of his own head. There's a whole story line about the guy who was the scribe and how he started to change the words around figuring that if Mohammed was who he said he was, he'd noticed the changes in the text. Since he didn't for a long time, the point was that the Koran was not inspired by Allah. This has even bigger implications now because the Koran is supposed to be the only holy text that hasn't changed/worsed by translations because it's supposed to always be read in Arabic. If Rushdie's hypothesis is right, then the Koran was flawed from the beginning, undermining one of the basic tenents of their faith.

The other big deal with the book was the portrayal of the wives. They did a lot of parallelism throughout the book and Aisha was not portrayed in the way that most Muslims would like. Especially since there was a whole split in the religion (Sunnis and Shi'ites) to the role of Aisha and her followers, this was an enormously big deal to attack her.

Answer 2

I did....and the "inflammatory" issue was that Rushdie claimed that verses were left out of the Koran that dealt with verses which temporarily accepted some of the pagan goddesses of Mecca, but which were later denied as having been inspired by Satan. He also stated that these missing "verses" were taken out of the Quran by Mohammed, thus making it an issue of a human superceeding God. You see, Muslims believe as firmaly that the Quran is an "inspired" writing as Christians do that the Bible is "inspired" writing.

The Qur'an, in agreement with the Gospels and post-Biblical Jewish traditions, has a fully developed role for Satan as a rebellious tempter. In it, Satan is referred to by two proper names; Shaytan, an Arabic rendering of the Hebrew word "satan", and Iblis, which is most likely an Arabic contraction of the Greek word for Devil (diabolos)
The answer possibly has less to do with the verses and more to do with the injured pride of Ayatollah Khomeini, who proclaimed the death sentence upon Rushdie.
For a fuller understanding in a nutshell, see the link to Wikpedia below and scroll down to Satanic Verses.

Answer 3

The reason was that it questions all of MOHAMED'S intentions and reason to start the new faith of Islam. specifically, in the book, there are two parallel plots one tells about this Anglo-oriental friends and the other the moment when Mohamed retires to the dessert and dreams the verses if the Koran. According to Rushdie since Mohamed had two dreams. first was the so called satanic verses, since the prophet itself declared them so when he had next dream and he believed that first dream was provoked by devil. it is more about Rushdie´s exposition of why he changed the verses and dreams.

GL
SF

Answer 4

The book is a direct attack to the legitimity of the Islam nad those people don't take criticisms lightly. In fact, they don't take anything against their ideas lightly (see also the fatwa pronounced against Taslima Nasreen for her book about the condition of women in the Islamic world).

Answer 5

I really don't know. I found it so very boring, that I barely remember it. I do remember having to special order it, and having to sign a waiver that I wouldn't hold the bookstore responsible if anything happened to me. This was 1987 or so.

Answer 6

Is it an Indian book? And is it in Hindi, Urdo or in English?

Answer 7

I didn't because the book was banned by the Govt.of India.