identities that come with being Asian in London.
The main character is Gibreel Farishta (which
translates from Urdu as “the Angel gabriel”). 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, pakistan (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 mUslim World leagUe (held
in mecca 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, iran 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 United
states and canada 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; eUrope; Jahiliyya; satanic
verses.
Amir HussainFurther reading: Lisa Appignanesi and Sara Maitland,
eds., The Rushdie File (London: Fourth Estate, 1989);
Roger Y. Clark, Stranger Gods: Salman Rushdie’s Other
Worlds (Montreal: McGill–Queen’s University Press,Rushdie, Salman 595 J