sparked a controversy of global proportions. It
aggravated relations between Muslims and non-
Muslims, as well as between pious Muslims and
secular ones, since Rushdie was himself a Muslim
more by heritage than conviction. The book was
not so much about Muhammad and the Satanic
Verses incident per se, but it did contain passages
that were interpreted to be blasphemies against
the Prophet and his wives. Demonstrations against
the book irrupted in Bradford, England (January
14, 1989), Bombay, Islamabad, pakistan (Febru-
ary 12), and india (February 24). In iran, ayatol-
lah rUhollah khomeini issued a FatWa (advisory
ruling based on the sharia) on February 14, 1989,
that called for his death. Khomeini exploited the
incident to revitalize Iranian popular support for
his revolutionary government, which was just end-
ing a long, costly war with Iraq. He may also have
been personally offended by derogatory passages in
Rushdie’s book that talk about a puritanical “imam,”
Khomeini himself. As a consequence, Rushdie was
forced to go into hiding for nearly 10 years. Kho-
meini died in 1989, but the fatwa was reaffirmed by
the Iranian government in 2005. Rushdie, mean-
while has kept busy with writing more novels and
making numerous public appearances.
See also blasphemy; goddess; tafsir.
Further reading: Shahab Ahmed, The Problem of the
Satanic Verses and the Formation of Islamic Orthodoxy
(forthcoming); Lisa Appignanesi and Sara Maitland,
eds., The Rushdie File (London: Fourth Estate, 1989);
Salman Rushdie, The Satanic Verses (London: Viking
Penguin, 1988); W. Montgomery Watt, Muhammad at
Mecca (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1953).
Saudi Arabia (Official name: Kingdom of
Saudi Arabia)
Named after the dynasty that rules it, Saudi Ara-
bia is one of the most powerful nations in the
Middle East. It is has an area of 756,785 square
miles (about one-fifth the size of the United
States), a population of 28.1 million people (2008
estimate), and the world’s largest oil reserves.
The birthplace of Islam, the home of mecca and
medina, the two holiest cities in Islam, and host
to millions of pilgrims every year, Saudi Arabia
has great religious importance within the Muslim
world. It also occupies a position of geographic
importance, bordering both the Persian Gulf and
the Red Sea, as well as iraq, Jordan, and Kuwait
to the north, Oman and yemen to the south, and
Qatar and the United Arab Emirates to the east.
Saudi Arabia occupies most of the Arabian Pen-
insula. Along the Red Sea coast lie the regions of
Hijaz and Asir. Much of the center of Saudi Ara-
bia is an arid rocky plateau known as the Najd.
Along the Persian Gulf coast lies the Hasa Plain.
Other important regions include the deserts of
Al-Nafud, Al-Dahna, and the Rub al-Khali. Saudi
Arabia’s major cities are Mecca and Medina in the
Hijaz, Riyadh in the Najd, and the tri-city region
of Dammam, al-Khubar, and Dharan along the
Gulf coast in the east. Its indigenous population
is overwhelmingly Arab, but it has a significant
number of foreign workers from all over the
world, including the United States. The state reli-
gion is based on a puritanical form of Sunni Islam
known as Wahhabism, but there is a sizeable Shii
minority population of about 11 percent (2005
estimate) in the eastern region of the country,
along the Gulf coast.
Because much of the Arabian Peninsula con-
sists of desert, the first permanent settlements in
the region were along the coasts of the Red Sea
and the Persian Gulf. These towns soon became
active in trading between the rich civilizations of
Egypt to the west and the Tigris-Euphrates region
to the east, which brought prosperity to some
areas, particularly along the southwestern coast.
As the development of camel caravans increased
trade across the peninsula, urban centers also
appeared in the interior regions. Outside the cit-
ies, most inhabitants of the region were nomadic
tribes. The northern area, where the archaeologi-
cal site of Madam Salih is located, was once home
to the Nabateans, an ancient Arab trading culture
that extended northward into Jordan.
About 613 c.e., Muhammad ibn Abd Allah
first began preaching the message of Islam inK 606 Saudi Arabia