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The Satanic Verses By Salman Rushdie

Decent Essays

Salman Rushdie is a passionate novelist and essayist known for his magical realism, who expresses his beliefs and influences through his works. Rushdie has frequently described himself as a “historian of ideas,” and many of his novels are “novels of ideas” rather than narrations centered on a plot or character. 1 Furthermore, Rushdie’s pessimistic views of religion are seen in his writings, from The Satanic Verses to recent essays like, Out of Kansas. I will also discuss the fatwa’ calling for his assassination and resulting in him being put under police protection by the British government. To begin, Rushdie was born into a Muslim family. Although Rushdie was a student of Islam, he claimed to be a lapsed Muslim. Ultimately, he expressed that he did not believe in supernatural entities, whether Christian, Jewish, Muslim or Hindu. Rushdie’s outspoken work, The Satanic Verses caused great controversy in the Islamic world because of what was seen by some to be an irreverent depiction of Muhammad. Rushdie is the author of 11 novels, 4 books, shorts stories and many essays. In addition, many of his books focus on the role of religion in society and the effect and conflict. Rushdie believed, “Religion, a medieval form of unreason, when combined with modern weaponry becomes a real threat to our freedoms.” 2 Also, “Religion is a story, and it seems to me that a definition of any living, vibrant society is that you constantly question the stories. That you constantly argue about

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