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Twenty years after the Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa – an edict under Islamic law – against Salman Rushdie for publication of The Satanic Verses, the novel is being reevaluated. It continues to call into question issues of freedom of speech and the press. What is the role of a writer? Does freedom of speech trump the concerns of minorities?

The novel bears the honor of being the one of the most disparaged – and least read – books in modern history. The controversy began in Britain, when Muslims called for the suppression of the novel. After their complaints went unheeded, they arranged a very visible book burning ceremony. (The protesters only owned one copy, and the book needed gasoline to alight.) Media coverage fanned the flames of the conflagration and before long the book had been banned in eleven countries, including Rusdhie’s native India. Rushdie spent a decade in hiding from 1989 to 1998.

The Satanic Verses follows several distinct narratives, which intervene thematically over the course of the work. The narrative that sparked the most controversy pertained to an imaginary prophet called Mahound who lived about the time of the prophet Mahommed. Most readers would have found nothing wrong with these passages, as they are so strongly disguised – in a dream, in visions, far away in time and space – as to be unrecognizable. Instead they would have focused on Rushdie’s scintillating prose while attempting to grasp the obscure thematic overtones. Angels in England, visions, a prophetess suffering from breast cancer, these narratives were captivating more for Rushdie’s own facility with the written word than any salacious content.

Certain Muslims complained that the passage about Mahound deliberately questioned his divine prophecies, and depicted his wives as nothing more than prostitutes. We should not be too quick to dismiss these concerns.

Several articles have examined the role of the controversial narrative about Mahound, which spanned about 70 pages. Rushdie himself has also downplayed any connection to Mohammed, insisting that as an author he was merely exploring the religious experience. What has been ignored is that Mahound was an archaic term utilized by Medieval and Renaissance scholars to describe Mohammed. Further, Rushdie received his doctorate from Oxford studying exactly that period of history. The parallels are striking. But identifying these parallels requires a very close read (I read about a dozen books on the novel) that most readers would not have done, especially since there was only one copy available to the particular British Muslim community sparked the initial protests.

There seems to be agreement today that the fatwa issued against Rushdie was a bad choice. Protesters from 1989 admit that images of book burning associated Muslims with intolerance rather than vulnerability, and may have helped polarize cultural communities. At the same time, it galvanized a heretofore disparate community.

This calls into question the role of the writer. What are the permissible limits of the freedom of speech? Before the Rushdie ‘affair’, it was my belief that vitriolic books should be allowed in print because no one would read them. All the hatred tends to result in poor writing. At worst, controversial texts will spark a dialogue. But what happens when people begin dying? (5 died in Pakistan at protests against the novel.) Does a writer have responsibility to avoid certain topics? If you ask most writers, they will emphatically deny any responsibility. Most readers will admit to a kind of limit. But what is radical today might be considered conservative tomorrow.

The concerns inflamed by Rushdie’s book are not over. Sherry Jones’ book Aisha (2008) is a romantic exploration of Mohammed’s wife Aisha, and was withdrawn from publication by Random House amid fears of a backlash before being picked up by Beaufort Books, an independent publisher. This is a disturbing development, and would be much more so if the book was better written. Should such a novel be ignored? Or should it not have been published? Right now the gate-keepers are not the courts but the publishing houses, which can withdraw a book at any time. With the rise of self-publishing, the publishing industry will have even less control over freedom of speech issues. (The lack of distribution will be the limiting factor.)

Legally, the major recourse for inflammatory books appears to be ‘hate speech’ and laws that prevent inciting people to violence. A romance about Aisha or an obscure passage about Mahound buried within a dream sequence are not likely to rise to the level of such prohibited speech.

Anyway, this is meant to be a review about Rushdie. The Ayatollah’s fatwa remains in place but the author is thankfully out of hiding and writing again. His textual ‘voice’ has expanded the limits of prose.

And here I present the 20th anniversary Satanic Verses challenge: pick up the novel and try to finish it before you spout your opinions. At times the language is so dense that light cannot escape it, but if you stick to it, there is plenty to move you. If freedom carries responsibility, then maybe that should be yours.

–Deji Olukotun