Rushdie’s ‘Satanic Verses’--Blasphemy or Allegory?

Salman Rushdie, born in India to a Muslim family, has ignited fires of protest among Muslims worldwide with his prize-winning novel, “The Satanic Verses,” a story about the eternal conflict between good and evil.

The novel takes its name from the verses the Prophet Mohammed removed from Islam’s holy book, the Koran, on grounds they were inspired by Satan.

Muslim critics--whom Rushdie has called fundamentalist extremists--say the book is blasphemous and have protested from London to New Delhi.

The novel’s protagonists are an Indian movie star and a British TV personality, both passengers who fall from an airliner blown up by terrorists en route from India to London.

They are presumed dead but they survive, or are reborn, and take on the attributes of the angel Gabriel and Satan.

Rushdie denies that his novel attacks the Islamic religion, which he says has been of central importance to him all his life. He said it deals with “migration, metamorphosis, divided selves, love, death, London and Bombay.”

The 547-page novel has been banned in South Africa, India, Egypt and Pakistan.

Rushdie is 41 and a British citizen. He grew up in Bombay, came to Britain at age 14 and won honors for history studies at Cambridge University.