Rushdie Disavowal Fails to Placate All Muslims : Publishing: Some religious leaders say they will not be satisfied until the author of ‘The Satanic Verses’ repudiates the entire book.

Signs emerged Tuesday that author Salman Rushdie did not placate all his opponents by disavowing portions of his controversial novel, “The Satanic Verses,” as one Iranian newspaper declared the death sentence against him irrevocable, and some Muslim leaders said they will not be satisfied until he repudiates the entire book.

The newspaper Abrar was quoted by the Iranian news agency IRNA as denouncing “propaganda maneuvers by the British government aimed at bringing Rushdie out of isolation and making Muslims neglect the verdict.” But no official reaction was reported from Tehran.

In a statement released Monday, the British novelist embraced Islam, a faith he had previously disclaimed. Disassociating himself from passages in his fanciful novel that insulted the prophet Mohammed, he also pledged that “The Satanic Verses” would not be published in paperback.

The 43-year-old Rushdie, born in India of Muslim parents, has been in hiding since February, 1989, when the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini called the book blasphemous and offered a $1-million bounty for the author’s death.

“I doubt that forgiveness will be forthcoming,” said Yvonne Haddad, a professor of Islamic history at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. “It depends on people’s mood, but I think they would want to have every copy of the book destroyed.”

Rushdie’s concessions, made before a group of Islamic scholars, drew a mixed reaction from leaders of the large Muslim community in Britain, where not long ago audiences cheered a Pakistani film depicting him as a fiendish rapist who is killed by a laser beam.

His statement was made public by Hesham Essawy, president of the Islamic Society for the Promotion of Tolerance in the United Kingdom, who said the author now has a “clean slate” with the Muslim world.

But Kalim Siddiqi, director of the Muslim Institute in London, later told a television interviewer that Iranian officials should have Rushdie kidnaped and taken to Iran to stand trial.

In this country, Muslim leaders, while highly critical of Rushdie’s novel, have generally disapproved of the death threat. On Tuesday, several applauded the writer’s efforts at reconciliation.

“That sounds quite constructive,” said Maher Hathout, spokesman for the Islamic Center of Southern California. “I’m glad he speaks positively about Islam.”

Mohammed T. Mehdi, secretary general of the National Council on Islamic Affairs in New York, praised Rushdie and called on the Iranian government to lift the threat, which has remained in place under Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Khomeini’s successor.

A harsher view was expressed by Muzzamil Siddiqi, director of the Islamic Society of Orange County. “I think he hasn’t done enough,” Siddiqi said. “He should have said, ‘I am completely disowning this book.’ ”

Rushdie’s concessions, which he said were arranged with the help of President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, are likely to spark discussion in the literary world, where the British writer has been viewed as a martyr for freedom of speech.

On Tuesday, several prominent writers were quick to support him, saying no one should second-guess a man who has been forced to live under a death threat for nearly two years. “I don’t think writers should sit in judgment of him the way the Ayatollah tried to sit in judgment of him,” said Ken Auletta, a board member of PEN America Center, the New York-based writers’ organization. “It’s his call.”

Carolyn See, president of the Los Angeles-based PEN Center U.S.A. West, said Rushdie “did a very smart thing.”

“I would have done the same thing,” she added. “I’m very fond of my own writing, but I’m not going to die for it.”

Gay Talese, another member of the PEN America Center board, said he believed that Rushdie’s conversion was sincere, not the result of expediency.

“People get their spiritual reawakening at different times,” Talese said.

Jack Miles, who is on leave as book editor of The Times, called Rushdie’s deal with the Muslim scholars “regrettable.” By his earlier stance, Miles said, Rushdie had stood up for the principle that one can be born to Muslim parents without having to adhere to the faith.

“You can’t require heroism from a man, but I think it was heroic for Rushdie to hold out, to say, ‘I am not a Muslim just because of where I was born,’ ” said Miles, whose paper on the Rushdie affair was published by Claremont McKenna College last September.

Miles said the absence of a paperback edition will make it much harder for a broad international audience to gain access to “The Satanic Verses.” Donald Shojai, an Iranian professor of literature at San Diego State, said Rushdie’s decision was “very sad from the standpoint of publishing.” But he noted that other writers have been killed in Iran for publishing views regarded as blasphemous.