SHORT TAKES : ‘Religion for Me Has Always Meant Islam,’ Rushdie Says

Salman Rushdie, under an Iranian death sentence for alleged blasphemy against Islam in his novel “The Satanic Verses,” today explained his recent embracing of the Muslim faith.

“I am certainly not a good Muslim, but I am able now to say that I am a Muslim,” Rushdie wrote in a column published today in the New York Times and the Times of London.

Rushdie, a British citizen born in India, said he came from a Muslim family background but wasn’t reared as a believer.

“However . . . I have been engaging more and more with religious belief . . . and religion for me has always meant Islam,” he wrote.

Rushdie rejected Muslim calls for withdrawal of “The Satanic Verses,” however. “ ‘The Satanic Verses’ is a novel that many of its readers have found to be of value. I cannot betray them,” he wrote.

The 43-year-old author has been in hiding since the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini ordered that he be killed in February, 1989. Khomeini died June 3, 1989.

Rushdie on Monday pledged not to publish the novel in paperback or in languages other than English. He also said the utterances of the novel’s characters did not represent his own views. But Iran’s current spiritual leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said Wednesday that the earlier decree that Rushdie must die is irreversible.