Words and Deeds

Controversy surrounding the ‘Satanic Verses’ is centuries old.

Ahab Bdaiwi | Published in History Today Volume 72 Issue 10 October 2022

Muhammad is visited by the Archangel Gabriel at Al-Masjid an-Nabawi, the Prophet’s Mosque, Medina. Turkish, 18th century. AISA/Bridgeman Images.

In 1988 the publication of The Satanic Verses, a novel by the Indian-born British writer Salman Rushdie, propelled an obscure and contentious historical incident into the centre of a global debate about free speech and blasphemy. It was not the first time that the so-called ‘Satanic Verses’ had caused controversy; their veracity and meaning were fiercely debated within medieval Islamic scholarship, centuries earlier.