The Satanic Verses controversy vilified the companions of the Prophet, calling them "bums from Persia" and "clowns", yet the character saying this is a hack poet hired to write propaganda against the Prophet and does not reflect the author's beliefs; that the book criticised Islam for having too many rules and seeking to control every aspect of life, yet while characters in the book do make such remarks these cannot constitute blasphemy since they do not vilify God or the Prophet. Before the publication of "The Satanic Verses", the publisher received "warnings from the publisher's editorial consultant" that the book might be controversial. Later,
The Satanic Verses controversy in January 1989 when some of its members organised a public book-burning of "The Satanic Verses", evoking as the journalist Robert Winder recalled "images of medieval (not to mention Nazi) intolerance". In February, when the US edition was published, a new round of reviews and criticism began. March 1989 saw it banned in Kenya, Thailand, Tanzania, Indonesia, and Singapore. The last nation to ban the book was Venezuela, in June 1989. In the United States, the FBI was notified of 78 threats to bookstores in early March 1989, thought to be a small proportion of the total number of threats.