The Satanic Verses controversy portrayed, larger than life, in popular histories of the British Empire". Media expressions of this included a banner headline in the popular British newspaper the "Daily Mirror" referring to Khomeini as "that Mad Mullah". "The Independent" newspaper worried that Muslim book burning demonstrations were "following the example of the Inquisition and Hitler's National Socialists", and that if Rushdie was killed, "it would be the first burning of a heretic in Europe in two centuries". Peregrine Worsthorne of the "Sunday Telegraph" feared that with Europe's growing Muslim population, "Islamic fundamentalism is rapidly growing into a much bigger threat of violence and
The Blasphemers' Banquet The Blasphemers' Banquet The Blasphemers' Banquet is a film-poem created in 1989 by English poet and playwright Tony Harrison which examines censorship arising from religious issues. It was created in part as a response to the Salman Rushdie controversy surrounding his publication of "The Satanic Verses". It was aired by the BBC 1 programme "Byline" on 31 July 1989. The verse-film is set at the Omar Khayyám restaurant in Bradford where Harrison is holding a banquet with invited guests such as Omar Khayyám, Salman Rushdie, Voltaire, Molière and Byron. The film at the time of its airing created a controversy