The Satanic Verses faith and revelation, not to mention the political manipulation of religion. Rushdie's own assumptions about the importance of literature parallel in the literal value accorded the written word in Islamic tradition to some degree. But Rushdie seems to have assumed that diverse communities and cultures share some degree of common moral ground on the basis of which dialogue can be pieced together, and it is perhaps for this reason that he underestimated the implacable nature of the hostility evoked by "The Satanic Verses", even though a major theme of that novel is the dangerous nature of closed, absolutist belief systems."
Islam and blasphemy controversies raised in the non-Muslim world, especially over depictions of Muhammad, questionning issues relating to the religious offense to minorities in secular countries. A key case was the 1989 fatwa against English author Salman Rushdie for his 1988 book entitled "The Satanic Verses", the title of which refers to an account that Muhammad, in the course of revealing the Quran, received a revelation from Satan and incorporated it therein until made by Allah to retract it. Several translators of his book into foreign languages have been murdered. In the UK, many supporters of Salman Rushdie and his publishers advocated unrestricted