The Satanic Verses controversy John le Carré thought the death sentence to be outrageous, but he also criticised Rushdie's action: "I don't think it is given to any of us to be impertinent to great religions with impunity", although he later expressed regret over his dispute with Rushdie. Rushdie, however, was supported by major bodies in the literary world such as PEN and Association of American Publishers, and prominent figures such as Günter Grass, Martin Amis, Saul Bellow, Nadine Gordimer and Derek Walcott. Another major supporter of Rushdie, Christopher Hitchens, said that the fatwa persuaded him that Islamic fundamentalism was an urgent menace, and
The Satanic Verses controversy sources, so much so that Muraghi, in his commentary, says: "These traditions are undoubtedly a fabrication of the heretics and foreign hands, and have not been found in any of the authentic books" ... According to Daniel Pipes, when attention was drawn to a book with this title, "Muslims found [it] incredibly sacrilegious", and took it to imply that the book's author claimed that verses of the Qur'an were "the work of the Devil". According to McRoy (2007), other controversial elements included the use of the name Mahound, said to be a derogatory term for Muhammad used by the English