The Satanic Verses controversy country has not forgotten the vow to kill him. He was also quoted saying, "It's reached the point where it's a piece of rhetoric rather than a real threat". One of the immediate consequences of the fatwa was a worsening of Islamic-Western relations. Rushdie lamented that the controversy fed the Western stereotype of "the backward, cruel, rigid Muslim, burning books and threatening to kill the blasphemer", while another British writer compared the Ayatollah Khomeini "with a familiar ghost from the past – one of those villainous Muslim clerics, a Faqir of Ipi or a mad Mullah, who used to be
Knighthood of Salman Rushdie "Salman Rushdie deserves to be killed and anyone who has the power must kill him." After Pakistan's legislature passed its resolution against the honour, the road outside the parliament building was soon blocked by 300 burqa wearing female Islamists waving flags and placards against the knighthood. On 19 June 2007 the British High Commissioner, Robert Brinkley, was called in by the Pakistani Foreign Ministry and told that "Salman Rushdie has been a controversial figure who is known less for his literary contribution and more for his offensive and insulting writing which deeply hurts the sentiments of Muslims all over the