The Satanic Verses controversy of all Believers'. Other issues many Muslims have found offensive include Abraham being called a "bastard" for casting Hagar and Ishmael in the desert; and a character named Salman the Persian who serves as one of the Prophet's scribes, an apparent reference to the story, controversial among Muslims, of a Meccan convert by the name of Ibn Abi Sarh, who left Islam after the Prophet failed to notice small changes he had made in the dictation of the Qur'an. Daniel Pipes identified other more general issues in the book likely to have angered pious Muslims: A complaint in the book
The Satanic Verses Rushdie's influences have long been a point of interest to scholars examining his work. According to W. J. Weatherby, influences on "The Satanic Verses" were listed as James Joyce, Italo Calvino, Franz Kafka, Frank Herbert, Thomas Pynchon, Mervyn Peake, Gabriel García Márquez, Jean-Luc Godard, J. G. Ballard and William S. Burroughs. Angela Carter writes that the novel contains "inventions such as the city of Jahilia, 'built entirely of sand,' that gives a nod to Calvino and a wink to Frank Herbert". Srinivas Aravamudan's analysis of "The Satanic Verses" stressed the satiric nature of the work and held that while it