The Satanic Verses controversy so great as when it feels it has a god on its side." One of the lawyers involved, Geoffrey Robertson QC, rehearsed the arguments and replies made when 13 Muslim barristers had lodged a formal indictment against Rushdie for the crime of blasphemous libel: it was said that God was described in the book as "the Destroyer of Man", yet he is described as such in the Old Testament and the Book of Revelation, especially of men who are unbelievers or enemies of the Jews; that the book contained criticisms of the prophet Abraham, yet the Islamic, Christian and Jewish
Salman Rushdie Afghanistan, which began in 2001, but was a vocal critic of the 2003 war in Iraq. He has stated that while there was a "case to be made for the removal of Saddam Hussein", US unilateral military intervention was unjustifiable. In the wake of the "Jyllands-Posten" Muhammad cartoons controversy in March 2006—which many considered an echo of the death threats and "fatwā" that followed publication of "The Satanic Verses" in 1989—Rushdie signed the manifesto "Together Facing the New Totalitarianism", a statement warning of the dangers of religious extremism. The Manifesto was published in the left-leaning French weekly "Charlie Hebdo" in