Cat Stevens' comments about Salman Rushdie mass burning of Cat Stevens' records, later changed to a mass steamrolling. Islam claimed that he had earlier unsuccessfully asked his record company to stop production of his Cat Stevens records but they had refused on economic grounds. Commenting on the controversy regarding the United States government's 2004 refusal to allow Stevens/Islam to enter the country, Middle East scholar Juan Cole criticised him, saying that he "never forgave him [Stevens] for advocating the execution of Salman Rushdie," and claiming he had "later explained this position away by saying that he did not endorse vigilante action against Rushdie, but would rather
The Satanic Verses controversy "one of the most significant events in postwar literary history." Even before the publication of "The Satanic Verses", the books of Salman Rushdie had stoked controversy. Rushdie saw his role as a writer "as including the function of antagonist to the state". His second book "Midnight's Children" angered Indira Gandhi because it seemed to suggest "that Mrs. Gandhi was responsible for the death of her husband through neglect". His 1983 "roman à clef" "Shame" "took an aim on Pakistan, its political characters, its culture and its religion... [It covered] a central episode in Pakistan's internal life, which portrays as a