The Satanic Verses controversy vilified the companions of the Prophet, calling them "bums from Persia" and "clowns", yet the character saying this is a hack poet hired to write propaganda against the Prophet and does not reflect the author's beliefs; that the book criticised Islam for having too many rules and seeking to control every aspect of life, yet while characters in the book do make such remarks these cannot constitute blasphemy since they do not vilify God or the Prophet. Before the publication of "The Satanic Verses", the publisher received "warnings from the publisher's editorial consultant" that the book might be controversial. Later,
The Satanic Verses controversy "a mere hundred copies a week of the book in mid-January 1989", it "flew off the shelves" following the fatwa. In America it sold an "unprecedented" five times more copies than the number two book, "Star" by Danielle Steel, selling more than 750,000 copies of the book by May 1989. B. Dalton, a bookstore chain that decided not to stock the book for security reasons, changed its mind when it found the book "was selling so fast that even as we tried to stop it, it was flying off the shelves". Rushdie earned about $2 million within the first year