Human rights literature suffer persecution as authorities recognize their unique power and ability to impact on the masses. Salman Rushdie, an awarded British-Muslim novelist and essayist of Indian origin became a target following the publication his fourth novel, The Satanic Verses (1988). The book was the center of a major controversy in the Islamic world because of what was perceived as an irreverent depiction of Muhammad. Death threats were made against him, including a fatwā issued by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the Supreme Leader of Iran, on 14 February 1989 and a bounty was offered for Rushdie's death. Rushdi was forced to hide and
God Is Not Great the prayer meeting breaks up". He discusses the 1989 fatwa issued on author and friend Salman Rushdie by the Ayatollah Khomeini because of the contents of Rushdie's book "The Satanic Verses". He criticises several public figures for laying the blame for the incident on Rushdie himself. He also writes about the events following the September 11 attacks, describing how religion, particularly major religious figures, allowed matters to "deteriorate in the interval between the removal of the Taliban and the overthrow of Saddam Hussein". Hitchens discusses the prohibition on eating pigs ("porcophobia" as Hitchens calls it) in Judaism, also adopted by