The Satanic Verses controversy to one observer, "almost all the British book reviewers" were unaware of the book's connection to Islam because Rushdie has used the name Mahound instead of Muhammad for his chapter on Islam. In Islamic communities, the novel became instantly controversial, because of what some Muslims considered blasphemous references. Rushdie was accused of misusing freedom of speech. By October 1988, letters and phone calls arrived at Viking Penguin from Muslims, angry with the book and demanding that it be withdrawn. Before the end of the month, the import of the book was banned in India, although possession of the book is
Mahshid Amirshahi Harvard University, and has written dozens of articles mostly in Persian with occasional contributions to publications such as "Newsday" (USA) and "Les Temps Modernes" (France) in English and French. One of her notable political stands while in exile has been her instigation of the declaration of the Iranian intellectuals and artists in defence of the British author Salman Rushdie, who had become the object of a notorious manhunt owing to the fatwa issued by Ayatollah Khomeini against him and his book "The Satanic Verses". Mahshid Amirshahi was one of the founders of the "Comité de défense de Salman Rushdie en