Cat Stevens' comments about Salman Rushdie Some commentators have concluded that the character "Bilal X" in Rushdie's book is a caricature of Yusuf Islam. The fictional character Bilal X, a successful African-American former pop singer who has converted to Islam, is portrayed by Rushdie as the "favoured lieutenant" of "the Imam", a character based on the Shia Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Bilal X's "well-nourished, highly trained" voice serves as "a weapon of the West turned against its makers." Cat Stevens' comments about Salman Rushdie Following Ayatollah Khomeini's 14 February 1989 death fatwa against author Salman Rushdie, after the publication of Rushdie's novel "The Satanic Verses", Yusuf Islam,
The Rushdie Affair: The Novel, the Ayatollah, and the West analysis of the issues raised". Other positive reviews appeared in the Library Journal, and the Philadelphia Inquirer. the LA Times, For François Dupuis-Déri (Columbia University), Pipes book can be understood in the neoconservative idea of the "Clash of Civilizations". According to Emilie Réné, in "Les Cahiers du CERI" (CERI is a French public institution in political science), Pipes' essay "suffers from oversimplification". The Rushdie Affair: The Novel, the Ayatollah, and the West The Rushdie Affair: The Novel, the Ayatollah, and the West is a book written by historian Daniel Pipes, published in 1990. It focuses on events surrounding "The Satanic