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,
Knighthood of Salman Rushdie faces) gathered outside Regent's Park mosque denouncing Rushdie's knighthood, "noisily renewing calls for his death", and burning a poster of the British flag. They addressed worshippers leaving Friday services and soon had attracted a crowd of over 100 people. The demonstrators chanted "Death to Rushdie! Death to the queen!" and had signs with slogans such as "Salman Rushdie should be punished, not praised." Protest organiser Anjem Choudray (an ex-head of the British wing of the banned radical group al-Muhajiroun and helped co-ordinate the protests over the Jyllands-Posten cartoons) said "This knighthood is just another example of Tony Blair and his