“Why can’t we debate Islam?” Rushdie said in a 2015 interview. Since the publication of “The Satanic Verses,” Rushdie has argued that religious texts should be open to challenge. Literature expert Greg Rubinson points out that Gibreel is unable to decide what is real and what is a dream.

In Rushdie’s defense, some scholars have argued that his “irreverent mockery” is intended to explore whether it is possible to separate fact from fiction. Challenging religious texts?įor many Muslims, Rushdie, in his fictional retelling of the birth of Islam’s key events, implies that, rather than God, the Prophet Muhammed is himself the source of revealed truths. Through Mahound, Rushdie appears to cast doubt on the divine nature of the Quran. In Rushdie’s book, Salman, for example, attributes certain actual passages in the Quran that place men “in charge of women” and give men the right to strike wives from whom they “fear arrogance,” to Mahound’s sexist views. Even though, in the book, Mahound’s fictional scribe, Salman the Persian, rejects the authenticity of his master’s recitations, he records them as if they were God’s.īritish author Salman Rushdie. In addition, Rushdie’s Mahound puts his own words into the angel Gibreel’s mouth and delivers edicts to his followers that conveniently bolster his self-serving purposes. The novel’s version of the Prophet is called Mahound – an alternative name for Muhammed sometimes used during the Middle Ages by Christians who considered him a devil. Rushdie chooses a provocative name for Muhammed. In these dreams, Gibreel encounters another central character in ways that echo Islam’s traditional account of the angel’s encounters with Muhammed. One of the main characters, Gibreel Farishta, has a series of dreams in which he becomes his namesake, the angel Gibreel. Rushdie’s novel takes up these core beliefs. These words were eventually written down and became the verses and chapters of the Quran.

In turn, Muhammed repeated the words to his followers.

Muslims believe that the Prophet Muhammed was visited by the angel Gibreel – Gabriel in English – who, over a 22 year period, recited God’s words to him. The book, “Satanic Verses,” goes to the heart of Muslim religious beliefs when Rushdie, in dream sequences, challenges and sometimes seems to mock some of its most sensitive tenets.

The satanic verses author