People who blindly jump into this book may soon find themselves regretting not having informed themselves somewhat beforehand.

I must admit to an embarrassing ignorance about almost every aspect of this daunting work at the outset. I had only the vaguest memory of having heard the phrase "satanic verses" outside of a discussion of the ever-present religiously-sanctioned threat on the author's life.

I had very little knowledge of Indian culture and none regarding the cross-cultural experiences of Indian immigrants living in Great Britain. I also only knew the barest outline of the history of Islam.

While reading this book, I plunged headfirst into each and every one of these gaps in my knowledge, and quite a few more besides. To simply categorize the Satanic Verses as a book solely concerned with and influenced by the above-mentioned topics is to overlook a great deal of what Rushdie put into it.

Personally, while reading, I often found it beneficial (and at times essential) to educate myself along the way. Even so, I am aware that I have not grasped many of the story's finer details and subtler themes. I suspect that if, at any point in my life, I am able and patient enough to deepen my understanding of this work, my rating will almost surely improve.

I don't know why Rushdie regressed to this level with this work (Satanic Verses) in terms of thought and literary style. Especially since I read for him before this work a novel (Midnight's Children) which is his beautiful masterpiece, in which he innovated on the subject of India before and after independence. Then I read (Satanic Verses) and after that other works of his, including (The Moor's Last Sigh). I found my surprise in his regression to this level. Maybe he wanted to make more concessions to adapt to the new society! As usual, some Arab and Muslim books and those from other third-world countries are a kind of self-negation that is basically based on undermining identity rather than on a geographical impact as much as the sense of belonging.

Before (Satanic Verses) and after it, Rushdie presented some of his best works in terms of the structural aspect of the novel and the narrative ability. So why did he do what he did?!.. This is ridiculous and shameful... This novel I found to be repugnant and abhorrent.

At that time, I say that the novel (Midnight's Children) gave Rushdie a global position and he is settled in Britain. There is no doubt that the echo of his novel reached his country India. So why this regression in a novel that is banal in subject and method of treatment, so much so that I am amazed at the "glorification" that he received from some Arab Muslims and non-Muslims, the advocates of freedom whom the publishing house (Penguin) glorifies on the cover of the novel in order to improve the sale of its product as usual for the work that it rejects.

In general, the novel lasts a month in its treatment by presenting the personality of the Prophet - peace be upon him - in a banal way of treatment and discussing it within the context of the novel for some verses of the Qur'an according to a narrow perspective that stems from a great and huge evil in his culture to which he belongs - Islamic - which he follows even in a formal way (and not the subject of entering his heart, for this is between him and God). Even when I tried to be impartial and look at the novel from a literary side and a technical aspect, it is lacking and weak, far from its subject. Although Rushdie lives in writing it the great innovative method (Franz Kafka) in "The Metamorphosis" and other works that he invented and developed in them "the stream of consciousness", but the novel is not at that level despite the narrative quality and Rushdie's tools for literary fidelity.

From the newspaper:
The Daily News, dated March 1st 1989, Rushdie
The thinker ((Roland Barthes)) says: ((That this type of arousing sensitivity may have brought books that are not outstanding at all to the list of the best-selling books in the world.. But in my opinion, this is a cheap way to reach this target.. And in my opinion also, it is a dangerous usurpation.. And I think it is "reprehensible". )) End

Here are my references for the novel Midnight's Children:

Readings 2009

"We do not prove that the world is a real place except when we die in it."

Before you enter to read the novel and be amazed by its style, the novel is written with a literary technique called "stream of consciousness" or "association of ideas", where the events are hazy, unsequenced or unconnected to express the author's point of view.



The novel is humorous in most of its parts, and the translation is excellent by an unknown translator.



Ayatollah Khamenei announced a five-million-dollar bounty for the killing of the author, and I don't think it's for the sake of the Prophet, but because he felt that the author insulted him when he mentioned him in a single line likening him to the Prophet Muhammad.



I read the name of the pilgrims' town "Titeyber" as "Titeybez" for the first time, and then I found that the name "Titeybez" is more satirical, and I felt that there is no need to pronounce the word correctly, so the name of the village Titeybez has a much better ring and meaning for me.

"If the sea forces you to submit.. it is worse than a well that deprives you of its water."

This is an article that presents the case of the satanic verses that the author mentioned in the book and that are named after him: The Satanic Verses in the Quran


And whatever the outcome of the disagreement over the satanic verses, the acts of violence and aggression that were issued as a reaction to the book remain acts of violence and aggression that have no justification.

It is amazing to know that the book by which an author is famous, which is his synonym, with an equal sign between them, is actually not his most artistically valuable work. The Indian writer Salman Rushdie won the Booker Prize for the book "Midnight's Children". Some would say it is an anthological work with fantastic descriptions of Bombay, the life on the streets of that exotic city for us, the relationships that prevail somewhere where few of us have been, and the fates of the millennial children born at midnight on the transition from the second to the third millennium. "Midnight's Children" brought great glory, but it also brought the first threats, of a religious nature. The Briton, skilled in packaging thoughts in allegorical wrappings, packaged a hidden criticism of the world in which he grew up and packaged for himself views full of contempt and often hatred. And then came the verses or aets, originating from hell or jezuit, written by the hand of Satan or the devil, they brought what "Midnight's Children" also announced, hatred, death threats and finally the fatwa issued by the religious leader of the Islamic world, Ayatollah Khomeini. The fatwa gives every Islamic believer the freedom to kill the writer according to God's justice without fear of sin. More than thirty years have passed since the publication of the book that led to the killing of the Japanese translator, but also the broken showcase of the Prosveshchenie bookstore in Sarajevo in whose decor this satanic book was standing. The question is what is so scary written in this book full of irony, satire, allegory and sharp criticism of the world blinded by religious fanaticism, that a writer, not a politician or an officer, would be sentenced to death?

One of the main characters of this book is Gibreel, better known in the Christian world as Gabriel or the archangel Gabriel who at the very beginning falls from heaven, as one of the two survivors in a terrorist attack on an airplane. Indian emigrants fall from heaven and one of them is Gibreel Farishta, a Bollywood star, who is transformed into the angel Gabriel, while the surviving friend in misfortune, Saladin, is transformed into the devil himself, beneath them is Lamanche, London, the whole world. The jihad is on, the virgins are in heaven, the death of the innocent, but life continues in the jinn, under God's tents, with heavenly songs and food and caresses and therefore there are no tears, only divisions into jinn and jung, darkness and light, evil and good. Pandora's box is open. While Gibreel's transformation into an angel is a reflection of a mental transformation and illness, Saladin's transformation and movement on the streets of London shows us the life of Indian emigrants who will never be accepted in the Western world until they throw away the last framework of Indian culture, they will always remain the other, the one who causes fear and whom the Western world will look at with fear in its eyes. In addition to pointing out the consequences and the crime of colonization, Rushdie points in his world full of magical realism also to the problem of the Islamic world, which at the end of the twentieth century is transforming into a split that separates two streams of the Islamic world, but also two streams of the entire world religion, those who are dedicated and religiously unblinded and those fundamentalist, who would kill for the sake of God and in the name of God. Here the writer has made his strongest move and in the game he has inserted the prophet Muhammad to tell his story in the society of the angel Gibreel. The society of the heavenly virgins, all forty of them, on earth hidden in tents worthy of a sultan, which hide adultery and depravity, the prostitution of innocent girls hidden behind fabrics and hidden masks. He, who received the fatwa as a gift, has removed the masks, and he described not only Muhammad, but all those who with a knife in their teeth and with bombastic devices around their necks offer gifts and give them to innocent people, those whom it does not matter who is whose and where from, but who have allowed themselves to be afraid of differences, those who have allowed the wise to be silent and hide aside, and they put their loud positions on the pedestal to set the masses on fire, to raise uprisings and rebellions, jihads and crusades and issue fatwas as they please. Criticism of the Western and Indian world from which he came, criticism of materialism and religious dogmas, but not an insult to the ordinary world, a word that has targeted individuals and found its right place, but has also dragged behind it millions of followers ready to avenge in anger what they have not even read, just like those who are against Grass, Handke or Rushdie.

"Those who today most loudly oppose the 'Satanic Verses' think that their mixing with a different culture will inevitably weaken and destroy their sovereignty. I think the opposite. The novel 'Satanic Verses' celebrates hybridity, impurity, mixing, transformation that comes from new and unexpected combinations of human beings, cultures, ideas, politics, films, songs. It enjoys crossbreeding and fears the absolutism of the Pure. Melange, pastiche, a little of this and a little of that is how the new comes into the world. Mass migration gives the world a great opportunity and I have tried to embrace it."