• Sir Salman Rushdie is an acclaimed British novelist whose works include Midnight's Children, The Satanic Verses, The Ground Beneath Her Feet and, most recently, 2008's The Enchantress of Florence. Rushdie gained worldwide notoriety in 1989 when a fatwa (a death sentence) was placed on him by Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini, who considered Satanic Verses blasphemous and "against Islam, the Prophet and the Koran."BBC: 1989: Ayatollah sentences author to death The fatwa was lifted in 1998 by the Iranian government, yet the author continues to receive occasional threats to this day.

• Fast Facts

  1. Born: June 19, 1947, in Bombay, India
  2. Novel Midnight's Children received a Booker Prize in 1981
  3. Rushdie was in hiding under police protection from 1989 until 1998BBC News: Rushdie knighted in honours list (June 15, 2007)
  4. Knighted in 2007BBC News: Rushdie knighted in honours list (June 15, 2007)
  5. Born to a Shiite Muslim family, but not personally religiousTimesOnline: Rushdie: I was deranged when I embraced Islam (April 6, 2008)
  6. Distinguished Writer in Residence at Emory UniversityEmory University: Salman Rushdie to Teach and Place His Archive at Emory University (October 6, 2006)

• Satanic Verses

  The title of Rushdie's controversial book, The Satanic Verses, refers to a legendary collection of writings by the Prophet Mohammad that were originally included in the Muslim holy book The Koran, but later removed. These so-called "satanic verses" (a term used in the West, not the Muslim world) were thought to have been writing by Satan, attempting to fool Mohammad, and encouraged Muslims to pray to a group of pagan goddesses.Religious Intelligence: Why Muslims feel angry about the Rushdie knighthood (July 1, 2007) This was but one of several incidents and ideas in the book that angered Muslim readers. In 1990, Rushdie issued a statement apologizing for causing offense to Muslims and claiming that he had re-embraced his faith in Islam. In a 2008 interview, he retracted this statement, claiming that it was a "pretense" to avoid threats to his life.TimesOnline: Rushdie: I was deranged when I embraced Islam (April 6, 2008)

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