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RedHanded

Episode 245 - ‘The Satanic Verses’: Fatwas & Faux Pas

RedHanded

Wondery | RedHanded

True Crime

4.518.2K Ratings

🗓️ 12 May 2022

⏱️ 78 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

If the contents of a 546-page book can get one man murdered, two more seriously injured and its author forced into hiding for nine years, you can be confident of its subject: religion. But despite its reputation, ‘The Satanic Verses’ isn’t a page-by-page deconstruction of Islam. It’s a work of fiction; one that prompted the leader of Iran to call for a worldwide manhunt of anyone involved in its publication.

So how did one man’s literary skill get another man literally killed?

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Sources:

Head to Head episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5wclhYcWaA
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9832674/ https://thehoya.com/the-satanic-verses-a-misunderstood-masterpiece-about-identity-metamorphosis/ https://www.englishpen.org/posts/campaigns/salman-rushdie-condemns-attack-on-charlie-hebdo/ https://socialistworker.co.uk/features/islamophobia-free-speech-and-salman-rushdie-s-the-satanic-verses/ https://aeon.co/essays/can-there-ever-be-another-novel-like-the-satanic-verses https://theconversation.com/thirty-years-on-why-the-satanic-verses-remains-so-controversial-102321 https://www.theweek.co.uk/99921/why-was-the-satanic-verses-so-controversial https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ilbNgCWgnwE https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/sep/01/i-guess-im-having-a-go-at-killing-it-salman-rushdie-to-bypass-print-and-publish-next-book-on-substack https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/may/15/salman-rushdie-i-am-stupidly-optimistic-it-got-me-through-those-bad-years https://www.indexoncensorship.org/2019/02/student-reading-list-salman-rushdie-fatwa/ https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-19600879 https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2014/04/salman-rushdie-fatwa-satanic-verses https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/10/world/europe/norway-satanic-verses.html https://www.spiked-online.com/2019/02/14/the-chilling-legacy-of-the-rushdie-affair/ https://www.irishtimes.com/news/rushdie-affair-is-finished-1.196216
https://www.crf-usa.org/bill-of-rights-in-action/bria-15-1-c-blasphemy-salman-rushdie-and-freedom-of-expression https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/the-rushdie-affair-salman-rushdie-cat-stevens/ https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/stories-47225607 https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2019/2/19/the-salman-rushdie-affair-thirty-years-and-a-novelist-later https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-07-13-mn-1822-story.html https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2012/sep/28/andres-serrano-piss-christ-new-york

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Transcript

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0:00.0

Prime members, you can listen to Redhanded early and add free on Amazon music. Download the app today.

0:15.2

I'm Hannah. I'm Sruti. And welcome to Redhanded. I don't think we have that many things to tell you other than that merged back.

0:22.4

Back back back back again, back in the house, back on the streets, back in the town, everywhere, back in the hood, back on your back,

0:28.8

back on your back, exactly. So get yourself over to Redhandedshop.com for all of your spooky-bitch merch needs.

0:36.8

I feel like I'm on like, late night radio. I know. You've got quite a sultry tone to your voice today. It's because I have a sinus infection.

0:44.8

And we are on a very long flight tomorrow, so I will be in a lot of pain, I think.

0:49.8

But before that, before the glory of the painful flight begins, we've got a case for you.

0:55.8

We certainly do. One that we have pondered doing for quite some time and we've decided to just fucking fuck the police and get on with it.

1:02.8

Exactly. No one can stop us unless they fat-tour us.

1:06.8

I was going to say it unless we get cancelled.

1:09.8

Yeah, right. I was talking to my sister about this case and I was like, oh, I've still got a clean up the script because, you know, as it is at the moment, we know.

1:16.8

And she was like, well, I don't think anything actually happened to Salmon and Rashi, who obviously this whole episode is about.

1:23.8

I was like, you went into hiding for nine years.

1:25.8

Yeah. And a bunch of other people got murdered.

1:30.8

So with that, hopefully, we will still be walking the streets next week, but we won't find out until we do it. So let's get on with it.

1:38.8

You cannot, listener, open your eyes these days or even your ears without being smacked in your beautiful face with cancel culture.

1:45.8

It's almost all we think about. Maybe that's because we're content creators and we have to deal with it every day.

1:50.8

But it's a very pervasive topic, I would say. And a very real one.

1:53.8

John Ronson's got a whole podcast series about it, fuck's it.

1:56.8

So, societally speaking, I think everyone has plumped for this is a new phenomenon, right?

2:02.8

It's a new thing, it's a millennial problem, it's a Gen Z problem.

2:05.8

Which I do think I don't think we're a peak yet.

...

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