Hello and thank you for downloading this witness podcast with me for Hanahever.

And today I'm taking you back to the autumn of 1988 and the growing backlash

against the publication of Salma Rishti's book The Satanic Versus.

Many Muslims around the world believe the book was blasphemous and there was growing unrest.

We've had the community that we are being ignored and dismissed and our concerns and our

frustration and our anger was not being acknowledged by the publishers or for that matter the author.

Isjak Ahmed, a Muslim community leader, lived in the northern city of Bradford, which had the largest

Muslim population in Britain. He recalls the moment that members of the Bradford

Council of mosques first came across a copy of the satanic verses which had been

published in the UK in late September 1988.

We felt passages in the books which were very offensive of Islam and Islamic identity and

some of the sacred personalities of Islam, Prophet, his wife, and we felt that that was really not acceptable.

The satanic verses had caused controversy even before its publication.

The title itself refers to a much disputed incident in which Prophet Mohammed was apparently

tricked by Satan.

What also caused anger was that there were prostitutes in the book given the name of Prophet Muhammad's wives and many Muslims

including Isjak Ahmed saw these references as provocative and blasphemous.

We were in touch with the publishers, we were writing to the publisher. We actually wrote the government as well in those days saying, look, this is going to be potentially very difficult situation. Hence the book could be withdrawn or could be held back and some of the positives which are offensive

could be revisited and reviewed.

We felt as a community that we were being ignored and dismissed.

It was extremely rare for books to be banned in Britain.

Penguins said it would not withdraw the book,

...