The Rushdie Affair: The Novel The Ayatollah and the West

Daniel Pipes is the author of five books on the Middle East, including The Long Shadow: Culture and Politics in the Middle East and In the Path of God: Islam and Political Power. He has written over 80 magazine and journal pieces and is the editor of ORBIS, the Foreign Policy Research Institute’s quarterly journal of world affairs. He also served in three positions at the Department of State. Pipes, who frequently appears on national television, received his Ph.D. from Harvard University and has taught at Harvard, the University of Chicago and the U.S. Naval War College. Currently, he is Senior Lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania. He lives in Philadelphia with his wife and two daughters. In this book, Daniel Pipes, Director of the Foreign Policy Research Institute in Philadelphia, explains why the publication of The Satanic Verses became a cataclysmic event, with far-reaching consequences. Pipes details what the fundamentalists perceived, and what the novel actually said, that proved so offensive to some Muslims. In fact, for many, the novel’s title was enough to enrage them without even reading the text. Pipes explains how Rushdie’s book created a new crisis between Iran and the West-disrupting international diplomacy, billions of dollars in trade, and the prospects of Western hostage in Lebanon. He also spells out the chilling, long-term implications of the crisis. If the Ayatollah so easily intimidated the West, can others now dot he same? Can millions of fundamentalists Muslims