Daniel Pipes has a definite, often negative view of radical Islam but in "The Rushdie Affair: The Novel, the Ayatollah, and the West," he sticks to research and avoids polemics.
For those who have forgotten, Salman Rushdie wrote a novel called the Satanic Verses which infuriated many Muslims around the world, and led then Iranian leader, the Ayatollah Khomeini, to issue a death sentence.
"Satanic Verses" is a Western term to refer to a very real problem within Islam that attributes words to Mohammed that are deemed incorrect but then blamed on Satan having pretended to be God and whispered them in Mohammed's ear. The words are later withdrawn. Rushdie's decision to title a novel Satanic Verses was seen as blasphemy against the entire religion, and to this day, Rushdie continues to live with the threat of death.
What Pipes does is clearly explain the issues, the history of the Koranic verses, and how Khomeini's actions were perceived and acted upon. Like a lot of books about the Middle East, this is one that should be read against others, because in that region, there's no end to new ways to interpret the same set of facts. Pipes' version is just one.
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