Talk:Salman Rushdie

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Contents 1 Conciliatory Gestures 2 Name in Hindi 3 Name in Arabic 4 Islamic Reformation 5 Padma is his FOURTH wife 6 last paragraph 7 Source? 8 NPOV? 9 Copies of Satanic Verses located in major Middle East libraries 10 Living in hiding? 11 Arabic name not correctly spelled 12 HOW? 13 His race 14 Under supervision 15 his language of writing 16 satanic verses 17 trivia 18 pruning controversy paragraph 19 reaching consensus 20 Muslim to atheist 21 not too intelligent 22 Indian born Pakistani-British 23 In Popular Culture 24 The Hit List 25 why all these pictures 26 satanic verses 27 Citation style

[edit] Conciliatory Gestures

I read (unable to locate reference) that Rushdie publicly made conciliatory remarks towards Islam before the Fatwa was set down. If this is so I think it merits mention. And is there any scholarship on why the Fatwa was not set down until several months after the controversy arose? Was it a political move on Khomeini's part?

[edit] Name in Hindi

I have added a transcription of Rushdie's name in Hindi/Devanagari. Although it is offered in good faith, I cannot say that it is unequivocally correct, as I am not a native speaker; editing would be most welcome. Also, I kept the Arabic transcription (see below), because I still think there may be some, as yet unrevealed, relevance for it.

I think his name is सल्मान in Hindi, although I am not a native speaker either.Adityan 01:54, 1 February 2006 (UT

[edit] Name in Arabic

Why is Rushdie's name transcribed in Arabic? This is not a native tongue of the Indian subcontinent. Sure, his names derive from Arabic, but my name, David, derives from Hebrew, would it be transliterated in an article about me? Perhaps Urdu (which uses a similar but NOT identical alphabet to Arabic) or another native language of the Indian subcontinent would be more appropriate? Or leave it without a transcription?

Please sign your comments. The alphabet IS urdu because it's basically the same as arabic (except for a few letters) and more closer to persian. But since Urdu names are usually from Arabic/Persian, his name can be perceived to be in any of these three.

-- Basawala 03:19, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

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[edit] Islamic Reformation

Hi, could the editor who added the information about Rushdie's comments regarding Islamic Reform please cite a source? This is a rather controversial subject (indeed, as is pretty much everything Rushdie says), and with out a reference, it is even more so.....buck 14:59, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

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Whoops. :)--'Vert

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Removed the following inappropriate link

• http://trill-home.com/rushdie.html : A comprehensive collection of information about Rushdie. Summaries of all his novels and more importantly, links to many of his interviews.

The above is a dead link, and the 404 page is not appropriate for work viewing.

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Changed "Indira Gandhi's dynasty" to "Nehru-Gandhi dynasty"

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how can "after the death of Khomeni" be in 1998, when Khomeni died in 1989? -- pde

• Because 1998 came after 1989...Kurt Weber 19:17, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Padma is his FOURTH wife

[edit] last paragraph

what Iranian foundation? Is this important? Is this just gossip about his ex-wife?

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From this article: 'The publication of The Satanic Verses in September 1988 caused...'

From the article on the Satanic Verses: 'The novel caused much controversy upon publication in 1989...'

Which is it?

[edit] Source?

What is the source (i.e. the speaker/author) of the following statement in the article: "The responsibility for carrying out the fatwa is not the exclusive responsibility of Iran. It is the religious duty of all Muslims – those who have the ability or the means – to carry it out. It does not require any reward. In fact, those who carry out this edict in hopes of a monetary reward are acting against Islamic injunctions." Auricfuzz

I just found that the page once said that it was allegedly by an Islamic fundamentalist media source, but it was removed for some reason. If there are no complaints, I think that I will replace it. Auricfuzz

[edit] NPOV?

I don't think so. Phrases like "best novel" don't belong here.

I don't think that was POV, simply poorly worded. The award was given for being selected as the best book to have received the original award. I'm going to change it now.

Fox1 10:38, 25 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Copies of Satanic Verses located in major Middle East libraries

Just FYI - I looked at the Bibliothequa Alexandria's online library catalogue, and they do in fact have a copy of "The Satanic Verses" in English, as well as other writings by Rushdie. Maybe it's a signal that nobody takes the fatwa seriously? Kade 20:23, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Living in hiding?

Is he living in hiding now? Tempshill 05:40, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

No. He recently appeared on Bill Maher's Real Time with Bill Maher talk show. Extremely hilarious and highly regarded by Ben Affleck and Bill Maher. Adraeus 10:40, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

That doesn't mean he's not living in hiding. Tempshill 15:13, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Arabic name not correctly spelled

While the Arabic spelling for Ahmed and Rushdie is correct, it is not correct for Salman. It should be seen-laam-meem-alif-nun, which it is not. Dervesh99 16:39, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] HOW?

The publication of The Satanic Verses in September 1988 caused immediate controversy in the Islamic world due to its allegedly irreverent depiction of the prophet Muhammad

Could you please explain exactly how this book caused controversy. What was it that was written in the book that some Muslims and others found controversial. By not explaining this and then going into detail about the deaths of his translator,etc. it gives the impression that the Muslim's go crazy over nothing.

What does it matter what was written in the book? The International Convention on Civil and Political Rights affirms freedom of speech. International law affirms freedom of speech and nowhere allows people to be murdered for religious reasons (ie that they stated views not in line with a particular religion). It is obvious from the article that _some_ took offence, including the Ayatollah Khomeni and Cat Stevens (though why he is featured so much I don't know) and carried out actions such as the attacks on bookshops etc. No one could dispute that. That is all that is implied. It is not suggested that all 1.5 billion Muslims objected to the book or supported the fatwa, so it doesn't give any impression about Muslims as a whole. But nor does it shirk from pointing out that attacks and threats were carried out in the name of Islam. Nor should it.

It matters deeply what was written in the book, from the POV of, apparently, several million people, thus making the issue quite notable. Tempshill 15:12, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree that the original comments from the book should be included. I read the book back in 1989 when all of this was going on, and I added a sentence about the prophet Mahound which was the origin of the controversey. There were also theories that another character, a religious leader (similar to Khomeini), was portrayed as in pact with Satan, and that this was the real reason for Khomeini's fatwa. I'll dig up the book later and see if I can add anything else.Rt66lt 15:21, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

It was grossly insulting; depicting Muhammed as getting confused by messages from the devil. I was one of many Britons who supported Salman Rushdie in the late 1980s; in those days, Rushdie could be seen as part of a new wave of Muslim self-liberation. This didn’t happen, nor did the West want it. There was little support for Tony Benn’s modest proposal to remove existing British legislation against anti-Christian blasphemy. The law still officially protects Christianity and allows other relgions to be insulted.

Actually when was the last time anyone was prosecuted in Britain for blasphemy? The offence might still be technically on the statute books, but freedom of speech (a common law right further supported by the European Convention on Human Rights) prevails to the extent that the Jerry Springer opera - very insulting to many Christians - was not only permitted by the state, it was broadcast by the BBC. Although there were some protests by Christians which went too far, at least they didn't call for the assassination of the author. So I doubt there's any difference in freedom of speech as applied to all different religions. Can the same be said for Iran?

As far as I know, Rushdie is a Muslim from the Indian subcontinent and is English by adoption, not ethnicity.

--GwydionM 19:33, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Mary Whitehouse brought a private prosecution for blasphemy against Gay News in 1977. Eilif 16:10, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

The last successful blasphemy prosecution was in 1921.

[edit] His race

Most biographical pages give the person's race/ethnicity or that of certain ancestors. This page says that Rushdie is an Indian-born Englishman, but his ethnicity certainly is not totally English.

No, I think 'Indian-born Englishman' means that he has the British nationality and feels or behaves like an 'Englishman'. Also that he was born in India. But this says nothing about his ethnic. Ghuji Ghujo

[edit] Under supervision

The last sentence says that he is "still" under supervision. Shouldn't it say why, just for continuity of the intro? Or should it even be there, since it's not really general biographical, which is, I thought, the only thing the intro paragraph should have? Aristotle2600 22:33, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] his language of writing

It would be interesting which language he uses for writing his books. Does he use English or is he writing in Hindi or Urdu and his works are translated into English? This could be interesting for people that are keen to read originals instead of translations. And maybe also for real Rushdie fans. Ghuji Ghujo

[edit] satanic verses

hello, i just added a little bit that might explain why the book was controversial. i would like to shorten the whole rest a little bit, rather saying that the book got outlawed in several countries and demonstrations and bookburning took place but maybe less detailed and rather elaborate a bit more on how the content might have been controversial. any suggestions? trueblood 15:50, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

Yes, stop making unexplained deletions unless you can develop a consensus to do so on the talk page. StuRat 15:04, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] trivia

can we delete all those bits about tv appearances of SR, seems a wee bit to trivial trueblood 20:56, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

Actually, TV appearances are quite common in Wikipedia biographies. BTW, do you know you can sign using four tildes ? ~~~~ StuRat 00:19, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

yes, but a lot of articles are way too long and contain unnecessary information. what do we learn about rushdie from those tv appearances? trueblood 19:07, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

and so i did it again. why should we know that rushdie was on some tv show but not when his parents got married, or what his cousin is called, or where he usually spends his vacation or whether he likes marmite or not trueblood 11:00, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

This stuff is notable for someone "in hiding" to do. -- Synapse 11:08, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

then why not mention it in the article that he appeared on tv several times, besides i took out the film heading because rushdie is an author not a film star, so his film appearances go with the resttrueblood 12:00, 23 May 2006 (UTC) as for the cheltenham thing, if you want it in here reword it, it sounds like it is there to proof something rather then inform. i can believe that rushdie is quite a arrogant man. i am not sure if this is the place to write about that. or what do you imply, he was not hiding? the fatwa was made up? please enlighten me. trueblood 12:15, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

See my comments in the next section. StuRat 15:01, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] pruning controversy paragraph

i would like to shorten the article quite a bit. i think there is more that could be said about rushdie, about his books, the satanic verses were not the first book to cause controversy. i propose to -just mention whether islam supported to fatwa or not, no quote and all that. -no quote by khomeini, just explain what he called for, - i propose to just mention the violence in general terms and not mention every demonstration.

any objections? trueblood 11:13, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Yes, a very strong objection. You should only remove info which is incorrect or unrelated to the topic. The items you keep removing are neither. Don't delete other people's contributions due to your personal preferences, but only if you have a good reason ! StuRat 14:57, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

sorry, i thought i gave a good reason, this article is about rushdie, not about cat stevens. this quote could be in the article about cat stevens or about the satanic verses. but here it makes the article too long. instead of getting all worked up, you could discuss a little bit why you want all this stuff in the article... trueblood 20:31, 23 May 2006 (UTC) please come up with arguments and answer to what i actually said, two of the things you reverted were a messy headline and my deletion of a sentence about bono/ u2 that existed twice. trueblood 21:36, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Unless you find something you can show is unrelated or untrue, just leave it alone. Isn't that clear enough ? Your desire to shorten the article by removing things you don't personally care about puts your personal preferences above everyone else's. And if you would use better edit summaries I might be able to discriminate between good edits and most of your unexplained deletions. StuRat 19:58, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] reaching consensus

reaching consensus would be easier if there were more people involved. for now do you think consensus is when i do do would you think is right? now, i don't want to fight it out in a you against me fashion. i think wikipedia is interesting because people with different opinions are forced to work together. maybe my first changes here were bold, but changing does not always mean 'this is how it is supposed to be', but testing the water. yes i have personal preferences, you seem to have some strong opinions too, judging from glancing at your talk page. that's okay, everybody has. my personal preference or the reason i want to shorten here is readability and relevance. you can't write down every fact that is true. for instance. even though this is an article about rushdie there are three quotes by other people but none by rushdie. as a compromise i propose to move the whole satanic verses controversy paragraph to the satanic verses article and leave only a short summary in the rushdie article. i still it is too long and not very well structured. the cheltenham thing, if you really want it in, you have to rephrase it. 'rushdie likes to' does not do the trick and you have to do it without the word infamous too. that just leaves the facts and they could go into the controversy paragraph. i can live with the tv appearances because they are at the end of the article, although you have not really explained to me why they are more relevant than the dates of his dentist appointments between 78 and 89.

i think even if my summary were not clear enough it is also in your responsibility to check what you change. trueblood 05:48, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

• It's not just me objecting to your changes. I believe Dleigh also reverted some of your edits and Synapse responded above as to why these things are notable and should therefore not be deleted.

• If you don't like the way something is worded, that's a reason to reword it, not to delete it.

• If you want to move parts into the Satanic Verses article, that's fine, just be sure to provide a link with an explanation as to what was moved there.

• That comparison with dentist visits is just stupid, TV appearances are notable because millions of people may have seen them, while dentist appointments are not.

• Your idea that an article is "too long" implies you intend to read it from beginning to end and object to any material you don't personally care about. These articles are written with sections and subsections specifically so you can skip parts which don't interest you personally. That doesn't mean you can deprive others, who are interested in such things, of the ability to read about them.

• If I revert your edits when you just say "deleted random bits", then maybe you will start to do a better job on your edit summaries. In viewing the changes it did indeed appear that you just randomly deleted things, and I still had no idea why. StuRat 01:49, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

oh man, okay take another example for tv appearances, someone who appeared on tv thousands of times. do you want to record each on of them?

• Yes, as a reader may want to come here looking for a specific appearance, say to settle an argument they were having with a buddy over whether he was ever on that particular show. An online encyclopedia is an ideal place for such info. Again, nobody is forcing you to read that part and this isn't like a paper encyclopedia, where there is a high cost to adding material. StuRat 14:06, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

by the way dleigh and synapse are the same person, and i believe i responded to his argument.

• Whether or not you responded, and whether or not it's the same person, that still shows there are more people who disagree with you (at least me and one other) than agree with you (is there anyone ?). So, in other words, you most definitely do not have a consensus to delete things which don't interest you personally. StuRat 14:06, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

but you are right, nobody is forced to read that section. which different with the controversity section.

• I don't understand, why is anyone ever forced to read any section ? StuRat 14:06, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

btw can you try to be more polite?trueblood 08:06, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

• Yes, if you refrain from unexplained deletions without consensus and silly comparisons with dental visits, I will try to be more polite. Also, please proofread what you write, it frequently is full of errors, which makes it difficult or impossible for me to understand (like the (sentence ?) "which different with the controversity section", I think I know what this means, but other gems, like "exixisted", leave me stumped). StuRat 14:06, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

actually the satanic verses article contains most of the information presented in a more lucid way (i find) ; except the Cat Stevens stuff, which can be found on his article. i propose to add that cat stevens allegedly supported the fatwa (with link to his article) and then drastically shorten the controversy section. how is that? trueblood 10:35, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

• Sounds OK, but remember that those looking at this article may not be aware of the Cat Stevens relationship, so you must at least leave enough here to explain the basics of the controversy and it's relationship to Cat. StuRat 14:06, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

i did what i said, maybe want to still replace the last thing about the fatwa with something clearer about the current situation and also mention when Rushdie stopped to live in hiding. the timeline needs some tidying up with the bounty. some of the information is not very consistent. trueblood 10:51, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Muslim to atheist

Please consider modifying the opening paragraph (or elsewhere) to include the fact that Rushdie was born Muslim and now claims to be Atheist (per Bill Moyers interview). This fact will make Rushdie's profile more complete, avoid erroneous assumptions by readers, and lend credibility to Rushdie's work and commentary. For example, it would be easy for the casual reader to assume that Rushdie was born a Hindu, which would create a different context for this whole article. --Ming

sounds good, do you have a link with information about his family background--trueblood 11:42, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] not too intelligent

many people of the not too intelligent variety tried to downplay the affair by arguing totally beside the point that the ban didn't matter much, since hardly any Indian can read Rushdie's English.

you can't write that. i don't now where to begin to tell you why. it is an insulting argument (to indians), so why bring it in, who says that, but you also cannot judge it here they way you did...--trueblood 18:08, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

see i am an indian too. but this is the truth. if you look at our history our leaders have often acted in an foolish manner which has to be condemned. this is just one case. one famous case was shah bano case where u can see the narrowmindedness and stubborn nature of our politicians. though it is a case out of our parliament which reverted the supreme court judgement i m not proud of it. and no wise or intellectual indian praises that.

this is just an statement that exposes the thinking of majority of indians. its an insult to those who support these things and not to anyone who has the guts to call a spade a spade.

[edit] Indian born Pakistani-British

whoa can we straighten this out a little --trueblood 07:15, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

well he doesnt identifies himself as such. though he has excellent knowledge of not just the subcontinent, but also of the western world, as seen in "moor's last sigh".

nids 11:34, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

it just sounded funny to me, so i took the wording that is used in encyclopedia britannica. --trueblood 11:36, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Rushdie moved to Pakistan yes, and immigrated to Britain from there. But, from my knowledge, he hadnt yet given up his Indian citizenship and therefore, was still technically Indian when he became a UK citizen. What's more, he does not see himself as Pakistani or from Pakistan, but Indian from Bombay. He identifies more with India than with Pakistan and makes this vocally known. Most of his books deal with it, except Shame. So he's Indian British or British Asian. Afghan Historian 17:20, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] In Popular Culture

Pearl Jam's song "In Hiding" was written in his honor.

[edit] The Hit List

Should no mention of his character in the Chris Ryan book 'The Hit List' be made? He is bodyguarded by the main character of that particular book but there is no mention of it here.

[edit] why all these pictures

so many pictures, and they are not even very good, flickr might be the better place to put them... trueblood 19:14, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] satanic verses

i removed some stuff from this article because it is all in the article about the satanic verses where it belongs. in the section in this article is a link that leads directly to the timeline of events in the article about the satanic verses. trueblood 20:45, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

I disagree it 'belongs' in the Satanic Verses article. That article is about the book, this is about the person. Books are banned repeatedly, their authors threatened occasionally. Unless you have any firther response, I will revert some of your changes. Please note that in simply reverting, you have re-included some things you had deleted. Hornplease 20:50, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

whoa, why so confrontational. did you already have a look at the article about the satanic verses. why should the satanic verses controversy section be not in the article about the satanic verses. it is about the book not the guy. whether the some translators got killed or not? i started moving all this stuff away from this article because i took so much space of the article, but there is more to rushdie than just this controversy about one of his bookstrueblood 21:02, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree that there is much more to Rushdie. However, much of the controversy is notable because of the physical threats to Rushdie's person, so the details that flesh out that threat should be in this article. I am sorry if I came across as confrontational.Hornplease 21:34, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

okay when i came to this article, the satanic verses section was longer then the rest, with long quotes by khomeini or even cat stevens, a list which country banned the book etc. so i shortened it considerably and moved all the information to the article about the book. since it is a only a click away, i thought that is enough. i would rather a general overview than go into all the details. but i am also a fan of shorter articles. but then i am not completely fixed on this. trueblood 11:08, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Citation style

Hi, sorry I did not leave a detailed message here about the citation style; I thought the edit summary would be clear. Currently this article is using plain external links for references. This is undesirable, as it means there is no way to get a list of author, date, title, etc. in the article, and it lowers the bar for quality of sources. Using the <ref> tag (for example, with {{cite web}}) would be a lot clearer. I'll try to stop by and convert the references if I have time, but I am pretty busy these days. —ptk✰fgs 00:46, 9 October 2006 (UTC)