On February 14, 1989, Salman Rushdie received a call from a journalist informing him that he had been "sentenced to death" by the Ayatollah Khomeini. It was the first time Rushdie heard the word fatwa. His crime? Writing a novel, The Satanic Verses, which was accused of being "against Islam, the Prophet, and the Quran." So begins the extraordinary story of how a writer was forced underground for more than nine years, moving from house to house, with...

Explores the Muslim religion world wide, along with a brief history of its origins.

Documents all sides of the Rushdie controversy, providing an international chronology of events, early reviews of the book, and more reflective articles drawn from the huge, worldwide coverage, fairly and fully representing all points of view.