Rushdie’s heresy, not its English language, caused the outrage

Evidence

England knew English very well, while a great many knew no Arabic. And it is entirely to be doubted that such representatives of orthodox Islam, including the Iranian clerics, would have been any the more forgiving if The Satanic Verses had been written in Arabic, Farsi, Urdu or any other language, for Asian and Arab readerships; what caused the outrage was the book’s heresy and its direct representation of the Prophet of Islam and his family in the most vulgar fashion possible, not its language of communication. — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory, 903

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the censorship/blasphemy strand from Islamophobia and the Novel on blasphemy-style regulation enabling prosecutions. — connects to: Rushdie’s death sentence was for apostasy, not merely blasphemy

Broader Connections

• Rushdie’s death sentence was for apostasy, not merely blasphemy #expands (0.85)