Today marks the 20th anniversary of the publication of Salman Rushdie's novel, The Satanic Verses.

At the time, extracts from the novel were circulated by some Islamic organisations to mosques and Islamic societies across the country to help acquaint British Muslims with its contents.

I was in my second year at university and could not comprehend why someone like Rushdie, who had been brought up in a Muslim family, would write a provocative novel that he must have known would cause offence to millions of people.

Why constantly refer to the Prophet Muhammad as Mahound, the old medieval name for the devil? And to have a group of prostitutes in a brothel to take on the names of the prophet's wives in order to better arouse their clients – what was Rushdie thinking?

There can be no real doubt that Rushdie was aware that his book would spark a huge controversy. A clearly tongue-in-cheek passage in The Satanic Verses has a character being told, "Your blasphemy, Salman, can't be forgiven … to set your words against the word of God."

We are all familiar with what happened next. A series of demonstrations were organised calling for the book to be withdrawn from circulation – you may recall that the then Tory government had tried to do the same with Peter Wright's Spycatcher just a couple of years previously. There were a couple of infamous book-burnings. Some Muslim organisations called for the blasphemy law to be extended to cover more than just the Anglican faith. The protests against the book soon spread to Muslim majority countries. Then came Feb 14 1989 and Ayatollah Khomeini's dramatic intervention from Iran calling upon Muslims everywhere to kill Rushdie for the crime of insulting the prophet.

Just over a year ago, I wrote a Cif piece arguing that it was time to admit that those of us who had called for the book to be banned or pulped were wrong. Utterly wrong. It was understandable why many regarded and still do regard passages in The Satanic Verses to be so offensive, but that could not be used as a justification to try and prevent others from reading the book.

My piece got a mixed reaction from the Muslims I spoke to. Some agreed that the episode had been a disaster while others strongly disagreed with me and did not accept that a novelist should have the "right to offend". I tried to explain that the right to offend did not imply that one agreed with what was being said – it was just that the writer should not be prevented from doing so as long as he was not breaking any laws.

This year I decided to send an email to members of one national Muslim organisation asking them for their own views on the matter. Here are excerpts from some of the responses that I received:

You cannot force people to respect you and it has resulted in the exact opposite reaction with all sorts of people lining up to insult and lampoon the prophet, Islam, the Qur'an and Muslims generally in the last two decades since.

I was 16 years old at the time and was perplexed over the issue. I knew that Rushdie had written an offensive book, but I found the Muslim protestors' response somewhat offensive too.

The late Zaki Badawi was right all along to say he would offer his home as a sanctuary for his fellow citizen Salman when the death penalty and its bounty was declared ... I think years later, many of us who would admit to having hurled abuse at Badawi then, have relearned and rethought about loyalty, citizenship, freedom and social responsibility.

It may be notable that I did not receive a single response arguing that the protestors were right to have called for The Satanic Verses to be pulped or withdrawn.

Is this rethinking now widespread amongst British Muslims? Yes, my impression is that it certainly is with many now accepting that the Satanic Verses affair served to create (and for others reinforce) the unfortunate view that Muslims were backward, anti-intellectual, prone to violence and saw themselves as being somehow above the law.

In a 1990 essay entitled "In Good Faith", Rushdie tried to explain his reasons behind writing the Satanic Verses. Rushdie argued that he and his book had been consistently misrepresented but also asked:

What is freedom of expression? Without the freedom to offend, it ceases to exist. Without the freedom to challenge, even to satirise all orthodoxies, including religious orthodoxies, it ceases to exist. Language and the imagination cannot be imprisoned, or art will die, and with it, a little of what makes us human.

It is painful to admit it, but on the need to uphold the freedom to offend, Rushdie was right. The consequences of not doing so should be apparent by now to Muslims above all.

Earlier this year, the leader of the far right Dutch Freedom Party, Geert Wilders, called for the Qur'an to be banned because he found some passages in the book offensive.

And there's the rub. Who is to decide what is offensive or not? What may be offensive to me may be just harmless fun to you and vice versa.

Some months back I had dinner with a well-known British columnist who has some rather strident views about immigration and Islam. I asked him outright what it was that so annoyed him about Islam and he said it was what he viewed as the seemingly constant attempts by Muslims to try and restrict freedoms.

And regrettably, like it or not, that is the image too many people now have of Muslims.

Last month a fresh controversy broke out over the proposed publication of the novel, Jewel of Medina, which is said to be about the Prophet Muhammad's relationship with his youngest wife, Aisha. The book has been described as a "soft-porn" novel and is now due to be published by Gibson Square in the UK next month.

Already emails are being circulated calling on British Muslim organisations to mobilise to try and stop its publication. Will they try and do so? I really hope that appropriate lessons have been learned from the Satanic Verses affair and that British Muslims do not take the bait.

As per Islamic tradition, I have spent this month of Ramadan re-reading and studying the Qur'an. It is an unfailingly joyous experience. Every time I read it I marvel at the achievements of the Prophet Muhammad. He was the restorer of a pristine monotheism, blessedly free from the confusing Christian doctrine of the trinity and the narrow Hebrew tribalism of Judaism. His revolution in Arabia changed the course of human history and launched the Arabs on to the world stage for the first time.

The point I am trying to make is that his achievements are by no means diminished simply because of the writings of Rushdie or the Jewel of Medina author, Sherry Jones.

The Qur'an records the prophet being vilified as a "madman" and a "sorcerer" by his pagan opponents. The Qur'an consoled the prophet against these taunts and urged him to be patient while assuring him that "soon you will see and they will see which of you is afflicted with madness" (chapter 68, verses 5-6).

Let Rushdie, Jones and co write as they please. Muslims are likewise at liberty to use those very same freedoms to promote their own understanding of the mission of the Prophet Muhammad.

So what will happen when the Jewel of Medina is published next month? If the views articulated by my correspondents now constitute the majority view amongst British Muslims then that would be a hopeful sign.