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The publication of the novel in 1988 sparked a wave of outrage in Tehran, Iran, where the Islamic state perceived Sir Salman Rushdie’s book offensive towards Islam. Months later, in 1989, the Iranian Government issued a fatwa, a ruling on a point of Islamic law, for blasphemy against anyone involved in the publication of the book. This move forced Sir Salman into hiding for a decade, indirectly caused the death of 59 people and fuelled a series of violent protests, including the notorious book burning demonstration in Bradford.

The scene was widely criticised and journalist Robert Winder said it evoked “images of medieval, not to mention Nazi, intolerance”. Despite Tehran said it no longer supported the fatwa in 1998, there are still people in the British city with strong feelings against The Satanic Verses, according to a BBC documentary. As a BBC journalist was carrying around a copy of the book to interview people for this week’s episode of ‘The Satanic Verses: 30 Years On’, a man snatched the hardback from his hand and set it on fire.

Muslims burning copies of Salman Rushdie's novel in 1989

Another one said the TV crew had entered a “Muslim, Prophet ghetto”. A Pakistani religious scholar, Tahir Mohmood Ashrafi, insists there is still much anger surrounding the novel. Claiming the author is "hated as much as he was back then", he said: "People can't protest consecutively for 30 years.” The documentary also argues a British man was behind the fatwa.

Ayatollah Khomeini, leader of the 1979 Islamic Revolution

Sir Salman Rushdie published The Satanic Verses in 1988

While the death threat itself was launched by late Ayatollah Khomeini, leader of the 1979 Islamic Revolution, the BBC is now claiming Kalim Siddiqui, director of Britain’s pro-Iranian Muslim Institute, was the person demanding it in the first place, as he visited the Iran shortly before the fatwa. Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, a journalist working at the New Statesman at the time the threat was issued, claimed the fatwa would have not been issued if Mr Kalim hadn’t made the trip. She said: “I knew because I interviewed both of them. “Kalim was adamant till he died that he did go and he did what he did and it was the right thing to do.” The book burning demonstration in 1989 helped shape a negative and caricatural image of Muslims, according to the documentary’s presenter, Mobeen Azhar.

The fatwa forced Sir Salman into hiding for a decade