Salman Rushdie, the son of a Bombay Muslim businessman, was an early literary sensation in Britain: his 1981 novel "Midnight's Children", a Booker Prize winner, was widely acclaimed as one of the most vibrant and of the new wave of writers from the subcontinent. Acclaim swiftly turned to notoriety, however, and then to international uproar in 1988 with the publication of his fourth novel, "The Satanic Verses", a searing political satire on Islam with a figure clearly modelled on the Prophet Muhammad.

There were violent protests across the world, with book-burnings, demonstrations and demands by Muslims for his prosecution. In February 1989 six Pakistanis were killed by police gunfire in America during a riot against the book; a month later Ayatollah Khomeini, spiritual leader of Iran, issued a fatwa mandating his death for blasphemy. For the next nine years Rushdie would live as a virtual prisoner, changing addresses constantly, fearing to make public appearances and protected around the clock by British security at an estimated cost of £10 million.

The fatwa was followed by deaths and protests everywhere. A crowd of 10,000 marched on the British High Commission in India. In 1991 an Italian translator was stabbed in his Milan flat; nine days later a Japanese translator was stabbed to death in Tokyo. In 1993 37 people were killed in a riot in Turkey and the book’s Norwegian publisher was shot three times and left for dead.

Rushdie apologised for hurt caused, but refused to retract the book. In 1997 an Iranian foundation raised its bounty on Rushdie’s head from $2 million to $2.5 million while Britain desperately tried to negotiate an annulment of the fatwa. Iran insisted it could never be annulled but finally distanced itself from the death sentence, and in 1998 Robin Cook, the Foreign Secretary, announced a deal: the fatwa stood, but Iran would do nothing to enforce it.

The Khordad foundation raised the stakes further to $2.8 million in October 1998, but by then the threat was waning: international groups campaigning on behalf of Rushdie announced they would disband, and in 1999 Rushdie was making public appearances, even announcing a possible visit to his native India.

Iranian leaders regularly reiterate the fatwa, but British diplomats take this more as political rhetoric than renewed threat. In 2000 the author left Marianne Wiggins, his second wife of 12 years, for an actress and moved to New York. The book remains banned in Muslim countries.

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