Forbidden Books Wiki

Novel

The Satanic Verses

Salman Rushdie

English • 1988

Verified Top-list proxy: 1,500,000 estimated copies sold

A sprawling magical-realist novel about two Indian migrants, with dream sequences that satirize prophecy, revelation, migration, and political power.

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Description

About the work

Reviewed

The novel begins with two Indian Muslim actors, Gibreel Farishta and Saladin Chamcha, falling from a hijacked plane and surviving in transformed bodies. From that opening, Rushdie braids migration, performance, memory, and religious argument into a book about what happens when people are forced to remake themselves between languages, nations, and belief systems.

Its most controversial sections are dream sequences that rewrite sacred history through satire, ambiguity, and layered narration. But the deeper subject of the book is instability: unstable identity, unstable revelation, unstable belonging, and unstable public truth. Rushdie treats faith not as a simple target of mockery but as something entangled with power, storytelling, exile, love, shame, and the desire to make a fractured life feel whole.

Overview

Why it was banned

Verified

The Satanic Verses entered censorship debates as a novel associated with religion, migration, and magic realism. In the current dossier, the main state objections cluster around blasphemy, public order, and religious offense.

The earliest event currently captured here is 5 October 1988 in India, where Government of India and customs authorities banned imports. Rajiv Gandhi's government blocked import of the novel after pressure from Muslim politicians and protests claiming that it insulted Islam. A 2024 Delhi High Court proceeding later found the original ban notification untraceable, casting doubt on whether the import ban still has operative legal force.

The record already stretches across India, Pakistan, South Africa, Bangladesh, Sudan, Sri Lanka, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Somalia, Iran, Jordan, Qatar, Malaysia, Brunei, Kenya, Thailand, Tanzania, Indonesia, Singapore, Venezuela, Japan, Bulgaria, Poland, and Turkey, which is why the page should be read as a cross-border censorship trail rather than a single isolated dispute.

This page is intentionally incomplete. The ban history is a starter dataset, not a final census of every jurisdiction or decree.

Counter and critical readings

Context, rebuttals, and criticism

Reviewed

Ban history

Known government actions

Verified
Date Jurisdiction Action Reason Note
5 October 1988 India banned imports Rajiv Gandhi's government blocked import of the novel after pressure from Muslim politicians and protests claiming that it insulted Islam. A 2024 Delhi High Court proceeding later found the original ban notification untraceable, casting doubt on whether the import ban still has operative legal force.
December 1988 Sri Lanka banned circulation Sri Lanka joined the growing list of states that removed the novel from circulation at the end of 1988. The available reporting places Sri Lanka in the first year of the global censorship cascade, before several Southeast Asian bans followed.
November 1988 Pakistan banned circulation Pakistani authorities prohibited the novel as offensive to Islam before mass protests escalated into deadly unrest. The Pakistan case became one of the most violent early flashpoints in the wider controversy.
November 1988 South Africa banned import and sale Apartheid-era authorities joined the first wave of state bans over alleged insults to Islam. South Africa appears in both broad censorship timelines and later retrospective reporting on the affair's first year.
November 1988 Bangladesh banned circulation Bangladesh moved against the novel during the affair's first regional wave of bans. The ban predates the Iranian fatwa and shows how quickly the controversy jumped borders.
November 1988 Sudan banned circulation Sudanese authorities barred the book as offensive to Islam during the initial round of prohibitions. This record is supported by later timeline reporting rather than a harvested decree text.
14 February 1989 Iran issued state-backed fatwa and prohibition Iran's supreme leader declared the novel blasphemous, called for Rushdie and those involved in publication to be killed, and turned the affair into a state-backed international crisis. This was not merely clerical commentary: it was a public decree from the head of the Iranian state that shaped censorship and violence worldwide for decades.
1989 Qatar banned circulation Qatar is listed among the governments that prohibited the book because it was considered offensive to Islam. Like Somalia and Saudi Arabia, Qatar is presently represented by high-confidence timeline sources rather than a harvested order text.
1989 Brunei prohibited import, sale, and circulation Brunei formally listed The Satanic Verses under an order prohibiting the importation, sale, or circulation of undesirable publications. This entry is anchored in a primary-law source that names the book directly under GN 328/89.
1989 Singapore banned circulation Singapore later confirmed that it banned The Satanic Verses in 1989 because the mainstream Muslim community took offense and the state assessed the work as a threat to religious harmony. The useful part of the source is that the government itself retrospectively acknowledged the ban as a deliberate policy example.
1989 Venezuela criminalized possession and reading Venezuelan officials threatened prison terms for people who owned or read the novel. This stands out because the sanction was framed not simply as import control but as punishment for possession itself.
1989 Japan restricted sale of the English-language edition In Japan, the English-language edition was reportedly subject to fines or sale restrictions as part of the novel's broader censorship trail. The later murder of the novel's Japanese translator was not a state act, but it shows how the formal restriction existed alongside a wider climate of fear and violence.
1989 Bulgaria restricted distribution ALA's censorship timeline records Bulgaria as a government that restricted distribution of the novel. The current entry intentionally uses narrower wording than a blanket ban because the surviving source describes restriction rather than a complete prohibition.
1989 Poland restricted distribution Poland appears in ALA's censorship timeline as a government that restricted the novel's distribution. As with Bulgaria, the terminology here stays conservative because the harvested source describes restriction, not a total ban.
1989 Saudi Arabia banned circulation Saudi authorities are listed among the governments that prohibited the novel because it was judged insulting to Islam. The Saudi case is part of the broad regional consensus that formed around state-backed religious offense claims.
1989 Egypt blocked circulation Egyptian authorities treated the novel as religiously offensive and restricted access amid wider regional protest. The Egypt entry shows how state power and clerical outrage reinforced each other.
1989 Somalia banned circulation Somalia appears in contemporary censorship timelines as one of the states that prohibited the novel over its treatment of Islam. The record is included here as part of the verified first-pass country census rather than a harvested local order text.
26 February 1989 Jordan banned libraries and imports Jordan ordered libraries to remove the novel and directed border posts to stop travelers from bringing it into the country. The surviving report is unusually specific about both domestic libraries and border enforcement.
30 September 1989 Turkey banned import, sale, and distribution Turkey formally banned import, sale, and distribution of the novel months after the first bans elsewhere. Turkey later became one of the deadliest aftershock sites of the Rushdie affair because of violence directed at the book's Turkish translator and defenders.
March 1989 Malaysia banned circulation Malaysia joined the expanding regional ban list in March 1989 as the controversy deepened. Secondary timelines also note penalties for possession or circulation, but the current entry stays with the better-supported ban description.
March 1989 Kenya banned circulation Kenya was part of the second regional wave of bans reported in March 1989. The current note reflects timeline-level evidence rather than a harvested Kenyan ban order.
March 1989 Thailand banned circulation Thailand joined the March 1989 prohibition wave as governments across Asia reacted to the controversy. This is one of several cases where the event is well attested in timelines but still awaits a primary Thai record.
March 1989 Tanzania banned circulation Tanzania appears in the March 1989 expansion of bans around the novel. Later secondary timelines connect Tanzanian enforcement to possession penalties, but this seed record stays with the best-supported circulation ban.
March 1989 Indonesia banned circulation Indonesia followed the earlier South Asian bans as the affair spread across Southeast Asia. The Indonesian record is consistently listed in both broad censorship timelines and later retrospective reporting.

Sources

Harvested references for this page