Salman offers hope for balding rectangular faced men everywhereSince its publication in 1989, The Satanic Verses has sold about 800,000 copies worldwide. The world population is roughly 6,725,000,000.
A bit of maths and I guess that maybe half a million people have read it all the way through. Statistically that ratio is closer to zero than it is to an actual number. Even if it upset every single person who read it (minus two - it didn't personally offend me and a friend of mine was also a fan of the book) then it's resonance as a focus of continuing upset must surely be little to do with the actual book itself.
Personally, its not difficult to imagine that a religion of 1.2 billion people that is also the fastest growing on earth has proven itself to be pretty resilient over the years. Maybe the people who are jumping on their high horses over Rushdie's knighthood could use their energies more wisely. I imagine there are many more threats to the worldwide status of Islam than some ink-marks on paper.
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