Sir Salman Rushdie

Salman Rushdie is an acclaimed novelist and critic who became a household name after his 1988 novel, The Satanic Verses, drew protests from numerous Muslims and Muslim groups because of its treatment of Muhammad, his wives, and companions. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini (d. 1989), Iran's conservative religious leader, pronounced a fatwa (legal opinion) in 1989 that sentenced Rushdie to death, and, as a result, Rushdie was forced into hiding from 1989 to 1998. Rushdie currently lives in the United States, dividing his time between Los Angeles, Atlanta, and New York City.

Rushdie was born to Muslim parents in Bombay, India, and educated at the Cathedral School there. In 1961 he left India to attend Rugby, a prestigious boarding school in England. Rushdie then attended King's College, Cambridge, where he wrote a paper on Muhammad and the origins of Islam for the first part of his history examinations. Early literary influences on Rushdie included the Arabic classic The Thousand and One Nights (also known as the Arabian Nights) and the Urdu (an Indian language which is the official language of Pakistan) poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz (d. 1984), a family friend.