The Satanic Verses: 30 Years On (BBC Four Sunday 28 August 2022)

Another chance to see this 2019 documentary. The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie, which was published in 1988, sparked a culture war in Britain between those who supported its freedom of speech and those who argued that the book was blasphemous and should be banned.

Beginning in the north of England, protests quickly spread throughout the UK and the rest of the Islamic world, reaching a climax in February 1989 when Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa, which imposed the death penalty on the author.

30 years on, broadcaster and journalist Mobeen Azhar travels to Yorkshire, the scene of the original protest, to investigate the book’s long-term impact on the Muslim community and how the 1989 events are still felt today.

Mobeen hears from a variety of those who were impacted by the so-called “Rushdie Affair”—from the men who organised the first protests and took an early stance against the book to the author who, at the time of its publication, struggled with the difficult issues of free speech and her own religious convictions, as well as a former member of the National Front who claims that the controversy over the book served as a recruiting tool for the group.

Airdate: Sunday August 28, 2022 at 9.40pm on BBC Four.