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79 Va. L. Rev. 153 (1993)
The Salman Rushdie Affair: Apostasy, Honor, and Freedom of Speech

handle is hein.journals/valr79 and id is 163 raw text is: ESSA Y THE SALMAN RUSHDIE AFFAIR: APOSTASY, HONOR, AND FREEDOM OF SPEECH M.M. Slaughter* 'Your blasphemy, Salman, can't be forgiven. Did you think I wouldn't work it out? To set your words against the Words of God. 1 -Salman Rushdie N a recent film, members of the Huron tribe discuss whether to take up the Jesuits' offer of baptism: the blackrobes want them to give up their gods and live with only one woman. But if they do that, they say, they will no longer be Huron. As a result they will weaken and their enemies will destroy them.2 This situation could serve as the metaphor for the Salman Rushdie affair. It too involves a unique community that wants to maintain its identity and avoid the fate of the Huron-a community that demands the right to be different and the protection of that difference in the public sphere. These demands, however, conflict with post-Enlighten- ment principles of universality and freedom of speech, as well as social policies of cultural assimilation. The facts of The Satanic Verses3 affair can be stated briefly. In 1989 Salman Rushdie published the now notorious novel that presented a portrait of Islam and the Prophet Mohammed in a postmodern satirical style. The book was taken to be blasphemous and insulting throughout the Muslim world and among Muslim immigrants in Britain where it was published. Muslim outrage was * Associate Professor of Law, Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, Yeshiva University. I want to thank David Gray Carlson, Robert Post, Jeanne Schroeder, and David Waines for their generous assistance. Mistakes are of course my own. I Salman Rushdie, The Satanic Verses 374 (1988). 2 Black Robe (Samuel Goldwyn Co. 1991). Fifteen years after their conversion, the prediction comes true. 3 Rushdie, supra note 1.

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