A fatwah for comedy

The Iranian Foreign Ministry is apparently lacking a funny bone. So sad.

Currently, they're upset because author Salman Rushdie was recently knighted, a move that Iran is viewing as an intentional slap in the face to all of Islam. But just in case a little background is in order: in 1989, Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa against Rushdie upon the publication of his book The Satanic Verses.

I was in high school when I first heard of the fatwa and, naturally, had to read the book to see what evils lurked within. I was expecting a book-length essay on the evils of Islam or something similarly blatant and venomous. It took me a while to adjust to what was really there: a really entertaining, and very often funny, novel. It begins with two men miraculously surviving the fall from a moving airplane; one survivor, a movie star, turns into a satyr. Yeah, it's that kind of book.

Yes, there are anti-Islamic messages in it. No, it's not the point of the book (at least, that's not how I read it then - could be I'd see it differently 10+ years later). Either way, a price on his head? For fiction? Really, really well-written fiction?

Oppose the fatwa, buy a Rushdie book. Then read it - the guy is unbelievably talented.