People are showing solidarity to Salman Rushdie by purchasing 'The Satanic Verses'

The Indian-born British-American novelist Salman Rushdie is on a ventilator and "unable to speak" at the time of writing after being stabbed on stage at the Chautauqua Institution in western New York state.

A 24-year-old suspect from Fairview, New Jersey has been detained by police. The suspect is believed to have run onto the stage and stabbed the interviewer and 75-year-old Rushdie, who has suffered years of death threats since he wrote The Satanic Verses in 1988.

Rushdie's agent has said that: "Salman will likely lose one eye; the nerves in his arm were severed; and his liver was stabbed and damaged."

The Satanic Verses has been a source of controversy for Rushdie ever since it was written and effectively forced him into hiding for 10 years after it was published.

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The outrage was sparked amongst some Muslim nations who deemed the content of the post-modern book to be blasphemous and insulting to their religion and the Prophet Muhammad . Protests against the book resulted in several deaths in both India and Iran.

Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini issued a 'fatwa' on Rushdie which called for his murder or the death of anyone involved in the publication of the book. Even though Rushdie had mocked the fatwa as he did during his cameo on Curb Your Enthusiasm where he managed to seduce women with the allure of 'fatwa sex', the fatwa has never been rescinded.

Now people are showing solidarity with Rushdie by encouraging others to go out and buy the book in response to the stabbing.

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