A group of Muslim and formerly Muslim women, incensed by the brutal beating of author Salman Rushdie by Iran-supporting Islamic extremist Hadi Matar, created of video of themselves reading from The Satanic Verses.
“The Satanic Verses” drew death threats after it was published in 1988, with many Muslims regarding it as blasphemy Rushdie’s book had already been banned and burned in India, Pakistan and elsewhere before Iran’s Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a 1989 fatwa, or edict, calling for Rushdie’s death.
Asra Q. Nomani, cofounder of the Muslim Reform Movement, describes the video as an “act of defiance.”