Satanic Verses

ARLINGTON, Va. -- Salman Rushdie, the English novelist living under an Iranian death threat for writing the book "The Satanic Verses," made a dramatic and unexpected appearance here last night to plead for U.S. pressure to end "state-sponsored professional terrorism."Last night's appearance is only the second time Mr. Rushdie has appeared in the United States since February 1989, when Iran's Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini ordered his death for writing a novel that Muslims say unfairly depicts the prophet Mohammed.

After a run of 16 straight weeks, Alexandra Ripley's "Scarlett" will drop from the top of Sunday's New York Times best-seller list. The new No. 1 will be "Hideaway" by Dean R. Koontz.Also, the long-delayed paperback version of Salman Rushdie's "The Satanic Verses" is scheduled to be out in the spring.

IMAGINARY HOMELANDS:ESSAYS AND CRITICISM,1981-1991.Salman Rushdie.Granta Books/Viking.` 432 pages. $24.95. Two years ago, the world's toughest book critic took on Salman Rushdie's "The Satanic Verses." In a scenario familiar to literary editors, free-lancer Ayatollah Khomeini savaged his subject so excessively that he turned his hated novelist into a household name.But even an ayatollah can't work miracles. He couldn't turn a serious, Indian-born British intellectual into a household voice.

I don't know about you, but after escaping the World War II and Cold War I, I don't want to bequeath to my children the consequences of a failed and destructive relationship between the Christian West and Islam.Murderous enmity has burned on and off since the time of the Crusades; now it is given new life by, on the one hand, the post-modernist reaction in much of the Islamic world at a time when windfall oil billions enable it to buy sophisticated arms and by, on the other, the apparent redirection of free-floating popular Western hostility from communism redirected toward a new hate object in Islamic societies.

A MAN'S spiritual choices are a matter of conscience, arrived at after deep reflection and in the privacy of his heart. They are not easy matters to speak of publicly.I should like, however, to say something about my decision to affirm the two central tenets of Islam -- the oneness of God and the genuineness of the prophecy of the Prophet Muhammad -- and thus to enter into the body of Islam after a lifetime spent outside it.Although I come from a Muslim family, I was never brought up as a believer and was raised in an atmosphere of what is broadly known as secular humanism.

The irreverent, Indian-born, British author Salman Rushdie now says he repents having written "The Satanic Verses" and has renewed his faith in Islam. This, however, is not enough for fundamentalist Muslim leaders in Iran and Britain; their death sentence against the author still stands. In Iran, the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei says to do otherwise would change the "divine ruling" of his late predecessor, the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomenei, whose mobs seized the U.S. Embassy in Tehran 11 years ago. In Britain, the head of the Muslim Youth Movement has imposed conditions he admits Mr. Rushie can never meet.

LONDON -- Salman Rushdie, still under Islamic death threat for writing "The Satanic Verses," carried his appeal against the sentence yesterday to the Iranians who imposed it.In a broadcast on the Persian service of the BBC's World Service, he said: "You know I have never been the enemy of Islam. I have never been this figure with horns and a tail. I am not the sort of person who would have written a book attacking Islam."He said his book had been "much misunderstood." He asserted that his book was not blasphemous and said all the "so-called insults" were "contained in the dreams of a man who was going mad, and the reason he was going mad was because he had lost his faith in Islam."

Bart Simpson entertainer of yearHe's bug-eyed, missing two fingers and has no chin, but Bart J. Simpson has what it takes to capture Entertainment Weekly's Entertainer of the Year title.The magazine gives the cartoon character for not catching typical Hollywood afflictions: He didn't punch out any paparazzi, wear glasses to make himself look smarter, harangue his fans about political causes, make a trip to the Betty Ford Center or sing the National Anthem.Runners-up for the trophy included Julia Roberts, Madonna, Arnold Schwarzenegger, M.C. Hammer, Stephen King, Sean Connery, Arsenio Hall, David Lynch and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

LONDON -- Author Salman Rushdie embraced Islam yesterday and said that his book "The Satanic Verses" would not be published in paperback and that he did not personally agree with some statements in the book that most offend Moslems.Mr. Rushdie, 43, issued the statement in an attempt to get Iran and fundamentalist Moslems to lift the death sentence under which he has lived for 22 months. But fundamentalist British Moslem leaders said that it wasn't enough and that nothing short of withdrawal of the book from stores would remove the sentence pronounced by the late Iranian leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

LONDON -- Author Salman Rushdie, in his first television interview since going into hiding 18 months ago, says he is sorry for any hurt his novel "The Satanic Verses" may have caused."