In 1989, Supreme Leader of Iran Ruhollah Khomeini called for Rushdie's death, resulting in several failed assassination attempts on the author, who was granted police protection by the UK government, and attacks on connected individuals, including the Japanese translator Hitoshi Igarashi, who was stabbed to death in 1991. Fearing unrest, the Rajiv Gandhi government banned the importation of the book into India.

The book and its perceived blasphemy motivated Islamic extremist bombings, killings, and riots and sparked a debate about censorship and religiously motivated violence. Timothy Brennan called the work 'the most ambitious novel yet published to deal with the immigrant experience in Britain'. The book received wide critical acclaim, was a 1988 Booker Prize finalist (losing to Peter Carey's Oscar and Lucinda), and won the 1988 Whitbread Award for novel of the year. The part of the story that deals with the 'satanic verses' was based on accounts from the historians al-Waqidi and al-Tabari. The title refers to the Satanic Verses, a group of Quranic verses about three pagan Meccan goddesses: Allāt, Al-Uzza, and Manāt.

As with his previous books, Rushdie used magical realism and relied on contemporary events and people to create his characters. First published in September 1988, the book was inspired by the life of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. The Satanic Verses is the fourth novel of British-Indian writer Salman Rushdie.

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