''To say it is an insult is absurd.''

"The idea that it is some kind of calculated insult is an absurdity. The real insult - to the intelligence and decency of 'the world's 1.5 billion Muslims', for whom people such as Mohammed Ejaz ul-Haq presume to speak - comes from the ignorance and paranoia of leaders who feel so threatened by a novelist that they'll call for him to be killed." -Hari Kunzru (author of Transmission & The Impressionist ) The noted author of The Satanic Verses , Haroun and the Sea of Stories , Midnight's Children and The Ground Beneath Her Feet has been knighted by the Queen of England and the newly minted Sir Salman has again become a lightning rod for criticism from extreme and irrational voices. Heinrich Heine's line from, "Almansor", is once again a call for constant vigilance: "Where they have burned books, they will end in burning human beings." ("Dort, wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man am Ende auch Menschen.") —Heinrich He...