Rushdie: I was deranged when I embraced Islam

SIR SALMAN RUSHDIE has confessed that he pretended to “embrace Islam” in the hope that it would reduce the threat of Muslims acting on the fatwa to kill him.

The author issued a statement in 1990 in order to defuse the row about his novel The Satanic Verses, which had provoked Muslims across the world. He claimed he had renewed his Muslim faith, had repudiated the attacks on Islam in his novel and was committed to working for better understanding of the religion across the world.

However, in an interview to be broadcast next month, Rushdie now claims his reversion to the religion of his birth was all a “pretence”.

Speaking to the psychothera-pist Pamela Connolly in a forthcoming TV programme, Shrink Rap on More4, he says: “It was deranged thinking. I was more off-balance than I ever had been, but you can’t imagine the pressure I was under. I simply thought I was making a statement of fellowship. As soon as I said it I felt as if I had ripped my own tongue out. It became the moment I hit rock bottom. I realised that my only survival mechanism was my own integrity. People, my friends, were angry with me, and that was the reaction I cared about.” [thanks YA]