ABSTRACT
The publication of The Satanic Verses has aroused the passions of the public, politician and academic alike, and then has, for the general public, but not for the Muslim minority in the UK, been superseded by more immediately pressing concerns.1 Yet it is more than merely a newsworthy incident which can be forgotten, for it goes to the heart of racial and cultural tolerance, in that it pinpoints specific problems which prevent the resolution of two intractable issues. These are, first, that wrongs and rights are embedded in a sociological context, in which minorities may have right on their side, but not be granted that precisely because they are minorities. The second concerns the nature of the values upon which a society, composed of different groups with different values, must found a consensus.
