ABSTRACT
The controversy that erupted after the British publication of Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses in September 1988 contains many of the elements we have emphasized as characteristic of the global development of religions in the late twentieth and early twenty-first century: the role of the media (in publicizing and shaping public opinion of the events), of global interconnections (Khomeini’s fatwa), of grass-roots organizations and networks (in contrast to historic authorities), of relationships between the voluntary sector, the local and national state and transnational norms and institutions (Muslim voluntary organizations, Bradford Town Council, the British government and the European Court) and the importance of arguments about religion and its role in society, among both the religious and the non-believers. Indeed, the cacophany of voices raised in argument approximated to a state of ‘hyper-pluralism’ (Mayhew 1997) and concerned the public/private nature of religion, social integration and separate collective identities, ‘community’ leadership, individual and collective rights and freedom of speech.
