This FAQ is empty. Unsurprisingly, he faces some resistance; at one point, a man in Bradford rips the book from his hands and attempts to set it on fire, a scene reminiscent of what went on in 1989. Now, 30 years on, broadcaster and journalist Mobeen Azhar embarks on a journey, starting in his native Yorkshire where the protest first began, to examine the lasting effect the book has had on the Muslim community and how the events of 1989 continue to have an impact today. Check out the lineup of new movies and shows streaming on Netflix this month, including The Trial of the Chicago 7. I was struck by how he was just like a bumbling uncle. He speaks to Shahid Butt, who now works with the government to deradicalise extremists, though he once associated with Abu Hamza and joined the Bosnian army, where he fought on the frontline against the Serbs. Later, he meets Matthew Collins, a former teenage National Front leader who chanted “No Muslim wars on British shores” when 70,000 Muslims (including Butt) marched on the Houses of Parliament.

The reaction to The Satanic Verses set the context for what we’ve seen in terms of the othering of the Muslim community today. And, with hindsight, how large of a role did the controversy play in the anti-Muslim sentiment still unfortunately so rife throughout certain parts of Britain? You must be a registered user to use the IMDb rating plugin. What an extraordinary story The Satanic Verses: 30 Years On tells – and what a way to do that. Back then, there used to be an Asian slot that'd talk about Asian issues on Network East in the morning that my parents would watch. In his words, the reaction to the book was the greatest gift ever to the far-right.

The broadcaster and journalist Mobeen Azhar, a radio presenter on the BBC Asian Network, who also won a Bafta for Muslims Like Us in 2017, was a child growing up in Huddersfield when The Satanic Verses was published in 1988. And more broadly, we were just black. It's amazing that this one book set him on this path. And a big part of our history, particularly when it comes to how immigrant communities and how Muslims are perceived in Britain, a lot of that goes back to what happened 30 years ago.

The alleged verses can be read in early biographies of Muhammad by al-Wāqidī, Ibn Sa'd and Ibn Ishaq, and the tafsir of al-Tabarī.The first use of the expression is attributed to Sir William Muir in 1858. The VHS tape was passed around in school, and in it the baddie is called Salman Rushdie. Azhar recalls Rushdie as a sort of spectre of his childhood and, with smiling disbelief, recalls a game they invented in the playground of his school: how would they kill Salman Rushdie? Protests were held, the book was banned in numerous countries, fire-bombs were hurled through stockists' windows and the novel's Japanese translator was stabbed to death.

[Former jihadist] Shahid Butt wasn't particularly religious, but when he was arrested he said the police said to him: "You're a part-time Muslim, you're not even a Muslim." There are a number of gripping interviews, in which difficult questions are posed and people are challenged without any sense of being needlessly inflammatory. Everyone just looked really pissed off. It was the first time I saw brown people on the news. © 2020 Guardian News & Media Limited or its affiliated companies. Pre-Rushdie, there was no concept in mainstream [discourse] of Muslims being "othered". He corrupts Pakistani youth by opening discos across the country, and the grand finale of the film is that he's struck by lightning by a flying Quran.

It's all this that BAFTA-winning filmmaker and journalist Mobeen Azhar sets out to uncover with his VICE Studios-produced documentary for BBC Two, The Satanic Verses: 30 Years On.

We just thought Salman Rushdie was like a bogeyman; we didn't understand the politics. If there's another bombing, we can’t keep saying "but Islam Is the religion of peace". This cheap propaganda piece is a good view on a growing a part of british society you don't often see. I remember watching that and we all thought it was hilarious. Was this review helpful to you?

We just thought he was the bad guy. It became symbolic of the racism we’d suffered, the pain of the immigrant experience, being second-class citizens, of being beaten up on the way home from school and being called Pakis. There was also a Lollywood film released in 1990, International Gorillay. If you listen to Matthew Collins in the film, a former youth organiser for the National Front, he told me pre-The Satanic Verses, their main campaign at the time was against what they called "the Chinese invasion". But that was never going to happen, because the book became symbolic of other injustices. Once that stage was set, as a society, we never hit the reset button.

Directed by Steven Grandison. If you want to understand things like the rise of the right, and understand how that became mainstream, you've got to understand our history.

Three decades later, he wants to know why this novel had such a powerful effect on his community and how long-lasting and far-ranging the fallout has been. It's all this that BAFTA-winning filmmaker and journalist Mobeen Azhar sets out to uncover with his VICE Studios-produced documentary for BBC Two, The Satanic Verses: 30 Years On. In the documentary, we go back to my primary school, which was predominantly Pakistani.

With Mobeen Azhar, Sadia Hameed. Sometimes that means engaging in really difficult questions. So we’d come up with fantastical, odd ways of killing him. Even when I spoke to him about the images of him setting fire to the book being beamed around the world and the Iranian [religious figures] watching that on the news, he kind of smiled and was like, "Oh, that’s crazy." The publication of Salman Rushdie's novel The Satanic Verses in 1988 sparked a culture war in Britain between those in the Muslim community, who considered the book blasphemous and called for the book to be banned, and those defending it as an expression of freedom of speech. They thought that was the biggest issue facing Britain when it came to race relations. The Satanic Verses is Salman Rushdie's fourth novel, first published in 1988 and inspired in part by the life of Muhammad.As with his previous books, Rushdie used magical realism and relied on contemporary events and people to create his characters.

What do you think it’ll take for that to happen?I think we're so used to reacting, we've become in some ways worse at engaging in debate because all we do is just react. We as a community could have just written letters and chosen to ignore it. This is a co-production with Vice Studios and it certainly lacks stuffiness.

All rights reserved. What Azhar’s approach lacks in finesse, it makes up for in candour and insight. “We didn’t read books.”. I don't think it's healthy to say anything is off bounds. The book-burning in Bradford happened in January of 1989, and by February the National Front were marching and saying, "There's going to be a war in Britain because of Muslims.".


After some pushing, Butt admits that he still finds Rushdie’s work offensive today, but no longer wants to punch him on the nose. W hat an extraordinary story The Satanic Verses: 30 Years On tells – and what a way to do that. He was lovely and very hospitable. When I asked him about the effects of it, there was a genuine moment where he was crushed. The game was called, "How would you kill Salman Rushdie?" This article originally appeared on VICE UK. And so a lot of the community who I spoke to from that time, it felt like the one thing that was sacred to them was being targeted. I think if we as a community are able to stomach these debates – and that means around things that we hold sacred – then we'll truly put the whole thing to bed. He begins by reading it for the first time, in order to understand why it became such a focal point for accusations of blasphemy – the laws against which protected only Christians and not Muslims in Britain (they were abolished in 2008).

A lot of the anti-Muslim sentiment in Britain is credited to 9/11, but your documentary makes a different case.

I had a chat with Mobeen ahead of the documentary airing tonight on BBC Two. It's two contradicting worlds colliding, or better said in conflict, and, unlike the asinine presenter, I won't put my bets on the western side. Mobeen Azhar examines the lasting effects of Salman Rushdie's novel The Satanic Verses. You mention that the "ghost of The Satanic Verses hasn’t been put to bed". “I’d just tell him he’s a fucking dickhead,” Butt says, smiling. We've just run with it and we’re seeing that play out even today. Use the HTML below. There was no concept in mainstream Britain of the idea of the failure of multiculturalism being specifically linked to the Muslim community: we were all just Asians. Photo: VICE Studios / BBC Two.

Keep track of everything you watch; tell your friends. In some ways, this is the Stacey Dooley approach to film-making, a deformalisation of whatever a documentary once was, in favour of a new, looser shape. Thirty years on, what's become of those at the centre of the protests? He later ends up in prison in Yemen on terrorism charges, spending five years there after fighting jihad [abroad].

The opportunity to draw a line between then and now is irresistible and Azhar spends the last 20 minutes making a convincing and considered argument that the book burnings in Bradford in 1988 led, directly or otherwise, to the ideas of Tommy Robinson and the like becoming mainstream. The Satanic Verses: 30 Years On poses complex and ever pressing questions about free speech, and whether limits should be imposed upon it. The ending of this intelligent film, though, is quite astonishing – and it leaves Azhar as frustrated as I’m sure many viewers will be. It left me with a strange taste in my mouth.

Check out some of the IMDb editors' favorites movies and shows to round out your Watchlist. I certainly didn't expect, in this day and age, in a public space, for someone to grab the book in my hand, run away with it, rip it and try to set it on fire, which is what happened. Available for everyone, funded by readers. What it did was set the stage for the narrative of "there's a fundamental clash between what is Islamic values and what is 'British values'". The broadcaster and journalist Mobeen Azhar, a radio presenter on …
Want to share IMDb's rating on your own site? There was a game – it sounds really odd, but it was quite innocently played. Azhar frames it as a personal journey and his interviews are largely framed as informal chats, rather than journalistic grillings. He still didn’t quite understand to this day the gravity of what he’d done.

We saw Asian people on TV in that context, but I remember seeing them on the news, demonstrating, and thinking it was a bit embarrassing.

We spoke to journalist Mobeen Azhar about his new VICE Studios documentary.

But, like Dooley, this means Azhar can get the goods, and he does so again and again. Those two were just really fascinating to me.

Satanic Verses refers to words of "satanic suggestion" which the Islamic prophet Muhammad is alleged to have mistaken for divine revelation. There's been decades of events – including 9/11, 7/7, the Bradford riots and grooming scandals – that have made the Muslim community feel that they've been picked on and put under a microscope. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. How much do you think The Satanic Verses is to blame for lingering anti-Muslim sentiment in Britain today?There was a choice. We'd come up with the most grotesque ways of killing someone. Many Muslims accused Rushdie of blasphemy, and a fatwa was famously issued calling for the author's death. Robinson has “tried to intellectualise racism”, Azhar argues, by claiming a fundamental cultural incompatibility.

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