Rushdie’s deconstructive diagnosis of Islamic misogyny was the uniting thread of both part II and The Satanic Verses’ other sections on Islam. However, among other things, part II also dwelt on the tension between artistic freedom and political manipulation, albeit briefly, through poet Baal’s politically imposed yet intellectually genuine opposition to prophet Mahound. If anything, Baal’s take on the task of a writer said something about what Salman Rushdie set about to accomplish in The Satanic Verses: “To name the unnamable, to point at frauds, to take sides, start arguments, shape the world and stop it from going to sleep” (SV, 100).
2 And advanced variations of these three themes, or the veracity of Islam, its alleged misogyny, and the sharp tension between intellectual freedom and the establishment of a theocratic polity constituted the substance of the novel’s only other part (VI) on the foundations of Islam.
