Is free speech sacred? “Language was my knife,” says 76-year-old Salman Rushdie in a dazzling comeback after the attempt on his life less than two years ago.
‘Maybe my books saved my life’ says writer
Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder by Salman Rushdie (above) is published by Jonathan Cape. Glossary
Abdomen - The tummy or midriff.
Ayatollah - A title given to senior clergymen in Iran. Ayatollah Khameini's predecessor as Supreme Leader was Ayatollah Khomeini.
Fatwa - A word used in Islam to describe any legal opinion. The fatwa issued by Ayatollah Khomeini calling for all Muslims to kill author Salman Rushdie in 1989 created a misconception in the West that a fatwa is a kind of death warrant.
Divisive - Causing people to be split into groups that disagree with or oppose each other.
Tenets - A principle or belief, especially one of the main principles of a religion or philosophy.
Quran - The holy book of Islam, whose words are believed by Muslims to have been passed directly from God to the Prophet Muhammad in a series of visions spanning 23 years.
Diplomatic - Non-violent peacekeeping. Diplomatic means keeping good relations between the governments of different countries.
Martyr - A person who is killed due to their beliefs, especially their religious beliefs.