In the year 786, Harun al-RashidA ruler who is widely credited with kicking off the so-called Islamic Golden Age of learning and cultural advancement in the Islamic World. His surname, "al-Rashid", means "rightly-guided". became caliph of the Abbasid EmpireThe third caliphate to rule the empire created by the Prophet Muhammad. It lasted from 750 until 1258 and presided over the Islamic Golden Age., the figurehead of the Islamic world. His court was a riotous place, full of poetry, music - and drinking. But it was also home to many of the empire's most powerful clericsA religious leader. Collectively, clerics are known as the clergy. A form of clergy exists in all Abrahamic religions., who sought to dampen the fun with strict religious rules. Harun spent much of his reign protecting his court intellectuals from priests who wanted to silence them.

Salman RushdieBritish-Indian novelist who had to go into hiding when his book The Satanic Verses was condemned as offensive to Islam by Muslim leaders. is an admirer of Harun al-Rashid. When he wrote The Satanic Verses in 1988, he saw himself as working in this same long tradition in the Islamic world of dissent against clerical domination.

The book depicts the Quran as the work of the Prophet Muhammad, and not of God. It was seen as blasphemous. As a result, Ayatollah KhomeiniAn Iranian cleric and revolutionary who led the Iranian Revolution in 1979 and became the country's Supreme Leader., Supreme LeaderThe Head of State and highest religious authority in Iran. of Iran, issued a worldwide death warrant for Rushdie.

On Friday, 33 years later, a US citizen tried to carry out this warrant by stabbing Rushdie multiple times. The author remains in a critical condition since the attack.

Some think the attack on Rushdie is the death knell of free speech. They argue that far too many people now believe that there must be limits on speech to protect people from offence.

But others are not so sure. They point out that Rushdie has now received an outpouring of support from all over the political spectrum.

Some think the attack really has nothing to do with westerners and their values at all. It is part of a much longer struggle within Islam itself. 

Although millions of Muslims protested against the book, many Muslim intellectuals regarded Rushdie as a martyr for Islamic free speech. Rushdie, they say, is simply carrying on the same battle for tolerance and freedom as Harun al-Rashid all those centuries ago.

Yes: No-one would publish The Satanic Verses today. We are all so terrified of offending others that we end up self-censoring. That is bad for freedom of expression and bad for literature.

No: It has never been possible to write without risks. Even if almost everyone believes in free speech, one individual might still decide to kill you for their beliefs. The attack on Rushdie does not indicate any deeper free speech crisis.

Or... There have always been certain things you cannot write. We would not defend someone who wrote a book denying a genocide. As times change, so do taboos.

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