Salman Rushdie: hate-filled rhetoric of jihadi cool is persuading British Muslims to join Isis

The writer argues that those who have 'horribly mangled' the language of religion are targeting modernity



Rushdie shares award with Syrian free speech advocate

Salman Rushdie has attacked the hate-filled religious rhetoric that persuades hundreds, perhaps thousands of British Muslims to join the decapitating barbarians of Isis, describing it as the most dangerous new weapon in the world today.

Speaking at the award of the PEN/Pinter prize, Rushdie said he dislikes the word Islamophobia greatly. But it is right, the author argued, to feel phobia towards the oppression of the people of Afghanistan by the Taliban, towards the oppression of Iranians by the ayatollahs, and towards the death of people in Iraq today. What is being killed in Iraq is not just human beings, but a whole culture. To feel aversion towards such a force is not bigotry. It is the only possible response to the horror of events.

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