Salman Rushdie is an Indian-born British-American writer whose allegorical novels examine historical and philosophical issues through surreal characters and brooding humor. His novels Midnight’s Children, published in 1981, and The Satanic Verses, published in 1988, are his best-known works. Rushdie’s treatment of sensitive religious and political subjects have resulted in threats against him. Most notably, in 1989 Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the spiritual leader of Iran, issued a fatwa (legal opinion) against Rushdie for what he and other Muslims deemed to be blasphemous material about the Prophet Muhammad and the Qurʾānin The Satanic Verses. A bounty was offered to anyone who would execute Rushdie, and he lived in seclusion for a decade.