Did Salman Rushdie know it?

My own unscientific theory is that he knew his satanic novel would create a controversy, maybe even the odd riot, but that it wouldn’t be bad for sales. What he did not anticipate is the scale of the outrage on what Muslims saw as an assault on their identity at a time when their faith was being demonised. That is where he fell short—and has had to pay a terrible price for the error.