Few novels have had such an influence on world affairs, or engendered such divergent, interpretive communities and views that have continually changed. Gayatri Spivak identified the implied multi-levelled readers of Rushdie's novel The Satanic Verses as the international, postcolonial migrant readerships:

Yet some of the contradictions of the term 'secular Muslim' emerged in the diverse responses to the publication of the novel, as we shall see. Those who interpret the novel as blasphemy object chiefly to two chapters in the book. One of the protagonists of the novel is the Indian actor Gibreel Farishta, who suffers schizophrenic dream-sequences in which God reveals his will to the Prophet. A scribe named Salman writes down God's commands as they come from the lips of Mohammed, and he decides to play a trick by changing some of the divine words.