Rushdie rounds on his publishers

Salman Rushdie has waded into the row over The Jewel of Medina, the romantic novel about the prophet Muhammad’s child bride Aisha written by an American journalist, Sherry Jones. The novel was dropped by the Booker Prize-winning author's publishers Random House after Islamic scholars warned that it “could incite acts of violence by a small radical segment of muslims”, and Rushdie is furious: “This is censorship by fear, and it sets a very bad precedent indeed.”

Rushdie, whose 1988 novel The Satanic Verses brought a fatwa from Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini, forcing him to live for years under police protection, might be upset at his publishers in principle, but he has chosen not to comment on the style of the novel. One critic described The Jewel of Medina as "soft-core porn", a criticism denied by Sherry Jones, who insists there’s no actual sex in the book. The novel does, however, offer a recollection of the first sexual encounter between Aisha and the much older prophet: "The pain of consummation soon melted away. Muhammad was so gentle. I hardly felt the scorpion's sting. To be in his arms, skin to skin, was the bliss I had longed for all my life."

At present Jones has no publisher – she was "released" from her contract by Random House – and is seeking to market the book herself.