Muslim Students Denounce Selection of Salman Rushdie for CMC Commencement Speaker

Photo Credit: Bill Swersey/Asia Society

Novelist Sir Salman Rushdie will deliver the keynote address at Claremont McKenna’s commencement ceremony on May 17, a decision that has sparked controversy and drawn the condemnation of many Muslim students and their families.

Rushdie—a Booker Prize winner, member of the Royal Society of Literature, and one of TIME Magazine’s “100 Most Influential People” in 2023 —has made significant contributions to postcolonial literature and historical fiction with over a dozen works. Rushdie first garnered critical acclaim with Midnight’s Children (1981), a magical realist depiction of India’s independence struggle. 

However, it is The Satanic Verses (1988) that remains Rushdie’s most recognizable and infamous novel. With its controversial depiction of the Prophet Muhammad, The Satanic Verses is widely considered to be blasphemous by prominent religious leaders across the Muslim world. 

Controversial Elements in The Satanic Verses

In a series of dream sequences, the novel’s protagonist embodies the archangel Gabriel (Gibreel), the Quranic figure responsible for delivering God’s revelations to the Prophet Muhammad. Rushdie represents Muhammad through the character Mahound.

The novel’s namesake refers to a disputed historical event in which Muhammad is said to have recited verses praising pagan deities, but later recanted when he realized that they were deceptions from the Devil rather than revelations from God. This non-canonical incident is depicted in the novel, bolstering Rushdie’s main assertion that prophets are fallible—and perhaps even self-serving as in the case of Mahound—when they profess divine truth. 

Other controversial elements include Rushdie’s use of the name “Mahound” itself (a pejorative name for Muhammad historically used by medieval Europeans) and the names of the novel’s prostitutes (the same names as Muhammad's wives, women held to be the mothers of Muslim believers). 

Though Rushdie considered himself an atheist at the time of writing The Satanic Verses—and continues to be an atheist—he was born and raised in Mumbai, India to a liberal Kashmiri Muslim family. 

Censorship and Religious Violence

The Satanic Verses were soundly condemned by a number of Muslim communities shortly after publication. Multiple countries censored the novel, with Rushdie’s native India only removing its import ban in December 2024. Thousands took to the streets in protest of the work, and escalations between police and demonstrators led to dozens of deaths in India and Pakistan as well as firebombs in UK and US bookstores. 

In 1989, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini of Iran issued a fatwa, calling on Muslims to assassinate Rushdie as well as the novel’s collaborators. Shortly thereafter, the novel’s Norwegian publisher was shot and the Italian and Japanese translators were stabbed, the Japanese translator ultimately succumbing to his injuries. Rushdie spent nearly a decade in hiding after the fatwa was issued.  

In August 2022, during a literary event in New York, an attacker stabbed Rushdie over a dozen times. Rushdie sustained critical injuries and was hospitalized for weeks, ultimately losing his right eye. His attacker was convicted in February 2025 for attempted murder and assault, with his sentence to be delivered May 16—just one day before CMC’s commencement. 

Despite the decades-long threats to—and eventual attempt on—his life, Rushdie has remained a staunch advocate for freedom of expression, criticizing the Charlie Hebdo attack, denouncing censorship on college campuses, and working closely with (and formerly leading) the literary free speech organization PEN. 

In The Hague, approximately 5,000 Muslims demonstrate against the book The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie, Photo Credit: Rob Croef/Anefo

Claremont’s Muslim Students Speak Out

In an April 25 email announcing Rushdie’s invitation, CMC President Hiram Chodosh wrote,“Sir Salman leads an open, engaging life and writes with brilliance, humility, and honesty…We are eager to hear and learn from his inspiring example.” The announcement was met with mixed reactions and drew immediate backlash from many Muslim students. 

When asked for comment, the Claremont Colleges’ Muslim Chaplain Imam Hadi Qazwini stated that he seeks to provide students “space to speak for themselves…if they wish to do so,” declining an interview in favor of letting Muslim students express their own feelings. 

Indeed, the Claremont Colleges Muslim Student Association has been vocal, first calling to disinvite Rushdie in an official Instagram statement on May 2. Though “protecting free speech is vital on campus,” the message reads, this invitation endorses an individual that has “disparag[ed] a global religious community.” As a result, an event meant to “celebrate and unite the graduating class…disregards the values of inclusion and respect that CMC claims to uphold.”

In an interview with the Independent, the MSA Co-President also disapproved of Rushdie’s “disparaging comments about Palestinians.” Per the Co-President, Rushdie has claimed that if “[Palestinians] gain self determination…that [Palestine] would turn into some Taliban state…as if…they’re not equal human beings like the rest of us.” This is in reference to a May 2024 comment Rushdie made on a German podcast; though Rushdie has supported a Palestinian-led state since the 1980s, he stated that an independent state in today’s era would only be controlled by Hamas—hence, would be a “Taliban-like” country. 

On May 7, the MSA posted a more detailed justification for their condemnation, outlining three of Rushdie’s “Offensive Elements,” including “Islam Mocked as a Demonic Religion,” “Perverse Depictions of the Prophets Wives [sic],” and “Sexualization of the Prophet (PBUH) [Peace Be Upon Him].” They also dedicate a slide explaining how Rushdie “Minimiz[es] the Genocide,” referencing his comment on Palestine. These two concerns drive the MSA’s opposition to Rushdie’s selection. 

Excerpt from Muslim Student Association post.

Though the MSA frames this matter as a clash between “Muslim dignity” and “Western liberal narratives,” the Co-President said that their stance does not reject liberal ideals of open discourse. The Co-President explained that free speech is very important to the MSA, as many Muslim students believe that if expression is targeted, “we’re the first ones [who are] going to be victims of…censorship.”   

However, the MSA makes a clear distinction between inviting Rushdie to simply “hear his perspective” versus “endorsing” his ideas on a distinguished platform at Commencement. 

“If this was a student group that invited him, or even if CMC invited him as part of a dialogue with other people…[or in] an [Athenaeum] talk…that’s perfectly fine,” said the MSA Co-President. In fact, Rushdie has already spoken at the Athenaeum in 2006, with no reports of backlash or protests documented by campus newspapers. To the MSA, it is the honoring of such a controversial speaker, with no time or space given for disagreement, that is unconscionable.

“Giving someone a stage and invitation to a commencement isn’t neutral—it’s an endorsement.” 

-Muslim Student Association Statement, May 7

Individual Muslim students have chosen several other avenues to protest the invitation. The Co-President confirmed that at least one Muslim student, a CMC senior, intends to boycott commencement. Most students involved and pushing for disinvitation have opted to write to President Chodosh directly, meet with the Dean of Students, publish op-eds, and contact the news media. 

Posters distributed around campus. Photo via student.

The Los Angeles office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations also published a press release on May 7, stating that Rushdie “has made troubling statements about Muslims and Palestine” and urges CMC to “address the sincere concerns” of its Muslim students. 

Support Sustained for Rushdie’s Invitation

Nevertheless, some students and faculty remain supportive of Rushdie’s invitation. For instance, Government Professor George Thomas, who teaches courses on the intersections of religion, liberalism, and the American Constitution, considers Rushdie’s merits in the context of an academic institution’s responsibilities. 

Thomas has advocated for Rushdie to be commencement speaker in years past. With sweeping historical plots and “brilliant English prose,” Rushdie bridges cultures in Thomas’s view, “teaching the East about the West and the West about the East.” Thomas’s following defense of Rushdie’s invitation stems from this literary merit. 

“What [the MSA students] dismiss as the ‘liberal narrative,’ I view as the liberal achievement,” said Professor Thomas, emphasizing that religions relinquish their coercive elements in exchange for “civic peace.” According to Thomas, a secular liberal arts institution is a defender of this commitment, advancing tolerance and open inquiry. While this principle may clash with the tastes and feelings of certain beliefs, these beliefs “are [not] sacred” in a setting of rigorous study—the “[liberal] arts will win out.”

Though Thomas sympathized with the MSA argument that commencement is not comparable to other venues of inquiry, he asked: “Who speaks for the true strand of Islam?” He cited the example of Rushdie’s fatwa, a “political use of Islam” that many Muslims view as a corruption of the faith. 

Following the fatwa, many prominent Arab and Muslim intellectuals—including Palestinian author Mahmoud Darwish, Moroccan composer Ahmed Essyad, and Egyptian author Naguib Mahfouz—rallied behind Rushdie and his expression. Some of these supporters, such as Palestinian scholar and activist Edward Said, were close friends of Rushdie.  

“No book should ever be the cause of a death sentence being pronounced upon its author. The very idea is intolerable, inadmissible. It bears no relationship to the tolerant Islam I was taught.’”

-Tahar Ben Jelloun in For Rushdie: Essays by Arab and Muslim Writers in Defense of Free Speech

Similarly, there is disagreement even within Claremont’s community. One Muslim student told the Independent that he welcomes Rushdie, not only on the basis of CMC’s Open Academy principles, but on theological and cultural grounds. For one, this student does not view The Satanic Verses as blasphemous, explaining that “my acceptance of Rushdie is partially because I [disagree] with the Islamic doctrine of non-depiction.” 

When asked if Rushdie’s work was too provocative, thus sliding from blasphemy to mockery, this student disagreed. When viewing Rushdie’s novel in totality, this student does not believe Rushdie’s ideas are an “insult to Muslims” or a “veiled insult” of the Prophet, but a means of cultural analysis: “question[ing] the foundations of prophetic revelations” in all organized religion. 

Another Muslim student told the Independent that though he believes Rushdie is an “inappropriate speaker” for a celebratory event like commencement, he rejects “narratives that the content of his books is Islamophobic.” This student stated that “if any criticism of dominant [religious] narratives…gets labeled as discriminatory, then we would deprive ourselves of necessary discourse within religion.” 

Because there can be no “spokesperson for Islam,” Professor Thomas stated, it is not possible for an academic institution like CMC to establish a “category of blasphemy” that is agreeable to all.  

Moreover, Thomas noted that Rushdie is being platformed not only for his literary merits, but for his fortitude. It would be a “lesson for graduates” to consider “what happens when [your life] suddenly takes a turn,” imparted by someone with such unique and harrowing experiences. 

As of May 9, President Chodosh has not issued a statement to the College acknowledging the controversy or defending CMC’s selection. While the other Claremont Colleges have announced their commencement speakers to the public, CMC has not published Rushdie’s invitation on its website. Commencement will begin at 2 p.m. on Saturday, May 17 at Pritzlaff Field.  

Shiv Parihar contributed reporting.

This article was published in conjunction with The Forum.