The Satanic Verses

worshipped, but denied.’ So he drew his sword and cut her down.
    And he returned to Mahound in his tent and said what he hadseen. And the Prophet said, ‘Now may we come into Jahilia,’ and they arose, and came into the city, and possessed it in the Name of the Most High, the Destroyer of Men.

    How many idols in the House of the Black Stone? Don’t forget: three hundred and sixty. Sun-god, eagle, rainbow. The colossus of Hubal. Three hundred and sixty wait for Mahound, knowing they are not to be spared. And are not: but let’s not waste time there. Statues fall; stone breaks; what’s to be done is done.
    Mahound, after the cleansing of the House, sets up his tent on the old fairground. The people crowd around the tent, embracing the victorious faith. The Submission of Jahilia: this, too, is inevitable, and need not be lingered over.
    While Jahilians bow before him, mumbling their life-saving sentences,
there is no God but Al-Lah
, Mahound whispers to Khalid. Somebody has not come to kneel before him; somebody long awaited. ‘Salman,’ the Prophet wishes to know. ‘Has he been found?’
    ‘Not yet. He’s hiding; but it won’t be long.’
    There is a distraction. A veiled woman kneels before him, kissing his feet. ‘You must stop,’ he enjoins. ‘It is only God who must be worshipped.’ But what foot-kissery this is! Toe by toe, joint by joint, the woman licks, kisses, sucks. And Mahound, unnerved, repeats: ‘Stop. This is incorrect.’ Now, however, the woman is attending to the soles of his feet, cupping her hands beneath his heel … he kicks out, in his confusion, and catches her in the throat. She falls, coughs, then prostrates herself before him, and says firmly: ‘There is no God but Al-Lah, and Mahound is his Prophet.’ Mahound calms himself, apologizes, extends a hand. ‘No harm will come to you,’ he assures her. ‘All who Submit are spared.’ But there is a strange confusion in him, and now he understands why, understands the anger, the bitter irony in her overwhelming, excessive, sensual adoration of his feet. The woman throws off her veil: Hind.
    ‘The wife of Abu Simbel,’ she announces clearly, and a hush falls. ‘Hind,’ Mahound says. ‘I had not forgotten.’
    But, after a long instant, he nods. ‘You have Submitted. And are welcome in my tents.’
    The next day, amid the continuing conversions, Salman the Persian is dragged into the Prophet’s presence. Khalid, holding him by the ear, holding a knife at his throat, brings the immigrant snivelling and whimpering to the takht. ‘I found him, where else, with a whore, who was screeching at him because he didn’t have the money to pay her. He stinks of alcohol.’
    ‘Salman Farsi,’ the Prophet begins to pronounce the sentence of death, but the prisoner begins to shriek the qalmah: ‘La ilaha ilallah! La ilaha!’
    Mahound shakes his head. ‘Your blasphemy, Salman, can’t be forgiven. Did you think I wouldn’t work it out? To set your words against the Words of God.’
    Scribe, ditch-digger, condemned man: unable to muster the smallest scrap of dignity, he blubbers whimpers pleads beats his breast abases himself repents. Khalid says: ‘This noise is unbearable, Messenger. Can I not cut off his head?’ At which the noise increases sharply. Salman swears renewed loyalty, begs some more, and then, with a gleam of desperate hope, makes an offer. ‘I can show you where your true enemies are.’ This earns him a few seconds. The Prophet inclines his head. Khalid pulls the kneeling Salman’s head back by the hair: ‘What enemies?’ And Salman says a name. Mahound sinks deep into his cushions as memory returns.
    ‘Baal,’ he says, and repeats, twice: ‘Baal, Baal.’
    Much to Khalid’s disappointment, Salman the Persian is not sentenced to death. Bilal intercedes for him, and the Prophet, his mind elsewhere, concedes: yes, yes, let the wretched fellow live. O generosity of Submission! Hind has been spared; and Salman; and in all of Jahilia not a door has been smashed down, not an old foe dragged out to have his gizzard slit like a chicken’s in the dust. This is Mahound’s answer to the second question:
What happens when you win
? But one name haunts Mahound, leaps around him, young, sharp, pointing a long painted finger, singing verses whose cruel brilliance ensures their painfulness. That night, when thesupplicants have gone, Khalid asks Mahound: ‘You’re still thinking about him?’ The Messenger nods, but