Prince Charles had denied to back Sir Salman Rushdie during his fatwa over his book 'The Satanic Verses', because he thought the book was insulting to Muslims, author Martin Amis claims.
During an interview, Amis told the Vanity Fair Magazine that the Prince's views caused a row at a dinner party after Rushdie was issued with the death sentence by Islamic clerics in 1989, and had said that he wouldn't offer to support someone who "insults someone else's deepest convictions", the Independent reported.
Amis added that he had explained that a novel doesn't set out to insult anyone and only aims out to give pleasure to its readers, and though the Prince took it "on board", he's sure he would have said the same thing at a different party.
Rushdie had gone into hiding for a decade after Ayatollah Khomeini, Iran's late spiritual leader, issued a fatwa against the author in 1989 demanding his death.
And though the Iranian government distanced itself from the fatwa a decade later, they could not withdraw it.