Sherry Jones's forthcoming novel, The Jewel of Medina, about a wife of the prophet Muhammad, has already sparked extremist retaliation; naturally people are looking to Salman Rushdie for insight. Despite being the object of a very official Islamic death threat himself, the fatwa's poster boy has no regrets: "The question I'm always asking myself is: are we masters or victims? Do we make history or does history make us? Do we shape the world or are we just shaped by it? The question of do we have agency in our lives or whether we are just passive victims of events is, I think, a great question and one that I have always tried to ask." [AFP]