Saleem Sinai of the novel and the significance of its main character, calling "Midnight's Children" "an extraordinary literary jewel (it was awarded the Booker of Bookers in 1993, and a host of other prizes), focusing on the fates of two children that are inextricably linked by the hour of their birth, literally 'handcuffed to history'". Sinai is the product of extra-marital intercourse and is raised by a Muslim family after being exchanged at birth by his nurse, Mary Pereira. Over the course of the novel he goes from riches to rags. He has telepathic and other supernatural powers that are part of
Knighthood of Salman Rushdie the West despite the fact he's hurt the feelings of Muslims, then a mujahid who has been fighting for Islam against the Russians, Americans and British must be given the lofty title of Islam, Saifullah." On Thursday, 21 June 2007 thirty members of the hard-line Islamic PAS opposition party led a protest to the British High Commission calling for the honour to be revoked. The protestors chanted "Destroy Salman Rushdie, Destroy Britain!" and "Go to hell, Britain!; Go to hell, Rushdie!" The PAS' treasurer, Hatta Ramli, said making Rushdie a knight "has tainted the whole knighthood, the whole hall of