Saleem Sinai a nation's history. His life and his experiences in the novel are inseparable from the events taking place around him and so he truly becomes a child of history. A "Times of India" review calls Saleem the most loved of Rushdie's many characters despite, or perhaps because of, his being "the snot-nosed, cucumber-nosed know-all narrator of "Midnight’s Children", whose life swings between exultation and suffering, for he has been 'handcuffed to history', a coupling determined by his time of birth, midnight on August 15, 1947, when 'clock-hands joined palms in respectful greeting'". India's national newspaper "The Hindu" noted the success
Cat Stevens' comments about Salman Rushdie a joke: In a 2000 "Rolling Stone" magazine interview: On his personal spiritual website he wrote: I never called for the death of Salman Rushdie; nor backed the Fatwa issued by the Ayatollah Khomeini—and still don’t. The book itself destroyed the harmony between peoples and created an unnecessary international crisis. When asked about my opinion regarding blasphemy, I could not tell a lie and confirmed that – like both the Torah and the Gospel – the Qur'an considers it, without repentance, as a capital offense. The Bible is full of similar harsh laws if you're looking for them. However, the