The Satanic Verses

Abu Simbel disputes the common saying that "the pen is mightier than the sword." Instead, he believes that violence is more powerful than writing; fittingly, Baal is eventually executed in Jahilia. Abu Simbel's contradiction of the idiom is also fitting because he dismisses the power of language by rejecting a popular figure of speech—in other words, Rushdie aligns the content and the form of his passage. 

Yet Abu Simbel's claim is not necessarily true—especially because both he and Baal only exist because Rushdie wrote them into existence. Abu Simbel inhabits an entirely written world; his violence is only ever literary. So even while dismissing the power of writing, Rushdie also affirms it. Notably, though, the contest between writing and violence Abu Simbel describes is also a prevalent feature of Rushdie's own life—because of the fatwa condemning Rushdie to death for his written work.

In this passage, Khadija uses an archaic idiom ("the sun always sets when there is fear of tigers"). Rushdie subsequently translates it into a newer idiom ("bad news always comes all at once"). Rushdie makes Khadija's words legible to his modern readers, and, in doing so, demonstrates the way language evolves even when meaning remains static.

This balance between changing language and static content is relevant to Rushdie's broader engagement with the theme of transformation and metamorphosis. To Rushdie, language is an important ingredient in the construction of reality, so the idea that language can hold content static while allowing its form to transform holds important implications for the material world, too. This passage comes down in favor of the idea that transformation still leaves the innate nature of a thing intact.

In this scene, Salman uses a common idiom to describe his predicament after altering Mahound's verses. He believes he will be killed, because only he and Mahound witnessed the events, and, as a prophet, the people will believe Mahound. But Salman's use of this saying also includes a pun: as the "Word" of God, Mahound's "Word" is attributed a capital letter. This adds a clever additional layer to the phrase. It's not only a statement of the fact of the situation—it's also a slight indictment of the people's tendency to believe anything Mahound says simply because he claims it is holy, and a small interrogation of whether such holiness actually exists. Indeed, the reader might wonder if Mahound's "Word" is valid at all, given that Salman was able to change it without the prophet noticing. And yet, this passage affirms, such distinctions between truth and falsehood hardly matter—because Salman will be put to death either way. 

The phrase "between the devil and the deep blue sea" is an idiom (likely of naval origin in the 17th century) that denotes being caught between two bad options —similar to the idea of being "between a rock and a hard place." Mirza believes the pilgrims they must choose between the damnation of abandoning their journey (according to Ayesha) and drowning in the Arabian Sea. In one respect, his use of this idiom asks readers (or pilgrims) who they would rather believe: Mirza or Ayesha. Mirza believes the pilgrims will drown if they try to cross the sea, but not that they will be damned for abandoning the journey; Ayesha, meanwhile, believes in the threat of damnation, but she does not think the pilgrims will drown. In other words, the idiom presents the decision whether to continue the pilgrimage as a choice between the worst outcomes of two distinct worldviews, but disregards the potential of positive outcomes. 

More broadly, though, this instance falls into a pattern of Rushdie making idiomatic language literal. In this scenario, the choice is literally between the prospect of damnation and the prospect of drowning; the idiom is not a metaphor. This matches the way Rushdie often blurs the boundary between what is mythic and what is real, what is metaphorical and what is literal. Like stories, language, down to the smallest level, exists in multiple registers of meaning; by literalizing idioms like "the devil and the deep blue sea," Rushdie spotlights the possibilities of this depth.