For Rushdie: Essays by Arab and Muslim Writers in Defense of Free Speech.

By Arab and Muslim Writers in Defense of Free Speech translated by Kevin Anderson and Kenneth Whitehead George Braziller. 308 pp. $27.50, cloth; $14.95, paper.

The fatwa issued against Salman Rushdie, the author of The Satanic Verses, by the late Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran remains in effect after six years. From time to time, Khomeini's successors reaffirm Rushdie's death sentence and the reward they offer for his assassination. Rushdie remains in hiding. His book's Italian translator has been seriously wounded, and the Japanese translator has been killed. Since Rushdie's persecutors claim to speak for Muslims everywhere, it is good to have this compilation of essays and poetry in defense of Rushdie by more than ninety Muslim and Arabic writers from many countries. Originally published in France, the collection offers eloquent testimony to the spirit of free expression--none more so than a brief inscription by the Moroccan composer Ahmed Essyad: "For Salman Rushdie, in order that an artist might write that with which I disagree."