Certainly, poverty and economic decline have a lot to do with the so-called rage of Islam. You've got all these young men in countries which are economically in bad shape. The idea that they might be able to make a good living and get married and have a family, a decent life, seems very remote to a lot of people in a lot of the world.

When you start writing about the stuff that is the central experience of your own life, you can talk about whatever you want, in whatever way you want.

The west was involved in toppling the Mossadegh government. That ultimately led to the Iranian revolution.

A poet's work is to name the unnameable, to point at frauds, to take sides, start arguments, shape the world, and stop it going to sleep.

So when I studied history at Cambridge, I did a special subject in that, exactly that. And then actually that - while I was studying it was where I came across the so-called incident of the satanic verses.

Believe in your own eyes and you'll get into a lot of trouble, hot water, a mess.

Something was badly amiss with the spiritual life of the planet...Too many demons inside people claiming to believe in God.