“Who do we think we are?” is a question often posed about western meddling in the Muslim world. In the furore over the British decision to knight Salman Rushdie, it has been clear that similar questions need to be posed when Muslim powers meddle in western matters. Unfortunately nobody quite knows how to pose them. Since the late Iranian leader, the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, called for his murder in 1988, Mr Rushdie has lived a hunted existence. Now he is at the centre of what looks like a repeat of the Danish cartoon affair of 2006.

In the days after the knighthood was announced, protests were held in Malaysia and mobs burnt the Queen in effigy in Lahore. The Pakistani minister of religion, Ijaz ul-Haq, said on the floor of parliament: “If someone exploded a bomb on his body he would be right to do so unless the British government apologises and withdraws the ‘sir’ title.” An adviser to Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmedi-Nejad (the director of his notorious “Holocaust Foundation” in fact) blamed the “satanic triangle of Britain, America and Israel” for the honour and wrote: “Because of the British Queen’s tribute to Salman Rushdie, people who had lost their motivation for punishing him will realise the need for carrying out Imam Khomeini’s edict.”