Satanic verses
It may come as a surprise to learn that Paradise Lost, John Milton’s epic biblical poem about the Fall, was a hit in the Middle East when it was first translated into Arabic in the early twentieth century.
A new book by Dr Islam Issa, a lecturer in English literature at Birmingham City University, claims that it influenced events from the Arab Spring to the Syrian uprising – and may originally have drawn inspiration from the Qur’an.

“Milton was a multilingual intellectual who would have had access to the first Western editions of the Qur’an, which were in Latin. One of them, first published in the twelfth century, was widely available during his lifetime and actually a bestseller,” Issa says.

According to Issa, Paradise Lost is viewed in the Middle East as a text of rebellion. A new translation coincided with the Arab Spring in 2011 and a pro-Kurdish Iraqi publication at the time portrayed Satan as a “legendary and warring hero”. The Syrian Government, which published the 2011 edition, used it to outline the errors of opposing the state.