SALMAN Rushdie, the Satanic Verses author once sentenced to death, called yesterday for an Islamic Reformation to update the religion and broaden its appeal to the young.

The writer, who is to appear at this year's Edinburgh International Book Festival, sponsored by The Herald and Sunday Herald, has also said that in cities such as Leeds - home to three of the four July 7 bombers - Muslims were living in "near-segregation".

He said: "From such defensive, separated worlds some youngsters have indefensibly stepped across a moral line and taken up the lethal rucksacks."

The author, whose latest work, Shalimar the Clown, was this week nominated for the Booker prize, is making a rare appearance at the book festival on August 27.

The Indian-born author said Islam needed wholesale reform to end some Muslims' separation from the rest of society, adding: "What is needed is . . .

nothing less than a reform movement to bring the core concepts of Islam into the modern age, a Muslim Reformation to combat not only the jihadi ideologues but also the dusty, stifling seminaries of the traditionalists."