Given your knowledge of how Muslim extremists work, juxtaposed with your familiarity with how the creative process works, find autobiographical elements within Haroun and the Sea of Stories.
Salman Rushdie wrote Haroun and the Sea of Stories in 1990, two years after a fatwa (religious edict) was put upon his life by Ayatollah Khomeini, the supreme (religious) leader of Iran, for writing The Satanic Verses, which was considered blasphemous by Muslims. Rushdie, in hiding, found that he experienced "writer's block" -- doesn't that make sense! -- and this lasted two years. Rushdie survived this ordeal (the fatwa, the seclusion and the writer's block), although many people connected to his writings did not. This book was the first book Rushdie wrote after it, and it is no surprise that its main character, Rashid, loses his ability to tell stories. (source)
Rushdie's use of traditional Muslim stories and the "Old Zone" -- good discussion.