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Salman Rushdie Speaks Out About The Satanic Verses Death Sentence
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by Tina Kells | January 19, 2009 at 12:21 pm
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When British author Salman Rushdie wrote the now infamous book The Satanic Verses he probably didn't expect that it would mean living with a death sentence, but for the past 20 years that is exactly how he has lived.
In 1989 shortly after The Satanic Verses was published Iran's Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini called upon all Muslims to kill Rushdie for what the religious leader considered crimes of blasphemy. The Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini died later that year, on June 3, 1989, but his fatwa edict to kill Rushdie lives on to this day.
In early 1989, Khomeini issued a fatwa calling for the assassination of Salman Rushdie, an India-born British author. Khomeini claimed that Rushdie's assassination was a religious duty for Muslims because of his alleged blasphemy against Muhammad in his novel, The Satanic Verses, published in 1988. Rushdie's book contains passages that many Muslims – including Ayatollah Khomeini – considered offensive to Islam and the prophet, but the fatwa has also been attacked for violating the rules of fiqh by not allowing the accused an opportunity to defend himself, and because "even the most rigorous and extreme of the classical jurist only require a Muslim to kill anyone who insults the Prophet in his hearing and in his presence."[83]Though Rushdie publicly apologized, the fatwa was not revoked. Khomeini explained,
Even if Salman Rushdie repents and becomes the most pious man of all time, it is incumbent on every Muslim to employ everything he has got, his life and wealth, to send him to Hell. [84]
The Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's call to kill Rushdie was not an empty threat. Many Muslims consider his work to be blasphemous and violence has followed The Satanic Verses throughout the world. In August of 1989 Mustafa Mahmoud Mazeh was killed in a failed attempt on Rushdie's life. Attempts were also made on the lives of three of the novel's international translators including the Japanese translator Hitoshi Igarashi, who was killed by an assasin in 1991.
Now, two decades after authoring The Satanic Verses forced him into hiding Salman Rushdie, now Sir Salman Rushdie after being knighted by the Queen of England in 2007, is speaking out about what it has meant to live with the constant threat of death.
"This is the albatross around my neck," the novelist said Sunday night during a conversation with author-activist Irshad Manji at the 92nd Street Y on Manhattan's Upper East Side.The 61-year-old Rushdie said he would rather be known as an artist than as a social critic, and worried that the attacks against his religious satire, "The Satanic Verses," had obscured "the real person that I am and the actual value of the books."
But the author did seem to enjoy himself as he took on Islamic fundamentalists, President George W. Bush and other objects of his liberal disdain. He was mostly relaxed and jovial despite his reluctance to revisit the death sentence by Iran's Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
"The Satanic Verses" was released in late 1988 to critical acclaim and furious protest, with Muslims burning copies in the street and demonstrating around the world. On Feb. 14, 1989, the Ayatollah Khomeini issued a religious decree, or fatwa, calling for the author to be killed.
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Most RecentMost Recommended Comments (1)
at 14:33 on January 19th, 2009
I think Iran has kept him alive more as a propaganda tool, because Dead, Rushdie would be seen as a martyr, and I am sure Cleric Nutjobs won't want that, they hate competition.