History of the fatwa against Salman Rushdie

Last Friday, writer Salman Rushdie was attacked with a knife, more than 33 years after Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa in which he justified the death penalty.

Death Penalty Fatwa:

On February 14, 1989, Khomeini condemned Salman Rushdie to death for writing a controversial book. Khomeini said that Islam has been insulted through this book.

In a fatwa, or religious decree, Khomeini ‘urged the Muslims of the world to execute the book’s authors and publishers’ so that no one would dare to violate the sacred values ​​of Islam in the future.’

Khomeini, who was 89 years old at the time and lived only four months after that, added that anyone killed in an attempt to carry out the death penalty should be considered a ‘martyr’ who would go to heaven. .

Rushdie’s head was valued at $2.8 million.

At the time, the British government immediately provided police protection to Salman Rushdie, an Indian-born atheist whose parents did not strictly follow Islam.

After writing the book, Salman Rushdie moved from one safe house to another under the name Joseph Anton for about 13 years and changed his abode 56 times in the first six months.

‘Hang Rushdie’

In October 1988, Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi banned the import of the book in the hope of garnering Muslim support before the elections. About 20 countries have outlawed the book.

In January 1989, Muslims in the northern British city of Bradford publicly burned copies of the book.

A month later, thousands of Pakistanis attacked the US Information Center in Islamabad and chanted anti-US and ‘hang Salman Rushdie’ slogans. Five people were also killed as a result of police firing on the protesters.

There were protests in Europe and London and Tehran cut diplomatic ties for almost two years.

attacks

Salman Rushdie slowly came out of his secret life in 1991, but his Japanese translator was killed in July of that year.

A few days later his Italian translator was attacked with a knife and two years later a Norwegian publisher was shot, although it was never clear whether these attacks were in response to Khomeini’s fatwa.

In 1993, protesters set fire to a hotel in central Turkey. Some of them resented the presence of writer Aziz Neeson. Aziz Nisan tried to translate this book in Turkish language. They escaped but 37 people died.

In 1998, the government of Iran’s reformist President Mohammad Khatami assured Britain that Iran would not implement the fatwa.

But Khomeini’s successor, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said in 2005 that he still believed that Salman Rushdie was a “shatam” whose killing Islam allowed.

The wave of ‘Islamophobia’

In 2007, when Queen Elizabeth II of Great Britain gave Salman Rushdie the royal honor and conferred the title of Sir, there was a strong reaction in Islamic countries.

Iran accuses Britain of ‘Islamophobia’ and says its fatwa still stands. After that, large-scale demonstrations were held in many Islamic countries, including Pakistan.

Salman Rushdie lived relatively openly in New York, where he moved in the late 1990s and where he is writing his most recent novels.

After spending years in hiding before the attack on Friday, he had become a social figure.