For over 30 years celebrated author Salman Rushdie has been covering his life ever since Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a fatwa against him following the publication of his controversial book ‘The Satanic Verses’, which was found to be blasphemous by the Muslims.
Friday’s knife attack in New York brings back the focus on the book and what led to the death threats made against the Indian-born author.
The Satanic Verses and controversy
The book was published in September 1988 and immediately stoked controversy around the world and among the Muslim community.
Several Muslim countries immediately banned the book, while some burned it during demonstrations in the UK, Pakistan and elsewhere. The book is still banned in a number of countries including UAE, India, Egypt.
The book is considered by many Muslims to be blasphemous as it portrayed a fictionalised version of the Prophet Mohammed and an interpretation of the Quran.
It has references to some Quran verses, as alleged by some scholars, that allow for prayers to be made to three pagan goddesses, contrary to Islam’s strict belief that there is only one God.
In the novel, Rushdie mentions the involvement of a prophet closely resembling the founder of Islam, Muhammad.
In that, he says that this prophet is tricked into striking a deal with Satan in which he exchanges some of his monotheistic dogmatism in favour of the three goddesses. He then realises his error.
Khomeini and others assert he had portrayed the prophet irreverently.
The fatwa
Iran’s Khomeini issued a fatwa ordering on Feb. 14, 1989, ordering Muslims to kill Rushdie.
According to History.com, a fatwa can only be repealed by that same scholar, and Ruhollah Khomeini died in the same year he issued the call.
The then Indian prime minister Rajiv Gandhi banned the import of the book in October 1988, hoping to win Muslim support ahead of elections. Some 20 countries went on to ban it.
Attacks on translators and publishers
‘The Satanic Verses’ has also caused trouble for those who translated the novel.
Ettore Capriolo, the Italian translator of the novel, was injured in a stabbing in Milan in 1991.
A Japanese scholar and translator of Rushdie’s novel, Hitoshi Igarashi, was stabbed to death in 1991.
William Nygaard, the Norwegian publisher of the book, was shot three times in Oslo in 1993, but managed to survive.
After fatwa
Rushdie went into hiding for 10 years under an alias. He was living in UK at the time. He was also given 24-hour police protection by former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher’s government.
Rushdie gradually emerged from his underground life in 1991.
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By 1998, Iran’s reformist government under president Mohammad Khatami assured Britain that Iran would not implement the fatwa.
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But in 2015, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Khomeini’s successor, said that he still believed Rushdie was an apostate whose killing would be authorised by Islam.
(With inputs from agencies)
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