The August 12 attack on the celebrated novelist and the embodiment of free speech, Salman Rushdie, shocked the world.
He was stabbed in his neck and abdomen during his speech at Chautauqua Institution in Chautauqua, New York. Such an unforeseen and life-threatening attack on an acclaimed persona is quite questionable.
The attack traces its roots to Rushdie’s fourth novel, “The Satanic Verses,” released in 1988. It garnered critical acclaim and controversy, especially protests from the Muslim community.
Fatwa Against Salman Rushdie Came To Reality After 13 Years of Hiding
Regarding the novel, the majority of Muslims accused Rushdie and his book of blasphemy or unbelief.
Hence, in 1989, the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini of Iran issued a fatwa ordering Muslims to kill Rushdie. Giving into the fatwa, the attacker backed up his actions of stabbing the novelist on August 12.
A fatwa is a ruling on the point of Islamic law issued by a recognized authority.
The Guardian confirms the suspect’s identity as Hadi Matar, a 24-year-old man from Fairview, New Jersey. He has been charged with the attempted murder of the author, who was arrested the same day.
Matar is also accused of assault for a facial injury to a man who shared the stage with Rushdie during the attack.
Before several other assassination attempts against Rushdie, he had gone into hiding for over a decade to escape the fatwa and religious hate against him.
It was only in the last years that Rushdie had been making public appearances and interacting with the media.
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The Satanic Verses Novelist Salman Rushdie Blasphemy Caused The August 12 Attack
The Iranian government, at that time, had issued and backed the fatwa against Rushdie until 1998.
In 1998, President Mohammad Khatami took over the governance and said it no longer supported the killing of Rushdie.
However, in the Islamic tradition, a fatwa cannot be revoked, and then Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei said that the fatwa was still in effect in 2017 and 2019.
The title “The Satanic Verses” immediately sparked a protest referring to a legend of the Islamic Prophet Muhammad.
In addition to that, the novel’s inside content where Muhammad’s utterance of the so-called Satanic Verses started the hate and protested against the author.
The novel is banned in many countries, including Iran, India, Sudan, Bangladesh, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Kenya, Thailand, Tanzania, Indonesia, Singapore, and Venezuela, and the list continues.
Given such continuous hate and condemnation against the book, Sir Rushdie overcame many assassination attempts throughout these years.
The attack has called for mixed opinions on Twitter as there are many sides of support and disregard for the incident.
Sir Salman Rushdie Is Off The Ventilator And Able To Talk
Right after the attack, the attacker, Matar, was reprimanded by a local trooper.
Meanwhile, the seriously injured Rushdie was airlifted to UPMC Hamot in Erie, Pennsylvania. There, he underwent various surgeries and was put on a ventilator.
The novelist is confirmed to have received several stab injuries in the liver and hand and that he might lose an eye.
As of August 14, BBC confirms that Rushdie has been taken off the ventilator, and he is able to speak.
The award-winning writer was in a critical condition before that, but it seems he might live to see the next day and start another chapter in his life.
The West has shown outpouring support and compared the attack to a condemned assault on freedom of expression.