Salman Rushdie stabbed: The life and times of the author which went beyond the fatwas

Author Salman Rushdie was stabbed in the neck ahead of delivering an address at the Chautauqua Institution in western New York on Friday. “The news is not good,” his agent Andrew Wylie informed the media as the author was in surgery. He may lose an eye, the nerves in his arm were severed and he has a damaged liver, Wylie said.

The 75-year-old was reportedly on ventilator at a hospital in Erie, Pennsylvania where he was airlifted to after the attack. The alleged attacker has been detained and charges will be pressed against him depending on Rushdie’s condition. According to police, the accused is a 24-year-old man named Hadi Matar from Fairview, New Jersey. Matar was born a decade after the release of Rushdie’s controversial book ‘The Satanic Verses’, for which the author received several death threats from Iran in the 1980s. However, it is unclear what the motivation for the attack against Rushdie was.

Who is Salman Rushdie?

Salman Rushdie is an India-born, celebrated author who gained prominence after his book Midnight’s Children won the Booker Prize – the most prestigious literary award – in 1981. The book which recounts the tumultuous events during India’s transition from a colonial power to independent rule was also awarded the Best of the Booker – the best winner in the award’s 40 year history – by a public vote in 2008.

Rushdie was born to an Indian Muslim businessman (Rushdie considers himself an atheist) and educated in the UK, gaining an MA degree in history from the University of Cambridge in 1968. He worked as an advertising copywriter in London through most of the 1970s when his first book – Grimus – was published in 1975.

Rushdie has drawn focus to historical, religious and political events in his inimitable style imbued with magic realism. These subjects have proved to be controversial and his fourth novel – The Satanic Verses – forced him underground and compelled him to live under police protection and severely curtail his movement for years.

The fatwas against Rushdie

The Satanic Verses was deemed blasphemous by the Muslim community leaders in Britain after its publication in the summer of 1988. Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a fatwa against Rushdie, announcing a bounty for anyone who would execute him. There were demonstrations against the author in any parts of the Muslim world.

Rushdie then went into hiding under the protection of Scotland Yard. He continued writing during these years and one of the works he produced was a memoir of living with the threat of murder hanging over his head. The book titled Joseph Anton was published in 2012 and its namesake was the alias he had adopted during his seclusion. Though Rushdie was in hiding, he did emerge from time to time, across countries to deliver lectures. He became an American citizen in 2016.

Rushdie has dismissed allegations of blasphemy against his book. He doubts that those who label it so have read his novels at all. While speaking on BBC Radio 4, he had defended his book saying: “It’s not true that this book is a blasphemy against Islam. I doubt very much that Khomeini or anyone else in Iran has read the book or more than selected extracts out of context.”

The violent demonstrations against The Satanic Verses were not limited to threats against Rushdie alone. His editors and publishers were also targeted. Pakistan and Iran in particular saw massive protests. Copies of the novel were burnt in Britain and several bookstores were bombed leading to the manuscript being banned in several countries – including India.

Even though the Iranian government has distanced itself from the fatwa issued by the late Khomeini who was on his death bed when he declared that whoever executes Rushdie would be “considered a martyr”.

The Satanic Verses has a complex plot and the title is derived from alleged verses in the original Quran that scholars say allowed worship to three Goddesses which were later omitted.

Rushdie spent at least 13 years in hiding and was able to evade extremists. However, his Japanese translator was killed in July 1991. His Italian translator was stabbed a few days later (but survived) and a Norwegian publisher shot two years later. The murders and attempts to murder were never conclusively proved to be connected to Khomeini’s call to execute Rushdie.