Salman Rushdie assault: Praise, fear in Iran as authorities stays quiet

It stays unclear why Rushdie’s attacker, recognized by police as Hadi Mattar of Fairview, New Jersey, stabbed the writer as he ready to talk at an occasion on Friday in western New York.

Iran’s theocratic authorities and its state-run media have assigned no motive to the assault.

But in Tehran, some prepared to talk to The Associated Press provided reward for an assault concentrating on a author they consider tarnished the Islamic religion along with his 1988 e book “The Satanic Verses”.

In the streets of Iran’s capital, photographs of the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini nonetheless peer down at passers-by.

The second Salman Rushdie’s attacker was led off stage on the @chq, Via @AP,

For greater than a century the Chautauqua Institution has been a summer season oasis for reflection, examine and prayer. Today it is also a criminal offense scene. pic.twitter.com/wP6J7doF1Y

— Joshua Goodman (@APjoshgoodman) August 12, 2022

“I don’t know Salman Rushdie, but I am happy to hear that he was attacked since he insulted Islam,” mentioned Reza Amiri, a 27-year-old deliveryman. “This is the fate for anybody who insults sanctities.” Others, nevertheless, nervous aloud that Iran may turn into much more minimize off from the world as tensions stay excessive over its tattered nuclear deal.

“I feel those who did it are trying to isolate Iran,” mentioned Mahshid Barati, a 39-year-old geography instructor. “This will negatively affect relations with many — even Russia and China.” Khomeini, sick within the final 12 months of his life after the grinding, stalemate Eighties Iran-Iraq struggle decimated the nation’s financial system, issued the fatwa on Rushdie in 1989.

The Islamic edict got here amid a violent uproar within the Muslim world over the novel, which some seen as blasphemously making options in regards to the Prophet Muhammad’s life.

“I would like to inform all the intrepid Muslims in the world that the author of the book entitled Satanic Verses’ … as well as those publishers who were aware of its contents, are hereby sentenced to death,” Khomeini mentioned in February 1989, in line with Tehran Radio,

This June 4, 2007 file photograph exhibits Iranians in Tehran attending ceremonies on the 18th anniversary of the loss of life of Iran’s late chief Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, outdoors his shrine. (AP, File)

He added: “Whoever is killed doing this will be regarded as a martyr and will go directly to heaven.” Early on Saturday, Iranian state media made some extent to notice one man recognized as being killed whereas making an attempt to hold out the fatwa.

Lebanese nationwide Mustafa Mahmoud Mazeh died when a e book bomb he had prematurely exploded in a London resort on August 3, 1989, simply over 33 years in the past.

At newstands on Saturday, front-page headlines provided their very own takes on the assault.

The hard-line Vatan-e Emrouz’s important story lined what it described as: “A knife in the neck of Salman Rushdie.” The reformist newspaper Etemad’s headline requested: “Salman Rushdie in the neighborhood of death?” But the fifteenth Khordad Foundation — which put the over USD 3 million bounty on Rushdie — remained quiet at the beginning of the working week.

File photograph of novelist Salman Rushdie (AP)

Staffers there declined to instantly remark to the AP, referring inquiries to an official not within the workplace.

The basis, whose title refers back to the 1963 protests in opposition to Iran’s former shah by Khomeini’s supporters, usually focuses on offering assist to the disabled and others affected by struggle.

But it, like different foundations often called “bonyads” in Iran funded partially by confiscated property from the shah’s time, typically serve the political pursuits of the nation’s hard-liners.

Reformists in Iran, those that need to slowly liberalise the nation’s Shiite theocracy from inside and have higher relations with the West, have sought to distance the nation’s authorities from the edict.

Law enforcement officers detain Hadi Matar, 24, of Fairview, New Jersey, outdoors the Chautauqua Institution, August 12, 2022, in Chautauqua, New York. (AP)

Notably, reformist President Mohammad Khatami’s overseas minister in 1998 mentioned that the “government disassociates itself from any reward which has been offered in this regard and does not support it”.

Rushdie slowly started to re-emerge into public life round that point. But some in Iran have by no means forgotten the fatwa in opposition to him.

On Saturday, Mohammad Mahdi Movaghar, a 34-year-old Tehran resident, described having a “good feeling” after seeing Rushdie attacked.

“This is pleasing and shows those who insult the sacred things of we Muslims, in addition to punishment in the hereafter, will get punished in this world too at the hands of people,” he mentioned.

Others, nevertheless, nervous the assault — no matter why it was carried out — may harm Iran because it tries to barter over its nuclear take care of world powers.

Since then-President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew America from the accord in 2018, Tehran has seen its rial foreign money plummet and its financial system crater.

Meanwhile, Tehran enriches uranium now nearer than ever to weapons-grade ranges amid a sequence of assaults throughout the Mideast.

“It will make Iran more isolated,” warned former Iranian diplomat Mashallah Sefatzadeh.

While fatwas will be revised or revoked, Iran’s present Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei who took over after Khomeini has by no means executed so.

“The decision made about Salman Rushdie is still valid,” Khamenei mentioned in 1989. “As I have already said, this is a bullet for which there is a target. It has been shot. It will one day sooner or later hit the target.” As recently as February 2017, Khamenei tersely answered this question posed to him: “Is the fatwa on the apostasy of the cursed liar Salman Rushdie still in effect? What is a Muslim’s duty in this regard?”

Khamenei responded: “The decree is as Imam Khomeini issued.”