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

Iranians reacted with reward and fear on Saturday over the assault on novelist Salman Rushdie, the goal of a decades-old fatwa by the late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini calling for his demise.

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 keen to talk to The Associated Press supplied reward for an assault focusing on a author they imagine tarnished the Islamic religion together with his 1988 ebook “The Satanic Verses”.

In the streets of Iran’s capital, photos 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 time oasis for reflection, examine and prayer. Today it’s additionally against the law 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,” stated Reza Amiri, a 27-year-old deliveryman. “This is the fate for anybody who insults sanctities.” Others, nevertheless, apprehensive aloud that Iran might develop into much more lower off from the world as tensions stay excessive over its tattered nuclear deal.

“I feel those who did it are trying to isolate Iran,” stated Mahshid Barati, a 39-year-old geography trainer. “This will negatively affect relations with many — even Russia and China.” Khomeini, ill within the final 12 months of his life after the grinding, stalemate Eighties Iran-Iraq conflict 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 recommendations 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 stated in February 1989, in line with Tehran Radio.

This June 4, 2007 file picture reveals Iranians in Tehran attending ceremonies on the 18th anniversary of the demise of Iran’s late chief Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, exterior 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 attempting to hold out the fatwa.

Lebanese nationwide Mustafa Mahmoud Mazeh died when a ebook 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 supplied their very own takes on the assault.

The hard-line Vatan-e Emrouz’s predominant story coated what it described as: “A knife in the neck of Salman Rushdie.” The reformist newspaper Etemad’s headline requested: “Salman Rushdie in neighbourhood 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 picture of novelist Salman Rushdie (AP)

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

The basis, whose identify 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 conflict.

But it, like different foundations often called “bonyads” in Iran funded partially by confiscated belongings from the shah’s time, usually 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, exterior the Chautauqua Institution, August 12, 2022, in Chautauqua, New York. (AP)

Notably, reformist President Mohammad Khatami’s overseas minister in 1998 stated 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 stated.

Others, nevertheless, apprehensive the assault — no matter why it was carried out — might 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 forex plummet and its financial system crater.

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

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

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

“The decision made about Salman Rushdie is still valid,” Khamenei stated 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 lately as February 2017, Khamenei tersely answered this query 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.”