Why the Attack on Salman Rushdie Is So Shocking

Acclaimed British–Indian author Salman Rushdie had just arrived onstage for an event at New York state’s Chautauqua Institution when he was rushed by an assailant and stabbed multiple times in the neck and abdomen. Though little is known about the suspect, who was detained by police and identified as 24-year-old New Jersey resident Hadi Matar, observers were quick to recall the death sentence that’s hung over Rushdie’s head for over three decades: an edict from the Iranian government calling on Muslims to murder the writer over his award-winning novel The Satanic Verses for alleged blasphemy against Islam. Though Rushdie came out of hiding in the late ’90s, Islamic fundamentalists and hard-line religious groups harbored a vendetta against the author, and in 2007, the Iranian government stated that its fatwa cannot be revoked. The last one could remember was probably over a decade ago, when one Iranian government–supported charitable foundation said they would still offer money to anyone who could assassinate Salman Rushdie. What became a sticking point is that even though that was the position of the regime, you still had elements within Iran, these charitable foundations run by hard-line conservative groups, who would say that “We still will reward anyone with financial compensation if they carry out the killing.” There were different messages coming out of Iran, but the government kept saying, We can’t control what everyone says in our country, but it’s not state policy.