Salman Rushdie’s life changed forever in 1989, when he had a fatwa slapped on him
The award-winning author has spent over three decades looking over his shoulder, going into hiding, and later making public appearances
But the threats to his life hadn’t stopped. Now, he is battling for his life in a US hospital.
On August 12, Rushdie was stabbed several times at a literary event in New York. He suffered severed nerves in an arm, damage to his liver and is also likely to lose an eye.
Salman Rushdie was born in Mumbai in June 1947. He studied at Cambridge in England, before he became a full-time writer
Rushdie shot to fame for his book Midnight’s Children. The magic-realism novel won him the Booker Prize in 1981.
In 1988, Rushdie published his fourth novel, The Satanic Verses. Some Muslims considered the novel disrespectful of the Prophet Mohammed.
The novel sparked a fatwa, or a religious decree. The Iranian revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini called for Rushdie’s death
This led to violent protests in Tehran, Lebanon, England, Pakistan, and India. On February 24th, 1989, twelve people were killed in Mumbai when police fired at protesters
Some of his publishers and translators were also attacked and killed. Rushdie was forced to go underground, as a bounty was put on his head, which remains till today.
He was granted police protection by Britain and he spent nearly a decade in hiding. In 1998, Iran declared it would not support his assassination.
However, the fatwa failed to stifle Rushdie’s writing. He went on to write several internationally-acclaimed books.
Writers, activists, and public leaders have criticized the latest attack on Rushdie. The Iranian government, however, has denied any involvement in the assault.
