It is unclear whether Rushdie’s attacker, whom police identified as Hadi Matar of Fairview, New Jersey, stabbed the writer as he prepared to speak at an event Friday in western New York.
Iran’s religious government and its state media gave no motive for the attack.
But in Tehran, some people who spoke to the Associated Press praised the attack targeting a writer they believe tarnished the Islamic faith with his 1988 book “The Satanic Verses”. .
in the streets of IranThe pictures of the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the capital of the U.S., still beckon passersby.
27-year-old deliveryman Reza Amiri said, “I don’t know Salman Rushdie, but I am glad to know that he was attacked for insulting Islam.”
Others, however, were concerned that Iran could become even more cut off from the world as tensions mount over its nuclear deal.
Mahsheed Barati, a geography teacher, 39, said, “I think those who have done this are trying to isolate Iran. It will negatively affect relations with many people – even That with Russia and China as well.”
Khomeini, in poor health in the last year of his life, after the 1980s deadlock Iran-Iraq war destroyed the country’s economy, issued a fatwa on Rushdie in 1989.
The Islamic fatwa came amid violent uproar in the Muslim world over the novel, which some saw as blasphemy as suggesting the life of the Prophet Muhammad.
Khomeini said in February 1989, “I want to inform all fearless Muslims in the world that the author of the book The Satanic Verses … as well as the publishers who were aware of its contents, are sentenced to death.” According to Tehran Radio.
The front page of the 13 August edition of Iranian newspapers, Watan-e Imroz, in Persian with the headline reading: “Knife in the neck of Salman Rushdie,” and Hamshahri, at the back, with the headline: “Attack on the author of Satanic verses”, Pictured in Tehran. (AP Photo)
He added: “Whoever is killed while doing so will be considered a martyr and will go straight to heaven.”
Early Saturday, Iranian state media made a point to identify a man killed while trying to execute a fatwa.
Lebanese National Mustafa Mahmood Mazeeh He died when a book bomb exploded prematurely in a London hotel on August 33, 1989, more than 33 years earlier.
On Newsstands on Saturday, front-page headlines offered their respective views on the attack.
The main story of the hard-line Watan-e Imrouz described it as: “A knife in Salman Rushdie’s neck.” The headline of the reformist newspaper Etemade asked: “Salman Rushdie in the neighborhood of death?”
But the 15th Khordad Foundation – which placed a bounty of more than $3 million on Rushdie – remained silent at the start of the work week.
Staff there declined to comment immediately to the AP, referring to questions from an officer who was not in the office.
The foundation, whose name refers to the 1963 protests by Khomeini’s supporters against the former Shah of Iran, usually focused on providing aid to the disabled and others affected by the war.
But it, like other foundations known as “bonayads” in Iran, is funded by assets confiscated from the time of the Shah, often serving the political interests of the country’s hardliners.
Reformists in Iran, who want to gradually liberalize the country’s Shia theocracy from within and have better ties with the West, have tried to distance the country’s government from the order.
In particular, the reformist president mohammed khatamiIn 1998 the Foreign Minister stated that “the government dissociates itself from any reward that has been offered in this regard and does not support it”.
Rushdie slowly began to re-emerge in public life around that time. But some people in Iran have never forgotten the fatwa against him.
On Saturday, Mohamed Mahdi Mowaghar, 34, a Tehran resident, described a “good feeling” seeing Rushdie being attacked.
He said, “It is pleasant and shows that those who insult the sacred things of us Muslims will be punished at the hands of the people in this world besides being punished in the hereafter.”
However, others were concerned the attack – regardless of why it was carried out – could hurt Iran as it tries to negotiate its nuclear deal with world powers.
Since then-President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew the US from the deal in 2018, Tehran has seen its rial currency depreciate and its economy dent.
Meanwhile, Tehran has now enriched uranium to near weapons-grade levels amid a series of attacks in the Middle East.
“It will further isolate Iran,” warned former Iranian diplomat Mashallah Sefatzadeh.
While the fatwa could be amended or revoked, Iran’s current Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who took office after Khomeini, never did so.
In 1989, Khamenei said, “The decision made about Salman Rushdie is still valid.” As I’ve already said, it’s a bullet with a goal for it. It has been shot. It will hit the target one day or the other.”
As recently as February 2017, Khamenei briefly answered the question he was asked: “Is the fatwa on the apostasy of the damned liar Salman Rushdie still in effect? What is the duty of a Muslim in this regard?”
Khamenei replied: “The order is the same as that issued by Imam Khomeini.”