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Sir Ahmed '''Salman Rushdie''' (born June 19, 1947, [[Mumbai]], [[India]]) is a major novelist in the [[English]] language. His most famous work, ''Midnight's Children'', depicts the independence and partition of India and Pakistan in allegorical form. It won the [[Booker Prize]] for the best novel of the year by an author writing in English in a [[Commonwealth]] country or [[Ireland]]. It subsequently won the 'Booker of Bookers' for the best of the first 25 winners of the Booker Prize.
Sir Ahmed '''Salman Rushdie''' (born June 19, 1947, [[Mumbai]], [[India]]) is a major novelist in the [[English]] language. His most famous work, ''Midnight's Children'', depicts the independence and partition of India and Pakistan in allegorical form. It won the [[Booker Prize]] for the best novel of the year by an author writing in English in a [[Commonwealth]] country or [[Ireland]]. It subsequently won the 'Booker of Bookers' for the best of the first 25 winners of the Booker Prize.
His later novel ''The Satanic Verses'' aroused controversy, angering many radical [[Muslim]]s who believed that Rushdie's portrayal of the [[Prophet Muhammad]] (an illustration of a legend surrounding the prophet) was [[blasphemous]]. Rushdie's book tells the story of original instructions from Muhammad that the Muslim people should worship three ancient pagan goddesses that had been worshiped in Mecca before the time of [[Islam]]. According to the story, Muhammad later recanted the verses, saying that the devil had persuaded him to add them. In 1989, [[Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini]] of [[Iran]] declared a [[fatwa]] on Rushdie, mandating his execution under Islamic law. Because of this, Rushdie was forced to live in fear for his life, under police protection for more than a decade.
His later novel ''The Satanic Verses'' aroused controversy, angering many radical [[Muslim]]s who believed that Rushdie's portrayal of the [[Prophet Muhammad]] (an illustration of a legend surrounding the prophet) was [[blasphemous]]. Rushdie's book tells the story of original instructions from Muhammad that the Muslim people should worship three ancient pagan goddesses that had been worshiped in Mecca before the time of [[Islam]]. According to the story, Muhammad later recanted the verses, saying that the devil had persuaded him to add them. In 1989, [[Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini]] of [[Iran]] declared a [[fatwa]]<ref name=nyt-15aug2022>Jennifer Schuessler, [https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/15/arts/salman-rushdie-free-speech.html Stabbing of Salman Rushdie Renews Free Speech Debates], ''The New York Times'', August 15, 2022.<blockquote>
Two years ago Salman Rushdie joined prominent cultural figures signing an open letter decrying an increasingly "intolerant climate" and warning that the "free exchange of information and ideas, the lifeblood of a liberal society, is daily becoming more constricted." It was a declaration of principles Mr. Rushdie had embodied since 1989, when a fatwa by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the Supreme Leader of Iran, calling for his murder, made him a reluctant symbol of free speech….
In the West, the defense of Mr. Rushdie was hardly universally robust. Former president Jimmy Carter, writing in The New York Times in 1989, denounced the fatwa but charged Rushdie with "vilifying" the Prophet Muhammad and "defaming" the Quran.
"While Rushdie’s First Amendment freedoms are important," he wrote, "we have tended to promote him and his book with little acknowledgment that it is a direct insult to those millions of Moslems whose sacred beliefs have been violated and are suffering in restrained silence the added embarrassment of the Ayatollah's irresponsibility."…
Some who weighed in said the stakes are simply too high — and too personal. After the attack, Roya Hakakian, an Iranian American writer who in 2019 was warned by the Federal Bureau of Investigation that she had been targeted by Iran, took to Twitter on Saturday to assail what she said was a lack of swift condemnation from U.S. government officials….
In an interview on Sunday, Ms. Hakakian, who came to the United States as a refugee in 1984, said that the heart of the Rushdie case is "being able to say that we, as writers, as novelists, as thinkers, can absolutely take on any issue we want in our works — and that includes Islam."
But "nobody is saying that," she said. Instead, "people are paying lip service to free speech."
In his recent autobiographical novel "Homeland Elegies," the American writer Ayad Akhtar reflects on the complex meanings of the “Satanic Verses” controversy for Muslim readers and writers, including himself.
In an email on Sunday, Mr. Akhtar, who is PEN America’s current president, said the attack on Mr. Rushdie is "a reminder that ‘harms’ of speech and the freedom of speech do not, cannot, hold equal claims on us."
"While we may rightly acknowledge that speech can harm," he said, "it’s in the terrible culmination of Salman's dilemma that we see the paramount value, the absolute centrality of freedom of thought and the freedom to express that thought.”
For many, defending Mr. Rushdie and "The Satanic Verses" against his would-be assassins may be easy, Mr. Akhtar said. But the defense also "has to apply where we have less unanimity, where we are more implicated."
"That’s what it means," he said, "for it to be a principle."</blockquote></ref> on Rushdie, mandating his execution under Islamic law. Because of this, Rushdie was forced to live in fear for his life, under police protection for more than a decade.
Although Rushdie was born a Muslim, he has made public comments in support of atheism. That, combined with his largely liberal politics, means his writing should be approached with caution. After the terror attacks against the satirical magazine [[Charlie Hebdo]] he said: "Religion, a mediaeval form of unreason, when combined with modern weaponry becomes a real threat to our freedoms".<ref>[https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2900976/ Stephanie Linning, "Salma Rushdie condemns Charlie Hebdo attack"] ' ''Daily Mail'' online, 7 January 2015.</ref> However Rushdie does not observe the danger of [[Militant atheism]].
Although Rushdie was born a Muslim, he has made public comments in support of atheism. That, combined with his largely liberal politics, means his writing should be approached with caution. After the terror attacks against the satirical magazine [[Charlie Hebdo]] he said: "Religion, a mediaeval form of unreason, when combined with modern weaponry becomes a real threat to our freedoms".<ref>[https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2900976/ Stephanie Linning, "Salma Rushdie condemns Charlie Hebdo attack"] ' ''Daily Mail'' online, 7 January 2015.</ref> However Rushdie does not observe the danger of [[Militant atheism]].