How the Fatwa Changed a Writer's Life

(New Yorker) Salman Rushdie - It was a sunny Tuesday in London when the BBC reporter asked, "How does it feel to know that you have just been sentenced to death by Ayatollah Khomeini?" "I inform the proud Muslim people of the world that the author of the Satanic Verses book, which is against Islam, the Prophet and the Koran, and all those involved in its publication who were aware of its content, are sentenced to death. I ask all the Muslims to execute them wherever they find them," Khomeini declared. Khomeini was a head of state, ordering the murder of a citizen of another state, over whom he had no jurisdiction; and he had assassins at his service, who had been used before against "enemies" of the Iranian Revolution, including those who lived outside Iran.


2012-09-14 00:00:00

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