How Iran exploited Rushdie’s Satanic Verses

Salman Rushdie attends the 68th National Book Awards Ceremony and Benefit Dinner in New York, on November 15, 2017.

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The move was part of a landmark agreement with the United Kingdom. Iran issued a public guarantee not to push for Rushdie’s murder in exchange for an upgrade in diplomatic relations between London and Tehran.

But there was a catch. The murderous 1989 decree over Rushdie’s satirical novel The Satanic Verses could not be officially revoked because the source of the fatwa — Iran’s first Supreme Leader Ruhollah Khomeini — was dead. At least that’s what Rushdie was told, according to his memoir.

It was a deftly-crafted ambiguity that has defined Iran’s policy over the issue — and many other issues — in the intervening years. In 2006, Hassan Nasrallah, secretary general of Iran-backed Hezbollah, publicly lamented that the fatwa against the author had not been carried out, claiming it emboldened others to “insult” the Prophet Mohammed. In 2019, Iran’s current Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei reminded his followers that the ruling against Rushdie was “solid and irrevocable,” in a tweet…

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