Born in Bombay, British India, in 1946, Salman Rushdie is called an enemy of Islam due to his blasphemous book ‘The Satanic Verses’ which was published in 1988.
This book sparked protests and outrage in the Muslim world following its publication. It has been banned in most of the Islamic countries including Pakistan and Iran and also banned in India for hate speech. The book was accused of blasphemy by Muslims and of mocking their faith.
Iran’s late leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a fatwa, or edict, calling for cursed Salman’s death in 1989 and also announced a bounty on his head. The book is blasphemous because parts of the novel reference events in the Quran which hurt the sentiments of Muslims across the globe. Rushdie, who was born in India to non-practicing Muslims and himself is an atheist, was forced to go underground after a bounty was put on his head.
He was granted police protection by the government in Britain, where he was at school and where he made his home. He spent nearly a decade in hiding, moving houses repeatedly and being unable to tell his children where he lived.
Rushdie only began to emerge from his life on the run in the late 1990s after Iran 1998 said it would not support his assassination. Now he is living in New York.
On Friday, Salman Rushdie was airlifted to hospital after being stabbed in the neck in New York.
As per reports, he was on stage at the Chautauqua Institution in western New York when a young man stormed the stage and “punched or stabbed” him. New York police said he suffered a stab wound to his neck in an on-stage attack and was airlifted to the hospital.
