Salman Rushdie, a British author of Indian descent and the author of the contentious book The Satanic Verses, was attacked before a lecture on Friday, August 12, in western New York.
He may lose one eye as a result of the attack, which also severed the nerves in his arm and stabbed and damaged his liver.
Sensitive and prone to Iran
Witnesses claim that Matar, who had a pass for the lecture, jumped on the stage and began beating Rushdie around the neck and chest. His motivation for the attack is currently unknown. In a press conference, Major Eugene Staniszewski of the New York State Police said, “But we are working with the FBI, the Sheriff’s Office, and we will determine.
According to NDTV, a glance at Matar’s social media showed him to be supportive of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard and sympathetic to Iran. He reportedly had images of the now-deceased Iranian commander Qassem Solemani, who was killed by the US in 2020, on the electronic devices found in his backpack.
Rushdie spent many years in hiding after The Satanic Verses was released in 1988, the same year that Iran’s late president Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a fatwa demanding Rushdie’s execution. The nation had also promised a reward of over $3 million to anyone who would assassinate Rushdie. Later, Iran took back the fatwa.
While the Italian translator of The Satanic Verses, Ettore Capriolo, was seriously injured in a stabbing that same year, the Japanese translator of the book, Hitoshi Igarashi, was fatally stabbed. In a 1993 attempted murder, the book’s Norwegian publisher, William Nygaard, was shot three times but lived.
