I think the "New York Times" has it exactly correct. There is more to this than just a violent attack.
By Hikari Hida and Mike Ives
A $2.8-million bounty (click here) was put on the writer’s head and the then 89-year-old Khomeini said anyone who was killed trying to carry out the death sentence should be considered a “martyr” who would go to paradise
Tokyo - The attack on Salman Rushdie (click here) in western New York State on Friday prompted renewed interest in previous attacks on people connected to his 1988 novel, “The Satanic Verses,” including its Japanese translator, who was killed in 1991.
The translator, Hitoshi Igarashi, was stabbed to death at age 44 that July at Tsukuba University, northeast of Tokyo, where he had been teaching comparative Islamic culture for five years. No arrests were ever made, and the crime remains unsolved.
Mr. Igarashi had translated “The Satanic Verses” for a Japanese edition that was published after Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, then the supreme leader of Iran, had ordered Muslims to kill the Indian-born British writer over the book’s depiction of the Prophet Muhammad....
...The police in Japan said at the time that they had no specific evidence linking the attack to “The Satanic Verses.” But news reports said that the novel’s Japanese publisher had received death threats from Islamist militants, and that Mr. Igarashi had for a time been protected by bodyguards.
The publishing house, Shinsensha, had also faced protests at its Tokyo office in 1990, and a Pakistani citizen was arrested that year for trying to assault a promoter of the book at a news conference.
Mr. Igarashi was killed as he left his office at Tsukuba University after a day of teaching. His son, Ataru Igarashi, told a reporter years later that he had been working on translating “The Canon of Medicine,” a medieval medical textbook by the Islamic physician and philosopher Ibn Sina....
21 February 2029
By Salil Tripathi
London: Hours before the then supreme leader of the Iran’s Islamic Revolution, (click here) Ayatollah Khomeini, pronounced a fatwa calling for the death of Salman Rushdie, whose novel The Satanic Verses he hadn’t read but which he assumed he wouldn’t like, Rushdie gave one of his last public interviews about the novel to a television documentary, before his enforced disappearance.
Explaining what he was doing with his novel—a magnificent saga as much about migration as about hybridity, as much about faith as about reason, and as much about Britain as about India—Rushdie urged his critics to read the novel, or argue with it, rather than call for its ban or burn its copies....
By Claude Casteran
In this photo (click here) taken on September 26, 1980, the late founder of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini salutes his followers in the Iranian capital of Tehran.
On February 14, 1989 Khomeini (click here) called for him to be killed for writing "The Satanic Verses", which the cleric said insulted Islam.
In a fatwa, or religious decree, Khomeini urged "Muslims of the world rapidly to execute the author and the publishers of the book" so that "no one will any longer dare to offend the sacred values of Islam."
Khomeini, who was 89 and had just four months to live, added that anyone who was killed trying to carry out the death sentence should be considered a "martyr" who would go to paradise.
A $2.8-million bounty was put on the writer's head.
The British government immediately granted police protection to Rushdie, an atheist born in India to non-practising Muslims.
For almost 13 years he moved between safe houses under the pseudonym of Joseph Anton, changing base 56 times in the first six months. His solitude was worsened by the split with his wife American novelist Marianne Wiggins, to whom "The Satanic Verses" are dedicated....
On February 14, 1989 Khomeini (click here) called for him to be killed for writing "The Satanic Verses", which the cleric said insulted Islam.
In a fatwa, or religious decree, Khomeini urged "Muslims of the world rapidly to execute the author and the publishers of the book" so that "no one will any longer dare to offend the sacred values of Islam."
Khomeini, who was 89 and had just four months to live, added that anyone who was killed trying to carry out the death sentence should be considered a "martyr" who would go to paradise.
A $2.8-million bounty was put on the writer's head.
The British government immediately granted police protection to Rushdie, an atheist born in India to non-practising Muslims.
For almost 13 years he moved between safe houses under the pseudonym of Joseph Anton, changing base 56 times in the first six months. His solitude was worsened by the split with his wife American novelist Marianne Wiggins, to whom "The Satanic Verses" are dedicated....
Unrequited Hate
Who is Hezbollah? (click here)
...An official from Iran-backed Lebanese armed group Hezbollah (click here) said on Saturday it had no additional information on the stabbing.
“We don’t know anything about this subject, so we will not comment,” the official told the Reuters news agency on condition of anonymity.
Hezbollah is supported by Iran, whose previous supreme leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, pronounced a religious decree in 1988 calling on Muslims to kill Rushdie for blasphemy over his book The Satanic Verses.
He had a bounty on his head offering more than $3m to anyone who killed him.
The suspected attacker was identified by police as Hadi Matar, 24, from New Jersey. He was charged on Saturday with attempted murder and assault....
...An official from Iran-backed Lebanese armed group Hezbollah (click here) said on Saturday it had no additional information on the stabbing.
“We don’t know anything about this subject, so we will not comment,” the official told the Reuters news agency on condition of anonymity.
Hezbollah is supported by Iran, whose previous supreme leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, pronounced a religious decree in 1988 calling on Muslims to kill Rushdie for blasphemy over his book The Satanic Verses.
He had a bounty on his head offering more than $3m to anyone who killed him.
The suspected attacker was identified by police as Hadi Matar, 24, from New Jersey. He was charged on Saturday with attempted murder and assault....
The police should not let this go. There is a far bigger organization affiliated with this man. Has to be. I don't buy it that he is a lone wolf. They always appear to operate that way, but, they are emotionally attached to organizations/religions that seek to carry out terrorism through inspiration. Those that inspire this violence are as much responsible for it as the Hit Man that carries it out in the name of religion.
13 August 2022
By Andrea Cavallier, Emma James and Paul Farrell
By Andrea Cavallier, Emma James and Paul Farrell
The man accused of stabbing author Salman Rushdie (click here) held a fake driver's license bearing the surname of an infamous Hezbollah commander, it has been claimed.
That driver's license, which was was found on 24-year-old Hadi Mater bore the name Hassan Mughniyah. Both the first and second names are linked to infamous terrorist organization Hezbollah. The group's current leader is named Hassan Nasrallah. While one of the group's most notorious figures was Imad Mughniyeh, who was killed in a CIA-linked assassination in Syria in 2008.
NBC New York reports that Mater's social media accounts showed that he was sympathetic to Shia causes, including supporting the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps....
