Why Iran’s Past Leader Put a 3 Million Dollar Kill Prize On Salman Rushdie
Salman Rushdie wrote his work to entertain and question. Eventually, his writing attracted the wrong crowd.
Writing is a harmless action, a safe occupation, and for people who want to express themselves in the comfort of their own home.
But in truth, being a writer puts a lot at stake. It’s why as writers, we doubt ourselves and what we write.
As a writer, you can become a little suggestive or biased. You even find yourself in the realm of politics and religion.
Has anyone tried to offend you, even threaten you because of it?
Being in physical danger isn’t a real concern, but what if a political leader placed a $3 Million bounty on you.
What could you ever write to make an entire nation hate you that much?
Unfortunately, in August of this year, Salman Rushdie was stabbed more than ten times by an attacker while on a lecture stage.
Salman Rushdie, the writer of, “The Satanic Verses”, was stabbed by a New Jersey man driven by political and religious motives.
While there wasn’t a clear motive, detectives suspect Iran’s old hatred towards the novel that never really sizzled out.
The 24 year old attacker is a bold supporter of Iran, and enough evidence was found for detectives to be sure of this.
“The book was banned in Iran, where the late leader Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a 1989 fatwa, or edict, calling for Rushdie’s death. Khomeini died that same year.”
There was also a $3 Million bounty for anyone who would assassinate Salman Rushdie.
What’s strange is that Khomeini died the same year the book was banned. I can only imagine that this created more suspicion and dislike against the book and author.
Detectives are now calling the attack an “apparent assassination attempt” by “an individual with strong indicators of ideological support for the Iranian regime.” They said the incident occurred during a period of “plot disruptions” apparently connected to the current state of U.S.-Iran tensions.
What the “The Satanic Verses” is About
There are two Indian Muslims who… get blown up on a flight to London… survive and then become the angel Gabriel and the Devil…
They lead their lives, doing and being part of more miraculous and creative events, until their melancholic ends.
Then as a third plot line, an entire village drowns because they believed a young girl named Ayesha. The girl had believed an angel had told her how she could save her adoptive mother from cancer.
I haven’t read this book, but if you read the synapsis for it, you will understand. It’s not a book that you can read without getting into religious views and beliefs.
Rushdie doesn’t consider his book as an attack on any nation or faith.
Rushdie responded to India’s banning of The Satanic Verses by saying that “the book isn’t actually about Islam, but about migration, metamorphosis, divided selves, love, death, London and Bombay.”
However, Rushdie did wrire a book that brought danger to him and death to many others. He lived in hiding for a decade from the Iran government because of it.
It’s an event that sounds like a movie plot, but he really did write a book that made history.
The Brave Mind of Salman Rushdie
His words against terrorism.
“The only way you can defeat it is by deciding not to be afraid” — Salman Rushdie
Rushdie is prolific writer, a writer unafraid to speak his mind, and a writer that put his work first before his own life.
I don’t really know if he did or didn’t realize what could happen when he went ahead and got “The Satanic Verses” published, but he has written other controversial books before this.
He convinced himself that his word needed to get out. That his life wasn’t as important as the things he wrote.
If there’s anything you can take from Rushdie, it is that he teaches us that writing and books still have lots of power even in our technological and modern world.
If you have an idea you want to get out, don’t fear what others may think.
Writing is an act of bravery in itself
