Fatwa and slash, the curse of ‘Satanic Verses’

Ansa Live at 9 pm (ANSA)

‘The Satanic Verses’ is certainly Salman Rushdie’s best known book, but also what ruined his life. After the publication of him, and the fatwa of Ayatollah Khomeini, who for the allusions of him judged him blasphemous towards Islam, Rushdie has been forced since 1989 to live in the shadows, and in fear.
In fact, in his long literary career Rushdie has produced many books, including true masterpieces, such as “The children of midnight”, or the midnight of August 15, 1947, the day of the declaration of independence of India.
A story that is linked to its origins. Rushdie was in fact born in Bombay, on June 19, 1947, although he later grew up in London, where he moved at the age of 14, to then study at Cambridge University.
But ‘The Satanic Verses’ in addition to conditioning the life of its author has also caused the death of many people around the world: fifty-nine, according to BBC News, including murdered translators and people killed during protests and supportive counter-demonstrations, as well as those condemning the censorship imposed on the volume in some countries. In Italy in 1991 Ettore Capriolo, translator of the book, was stabbed in his Milanese home, fortunately not to death. Since then Rushdie, who claims to be an atheist, has grown accustomed to living under guard, hidden from the rest of the world for about a decade. Then, little by little, he began to re-emerge. In 2004 he married again, for the fourth time, with the Indian model and actress Padma Lakshmi, from whom he separated in 2007. In 2015 he opened the Frankfurt Book Fair, an event that resulted in a boycott by the ‘Iran.
The Iranian government ambiguously claimed in 1998 that it would no longer support the fatwa, but many Iranian organizations have instead continued to raise funds for a ‘bounty’ on its head, to add to the approximately $ 3 million originally offered by Khomeini. in 1989 for its execution.
And things did not change after Khomeini’s death.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iranian supreme guide, in fact renewed the fatwa in 2017, and in 2019, on the occasion of the ‘thirtieth anniversary’, he wrote via Twitter: “Imam Khomeini’s verdict regarding Salman Rushdie is based on divine verses and, just like the divine verses, it is solid and irrevocable. “

Source: Ansa

Share this article:

Leave a Reply

most popular