In February 1989, the Iranian revolutionary leader called on all Muslims to kill the author of the “Satanic Verses”. Behind the fatwa was more political calculation than religious conviction. Despite this, the regime has continued to call for murder to this day.
Iran’s revolutionary leader Ayatollah Khomeiny on February 1, 1979 on his return to Iran. Ten years later he issued a fatwa calling for the murder of Salman Rushdie.
When Ayatollah Khomeiny first learned of the polemic surrounding the novel after the publication of Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses in September 1988, he brushed the subject aside. There were always people who talked nonsense, the Iranian revolutionary leader replied to a scholar who had presented him with a detailed critique of the work. The book should not be taken seriously. As late as December 1988, when the novel was already banned in Pakistan, India and other countries, it was freely available in Iran.
However, on February 14, 1989, Khomeiny issued a fatwa calling on all Muslims to kill the author and publishers of the book. The reason for the call for murder was that Rushdie had mentioned an episode in the life of the Prophet Mohammed that was controversial among Muslims in the fictional work. At one point he could not distinguish between the divine revelation and the insinuations of the devil.
Although this episode has been handed down in various stories about the life of Mohammed, Khomeiny accused Rushdie of having insulted Islam, the Prophet and the Koran. Four days later, when the British-Indian writer apologized to Muslims for hurting their feelings, Khomeiny rejected the apology. Not only did he uphold the fatwa, he even promised a reward for killing Rushdie.
Cold calculation and bloody consequences
Khomeiny’s call for murder caused a storm of outrage in the West and consolidated Iran’s isolation and reputation as a pariah state for years to come. Writers, intellectuals and politicians from all over the world expressed their solidarity with the threatened author. But Rushdie had to go underground and live under police protection for the next ten years. In July 1991, the book’s Japanese translator, Hitoshi Igarashi, was assassinated. Later, the Italian translator and the Norwegian publisher were also seriously injured in attacks.
But why did Khomeiny decide to publish the fatwa at this point in time? By February 1989, the aged ayatollah had known for months about the book and the controversy it had sparked among Muslims. But he only decided to take up the controversy when the polemics about the novel escalated bloodily during protests in Islamabad and Kashmir. There were two main reasons for this.
On the one hand, Khomeiny was able to make a name for himself with the fatwa as spokesman for the Muslim masses. The fact that no government in any other Muslim country approved of the call for murder allowed the Iranian ruler even more to stylize himself as a fearless defender of Islam. On the other hand, Khomeiny was able to use the fatwa to divert attention from a fierce domestic political controversy that called his claim to leadership into question.
Distraction from harsh criticism of the regime
A few days before the fatwa was published, Iran celebrated the tenth anniversary of the 1979 revolution. However, many Iranians did not feel like celebrating. The previous summer, after eight years of war, Khomeiny had been forced to accept a ceasefire with Iraq. The border region was devastated, many cities were damaged and the economy was in ruins. The population suffered from inflation, bottlenecks and unemployment. Many Iranians wondered if the war was really worth all the sacrifices.
In this situation, Khomeiny’s deputy and designated successor, Ayatollah Hossein-Ali Montazeri, went public with sharp criticism of the regime. “Did we do a good job during the war? Our enemies, who forced this war on us, emerged victorious,” Montazeri said in an interview on February 8. “Let’s count the young men we’ve lost and repent for our mistakes.”
The cleric, who had become increasingly alienated from Khomeiny in the dispute over the persecution of the opposition and the execution of political prisoners since 1986, called for more freedom of expression and political participation. Far too often the leadership has shouted slogans and given the world the impression that the only job of the regime in Iran is to kill. Many good people lived in fear. ‘You can’t breathe in peace. This is wrong,” said Montazeri.
After Khomeiny’s death, then-President Ali Khamenei became his successor. He still stands by the fatwa to this day.
Such criticism was unheard of in Iran and a frontal attack on Khomeiny. So the Rushdie controversy was a good way to draw attention to another topic. While the world’s outrage over the fatwa was still raging, Khomeiny deposed Montazeri as his successor. When he succumbed to cancer on June 4, 1989 at the age of 87, then-President Ali Khamenei was elected revolutionary leader instead of Montazeri. To this day, the conservative hardliner holds this office.
The regime is sticking to the fatwa
Although in Islam a fatwa traditionally loses its validity with the death of its author, the Iranian regime reiterated the call to kill Rushdie. The reform-oriented President Mohammed Khatami said in 1998 that Iran would not support the execution of the sentence. However, a religious foundation put another bounty on Rushdie’s head. As late as 2019, Khamenei reiterated on Twitter that Khomeiny’s fatwa remained valid.
Over time, however, Rushdie became quiet, and in recent years the 75-year-old has been moving around in public again without personal protection. This became his undoing when a man jumped onto the stage at a discussion event in New York and severely injured the writer with a knife in his neck and stomach. Although there was initially no reaction from the Iranian government, there was the press close to the regime celebrated the assassination attempt.
«Satan’s neck under the sword», headlined the newspaper “Iran” and drew a direct link between the fact and the fatwa 33 years ago. the newspaper «Keyhan», who is considered the mouthpiece of revolutionary leader Khamenei, wrote that the perpetrator deserves thanks for the attack on the “apostat”: “The hand that tore the neck of the enemy of God should be kissed.” And the ultraconservative newspaper «Khorasan» opened with the headline: “Satan on the way to hell”
