Reaction was mixed in Iran to the brutal attack on Salman Rushdie, a pariah in that nation since he wrote « The Satanic Verses. »
Iranians reacted with praise and worry Saturday over the attack on novelist Salman Rushdie, the target of a decades-old fatwa by the late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini calling for his death.
It remains unclear why Rushdie’s attacker, identified by police as Hadi Matar of Fairview, N.J., stabbed the author as he prepared to speak at an event Friday in western New York. Iran’s theocratic government and its state-run media have assigned no motive to the assault.
Author Salman Rushdie talks about the start of his writing career, during the Mississippi Book Festival, in Jackson, Miss., on Aug. 18, 2018. (Rogelio V. Solis/AP)
But in Tehran, some willing to speak to The Associated Press offered praise for an attack targeting a writer they believe tarnished the Islamic faith with his 1988 book “The Satanic Verses.” In the streets of Iran’s capital, images of the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini still peer down at passers-by.
“I don’t know Salman Rushdie, but I am happy to hear that he was attacked since he insulted Islam,” said Reza Amiri, a 27-year-old deliveryman. “This is the fate for anybody who insults sanctities.”
Others, however, worried aloud that Iran could become even more cut off from the world as tensions remain high over its tattered nuclear deal.
“I feel those who did it are trying to isolate Iran,” said Mahshid Barati, a 39-year-old geography teacher. “This will negatively affect relations with many — even Russia and China.”
Iranians walk past a billboard bearing the portraits of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (left) and late supreme leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in the capital Tehran on Saturday. (ATTA KENARE/AFP via )
Khomeini, in poor health in the last year of his life after the grinding, stalemate 1980s Iran-Iraq war decimated the country’s economy, issued the fatwa on Rushdie in 1989.
