There is a saying that a pen is mightier than a sword. It seems that this rosy phrase only holds ground on paper. The Islamists are chopping off anyone who dares to express his/her opinions/beliefs that are remotely associated with their religion. For them, their Right to get offended is paramount and surpasses the victims’ Right to Free Speech, Right to life, and other innumerable human rights. It seems that the Sar-tan-se-Juda brigade has let loose a Frankenstein monster that has gone out of their control.
Gory Truth: Fatwa is timeless?
On Friday, 12th of August, famous Indian-born author Salman Rushdie was stabbed repeatedly with a knife. When he was about to speak at an event, a 24-year-old man jumped on the stage and vehemently attacked him. The attacker has been identified as Hadi Matar. The Islamist attacker Matar is alleged to be a sympathiser of “Shia extremism” and interests of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards.
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Following the dastardly knife attack, Rushdie was rushed to the hospital. Reportedly, he is on ventilator support and his liver is severely damaged. He could also lose an eye due to this fanatic attack.
The Booker prize-winning novelist Salman Rushdie has been on the hit list of the Islamists. His novel, ‘The Satanic Verses’ released in 1988, offended the Islamists.
His novel was viewed as blasphemous by several Muslims. They claimed that the book was an insult to the Prophet Muhammad. Violent protests erupted against him and his novel. The Rajiv Gandhi government succumbed under pressure and kneeled down in front of the Islamists. His book got banned in India which emboldened the Islamist forces everywhere. Soon, the list of countries banning the novel kept expanding.
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Later, Iran’s then Supreme Leader and Islamic cleric Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa, a religious decree, against Salman Rushdie in February 1989. The fatwa called for Rushdie to be killed for insulting Islam in his novel ‘The Satanic Verses’. As a result of this fatwa, he had to live in fear for his life for 33 years, until his fear came true. It is crucial to note that Iran brazenly reiterated the Fatwa in 2009. They said that the fatwa is “still valid”. Although the Iranian government distanced itself from Khomeini’s decree, Iranian religious foundation had offered a bounty of $3.3 million for killing Rushdie.
The spree of killing
Salman Rushdie is not the alone victim of this religious intolerance. As per some media reports till now, around 59 people have become victims of attacks because of this controversial novel, ‘The Satanic Verses’.
Anyone who has tried to associate with either Salman Rushdie or his book has been attacked or killed by religious sycophants. In 1991, Hitoshi Igarashi was stabbed to death. He was the Japanese translator of Rushdie’s novel ‘The Satanic Verses’.
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In 1993, William Nygaard, a Norwegian was shot thrice outside his home in Oslo, luckily he survived.
The Italian translator Ettore Capriolo was separately attacked. He was brutally attacked by a man, who claimed to be of Iranian ethnicity. He survived the knife attack but sustained severe injuries on his neck, chest and hands.
In 1991, a Japanese translator of Rushdie's #TheSatanicVerses, Hitoshi Igarashiwas, was stabbed to death. In the same year, Ettore Capriolo, its Italian translator, was stabbed, and in 1993, its Norwegian publisher was shot. Now Salman himself has been seriously wounded.
— Stanly Johny (@johnstanly) August 13, 2022
These religiously indoctrinated attacks have a large impact on psychology of common people, more importantly, those who are not in the good books of Islamists.
Incidentally, Salman Rushdie too is a Muslim, he was born in Bombay to a Muslim family but the orthodoxy didn’t allow him to have his say on his religious beliefs. The level of intolerance is rising day by day and killing in the name of religion is becoming a badge of honour. This has to stop with tough measures on the lines of France which crushed the radicalisation after the unfortunate killing of Samuel Patty.
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