"Made Muslims happy": Iranian foundation wants to reward Rushdie attackers

In August, Hadi Matar attacks the British-Indian writer Salman Rushdie with a knife.

"Made Muslims happy": Iranian foundation wants to reward Rushdie attackers

In August, Hadi Matar attacks the British-Indian writer Salman Rushdie with a knife. An Iranian foundation is said to have offered the American 1,000 square meters of land as a reward and praised him for his "brave act".

According to a media report, an Iranian foundation offered writer Salman Rushdie's assassin 1,000 square meters of land as a reward for the crime. In addition, the assassin Hadi Matar was praised for his attack, Iranian state television reported on its Telegram channel. "We sincerely thank the young American for the brave act of making Muslims happy by blinding one of Rushdie's eyes and paralyzing one of his hands," said Mohammed Esmail, executive director of the Foundation for the Realization of Imam Khomeini's Fatwas saree

Matar, a Muslim and US citizen with Lebanese roots, seriously injured Rushdie with a knife at an event in upstate New York in 2022. Nothing is publicly known about his motive. In 1989, Iran's then supreme leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, issued a religious edict ("fatwa") calling on Muslims to kill Rushdie.

Some Muslims had interpreted passages in Rushdie's novel The Satanic Verses about the Prophet Mohammed as blasphemous. Rushdie, who was born in India to a Muslim family, then lived under British police protection for nine years. The fatwa was never officially repealed.