Salman Rushdie, the novelist with a $3 million bounty on his head for his 1988 book “The Satanic Verses,” had a fatwa proclaimed against him. He was slashed in the neck by a masked assailant on 12 August.
When he was introduced around 11 a.m., the 75-year-old Indian-born novelist was going to give a speech at the Chautauqua Institution in Upstate New York, about 75 miles south of Buffalo, when a lone attacker seized the stage and stabbed him, according to authorities.
Who is Salman Rushdie?
Indian-born author Salman Rushdie, 75, won the Booker Prize for his book “Midnight’s Children.” Although he has written 14 books, his fourth book, The Satanic Verses, published in 1988, is the most well-known. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the supreme leader of Iran, demanded Rushdie’s execution for releasing the book because of its blasphemous content a year after it was published. Iran has threatened Rushdie with death and announced a USD 3 million bounty for his murder since the 1980s because of his literature. After Rushdie was ordered executed by Khomeini, the author lived in hiding for around ten years in the United Kingdom while under police protection.
Rushdie received a knighthood in 2007 for his contributions to writing. With the publication of “Midnight’s Children,” his second book, Salman Rushdie, gained widespread attention. For its depiction of India after independence, the book received praises worldwide, including Britain’s coveted Booker Prize. Rushdie has resided in the US since the year 2000.
The Early Life of Salman Rushdie
Amid the British Raj, on 19 June 1947, Ahmed Salman Rushdie was born into a Kashmiri Muslim family in Bombay. He is the son of Cambridge-educated lawyer and businessman Anis Ahmed Rushdie and teacher Negin Bhatt. After it was discovered that the birth certificate Rushdie’s father had submitted had been altered to make him appear younger than he was, he was fired from the Indian Civil Services (ICS). Three sisters exist for Rushdie. In his 2012 autobiography, he stated that his father took the name Rushdie in honor of Averroes (Ibn Rushd).
Before migrating to England to attend Rugby School in Rugby, Warwickshire, and subsequently King’s College in Cambridge, where he received a Bachelor of Arts in history, Rushdie was raised in Bombay and schooled at the Cathedral and John Connon School in Fort, South Bombay.
Personal Life of Salman Rushdie
Rushdie has had at least one serious relationship, married and divorced four times. From 1976 to 1987, he married Clarissa Luard, a literature officer for the Arts Council of England. A son was born to the couple in 1979 and is now married to jazz vocalist Natalie Rushdie from London. In the middle of the 1980s, he broke up with Clarissa Luard in favor of Australian author Robyn Davidson, whom he met through mutual friend Bruce Chatwin. Rushdie and Davidson never wed, and they had already broken up when his divorce from Clarissa was finalized in 1987.
American author Marianne Wiggins was Rushdie’s second wife; they wed in 1988 and divorced in 1993. Elizabeth West, a British editor, and author, served as his third wife from 1997 to 2004. They have a son who was born in 1997. Rushdie married Padma Lakshmi, an Indian-born actress, model, and host of the American reality series Top Chef, in 2004, a year after his third divorce. According to Rushdie, the couple filed for divorce in July of that same year after Lakshmi requested one in January.
Rushdie underwent surgery in 1999 to treat ptosis, a condition in which the levator palpebrae superioris muscle causes the upper eyelid to droop. Rushdie claimed that it became more and more difficult for him to open his eyes. In a few years, he claimed he wouldn’t have been able to open his eyes if he hadn’t undergone surgery.
Rushdie has been residing in the country since 2000, primarily in Lower Manhattan’s Union Square.
He supports Tottenham Hotspur in the English football league.
Salman Rushdie: Achievements
Since 1981, when he initially gained notoriety by publishing his Booker Prize-winning book “Midnight’s Children,” Rushdie has penned more than a dozen books.
Rushdie has written a lot of fantasy and surrealist novels, but he has also written four non-fiction volumes, including a memoir and a collection of essays.
In his most recent book, “Quichotte,” which was released in 2019, a salesperson who is fascinated with television falls in love with a television celebrity. In 2023, he’s scheduled to publish “Victory City,” another book.
Why is there a $3 Million Bounty on Salman Rushdie’s Head?
Some Muslims claimed The Satanic Verses ridiculed their religion and featured profane phrases. The novel incorporates details from the life of the Islamic Prophet Mohammed and the Qur’anic narrative.
At the time, the paramount leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, issued a fatwa in 1989 urging Muslims to murder Rushdie. Rushdie spent nearly ten years in hiding when the British government put him under police protection. According to the BBC, Rushdie expressed his deep regret for upsetting Muslims while hiding, yet the fatwa persisted. Many people still wanted him killed, although he now lives in greater freedom since Iran’s then-president Mohammad Khatami declared the scandal “totally over” in 1998.
For his assassination, a bounty of more than $3 million US was put forward.
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