Salman Rushdie is now recovering from a brutal attack in New York, but the reputation of Muslims as a peace-loving people has suffered another blow.
Thirty-three years after the infamous fatwa issued by Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini, someone came close to killing the acclaimed author.
Of course, condemning the suspect, Hadi Matar, and anyone who supports this heinous action goes without saying. Even his own mother has distanced herself from him saying he’s an extremist.
It is chilling and heartbreaking in so many ways, and reignited my memories of the firestorm that erupted in my home city of Bradford when the book first came out.
I was a schoolgirl when I read Rushdie ’s previous book, Midnight’s Children, a mesmerising tale set around the partition of India. It was unlike anything I had ever read before and I loved it.
So when I heard about his book The Satanic Verses a few years later I felt quite conflicted and betrayed. How could a writer of such intelligence, who wrote so beautifully and magically, whom I loved so much, have depicted the revered prophet Muhammad so despicably?
Surely even if Rushdie was no longer practising Islam he would still know how much offence and hurt his book would cause? Here in Bradford the fury was palpable with Muslims taking to the streets and burning the book which only escalated matters. The world’s media descended and then came the Ayatollah’s fatwa issued on Valentine’s Day 1989.
I never read the book myself and it was years later I found out it was actually about mental illness, which seems ironic as the assailant probably has some mental health issues himself.
So here we are, back to discussing the issue of free speech.
But, even in the UK, free speech has never really existed.
In the past few days, controversial comedian Jerry Sadowitz’s Edinburgh Fringe show has been cancelled. Why?
Because someone deemed it offensive even though anyone in his audience would likely have known what kind of comedy he does and presumably loved it?
It’s no wonder some Muslims feel there are double standards and that freedom of expression is really code for freedom to offend Islam.
