In existographies, Salman Rushdie (1947-) (FA:166) is a British Indian-born American author, an AskMen.com Top 10 Unknown Atheist (Ѻ), a Jabari top 20 smartest atheist, noted for []
Overview
In 1962, Rushdie, aged 15, became and atheist; shortly thereafter, to demonstrated his rejection of religion he ate a ham sandwich, and waited in vain for the thunderbolt from heaven:
“God, Satan, paradise, and hell all vanished one day in my fifteenth year, when I abruptly lost my faith. Afterwards, to prove my new-found atheism, I bought myself a rather tasteless ham sandwich, and so partook for the first time of the forbidden flesh of swine. No thunderbolt arrived to strike me down. From that day to this I have thought of myself as a wholly secular person.”
— Salmon Rushdie (1991), “In God We Trust” [4]
In 1988, Rushdie published The Satanic Verses, a semi-historical, magical realism spin on Muhammad, based on Quranic versus; Jennifer Hecht (2003) summarizes the novel as follows: [5]
“The novel is partly based on a story in which Muhammad, not yet established, accepts the idea that some local, female gods can share the pantheon with Allah (the locals will not abandon their gods) and then, later, revokes the verses that okayed the deal, saying they came from Satan rather than god. Hence, the ‘satanic verses’. The have been seen as weakening the case for revelation.”
The publication resulted in an uproar the Muslim world, drawing accusations of blasphemy and unbelief. [3]
In Feb 1989, Ruhollah Khomeini (1902-1989) (Ѻ), Iran's leading Ayatollah, i.e. chief preacher or Allah, the first supreme leader of Iranian revolution (1979), issued a fatwa against Rushdie, offering $3 million for his death. This fatwa was backed by the Iranian government until 1998. (Ѻ)
In 1991, Hitoshi Igarashi, the Japanese translator of The Satanic Verses, was stabbed to death outside his office at Tsukuba University, and also that year the Italian translator Ettore Capriolo survived being stabbed (Ѻ) at his apartment in Milan. In 1993, William Nygaard, the novel's Norwegian publisher, was shot three times in the back and left for dead outside his home in Oslo. [2]
In Feb 2016, forty state-run Iranian media outlets jointly upped the fatwa anti by adding $600,000 dollars to anyone who kills Rushdie, on top of the $3 million standing original fatwa offer. [1]
Quotes
The following are noted quotes:
“I’m a hardline atheist, I have to say.”
— Salman Rushdie (2006), “Interview with Bill Moyers” (Ѻ)
“There are beautiful stories in all religions, nothing wrong with stories, but they are not true, they are all fictions.”
— Salman Rushdie (c.2008) [2]
References
1. Osborne, Samuel. (2016). “Salman Rushdie: Iranian state media renew fatwa on Satanic Verses author with $600,000 bounty. The announcement coincides with the anniversary of the fatwa issued in 1989”, Independent.co.uk (Ѻ), Feb 21.
2. Anon. (2009). “Salman Rushdie on Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and Nordic Mythology” (Ѻ), YouTube, IuderSatan, Jul 24.
3. The Satanic Verses – Wikipedia.
4. (a) Rushdie, Salmon. (1991). “In God We Trust”, in: Imaginary Homelands (pgs. 376-432). Granta.
(b) Hecht, Jennifer M. (2003). Doubt: A History: The Great Doubters and Their Legacy of Innovation from Socrates and Jesus to Thomas (pgs. 474-75). HarperOne.
5. Hecht, Jennifer M. (2003). Doubt: A History: The Great Doubters and Their Legacy of Innovation from Socrates and Jesus to Thomas (pg. 475). HarperOne.
External links
● Salman Rushdie – Wikipedia.
● Home – SalmanRushdie.com.
