New in PJ Media:
Little has been heard from the renowned and notorious novelist Salman Rushdie since Aug. 12, 2022, the day that he was stabbed 15 times and severely injured while onstage at the Chautauqua Institution in New York. But now he has given his first interview since the attack, and it has become clear that even now, six months after he was viciously attacked and fully 34 years after the fatwa against him was first issued, the Western world would still prefer to ignore and deny why exactly he has been targeted and what the implications of this targeting are. In light of the fact that Rushdie is the most famous victim of Islamic blasphemy laws in the entire world, this willful ignorance is as inexplicable as it is inexcusable.
Rushdie has lost the use of his right eye, and one of his hands was severely injured. Asked how he was doing, Rushdie replied wryly, “Well, you know, I’ve been better.” Then he added, “But, considering what happened, I’m not so bad. As you can see, the big injuries are healed, essentially. I have feeling in my thumb and index finger and in the bottom half of the palm. I’m doing a lot of hand therapy, and I’m told that I’m doing very well.” He said that he could not type “very well, because of the lack of feeling in the fingertips of these fingers.” Nonetheless, he is still working: “I just write more slowly. But I’m getting there.”
On the darker side, the stabbing was, understandably enough, traumatizing: “There have been nightmares—not exactly the incident, but just frightening. Those seem to be diminishing. I’m fine. I’m able to get up and walk around. When I say I’m fine, I mean, there’s bits of my body that need constant checkups. It was a colossal attack.”
It was indeed, and it has been perfectly clear why Rushdie was attacked from the very moment it happened. The motive for an attack on Salman Rushdie has been clear since Feb. 14, 1989, when Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini wrote:
In the name of Allah… I am informing all brave Muslims of the world that the author of The Satanic Verses, a text written, edited, and published against Islam, the Prophet of Islam, and the Qur’an, along with all the editors and publishers aware of its contents, are condemned to death. I call on all valiant Muslims wherever they may be in the world to kill them without delay, so that no one will dare insult the sacred beliefs of Muslims henceforth. Whoever is killed in this cause will be a martyr, Allah willing, Meanwhile, if someone has access to the author of the book but is incapable of carrying out the execution, he should inform the people so that [Rushdie] is punished for his actions.
May peace and blessings of Allah be upon you.
There is more. Read the rest here.
