Knighted by the British Queen, Sentenced to Death by Iran

Sir Ahmed Salman Rushdie is a British-Indian novelist and essayist. He first achieved fame with his second novel, Midnight's Children (1981), which won the Booker Prize. Much of his fiction is set on the subcontinent of India. Increasingly, however, the dominant theme of his work has become the long, rich and often fraught story of the many connections, disruptions and migrations between the East and the West.

His fourth novel, The Satanic Verses (1988), provoked violent reactions from radical Muslims. After death threats and a fatwa (religious ruling) issued by Iranian Ayatollah Khomeini calling for his assassination, he spent years underground, appearing in public only sporadically. During the last decade, however, he has resumed a normal literary life. He was made a knight bachelor in June 2007 which has raised eyebrows of the Muslim communities around the world and especially in the United Kingdom, where they believe this is tailored to humiliate them.

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The novel [Satanic Verses] was banned in India and South Africa and burned on the streets of Bradford, Yorkshire. When Ayatollah Khomeini called on all zealous Muslims to execute the writer and the publishers of the book, Rushdie was forced into hiding. Also an aide to Khomeini offered a million-dollar reward for Rushdie's death. In 1993 Rushdie's Norwegian publisher William Nygaard was wounded in an attack outside his house. In 1997 the reward was doubled, and the next year the highest Iranian state prosecutor Morteza Moqtadale renewed the death sentence. During this period of fatwa violent protest in India, Pakistan, and Egypt caused several deaths. In 1990 Rushdie published an essay In Good Faith to appease his critics and issued an apology in which he reaffirmed his respect for Islam. However, Iranian clerics did not repudiate their death threat. Since the religious decree, Rushdie has shunned publicity, hiding from assassins, but he has continued to write and publish books.

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Via Fars News (Iran) -

Tehran on Sunday lambasted Britain for having awarded Indian-born British author Salman Rushdie with a knighthood, saying the measure reveals the anti-Islam stances of the senior British officials.

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Via Fars News (Iran) -

An Iranian Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) announced that it would pay a $150,000 prize to anyone who could put into effect a death sentence decree issued by the Late Founder of the Islamic Republic, Imam Khomeini, against Salman Rushdie for blasphemy.

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The NGO secretary general also added, "According to Imam Khomeini's verdict, it is an obligation for all Muslims to kill Salman Rushdie even if he repents from the bottom of his heart and becomes the pious man of the time."

"Also according to Imam's verdict, if a non-Muslim person can find and execute Rushdie sooner than Muslims, it will be an obligation for Muslims to provide such a person with whatever he wants as his payment or prize," he reminded.