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‘Fatwa’ made me stronger: Rushdie

Hasan Suroor

LONDON: Salman Rushdie, who lived under the shadow of death for nearly a decade following the infamous Iranian fatwa, has revealed that actually, in the end, it helped him become a stronger person though initially it was a nightmare and nearly “erased” his personality.

The fatwa, which authorised Muslims to seek and kill Rushdie for allegedly insulting the Prophet in his novel “The Satanic Verses”, was issued by the late Iranian spiritual leader Ayotallah Khomeini in 1989 sparking an international outcry.

Sir Salman is reported as saying in an upcoming television programme that its initial effect was so horrifying that it sapped all his creative energy and he started questioning the very purpose of writing. “It’s the only time in my life that I ever really thought, if this is what you get for writing, then why do it?” he tells psychologist Pamela Connolly in a Channel 4 programme that puts celebrities on the couch.

Worst moment

The India-born author, who hit international fame after the success of “The Midnight’s Children”, says that his worst moment was when, in a bid to calm the Muslim anger, he claimed that he had become a believer.

“That’s the moment at which I hit rock bottom,” he tells the interviewer.

But that was also the moment which made him rethink.

“After that it cleared things up in my head….I stopped being the prisoner of that thing [fatwa] because I thought, OK, there are people who are not going to like me and do you know I don’t like them,” he says.

Although officially the fatwa has not been lifted and from time to time fanatics renew threats, it lost its sting after Khomeini’s death and, in 2003, the then moderate Iranian president Mohammad Khatami declared that the death sentence should be seen as closed. Successive Iranian governments have distanced themselves from it.

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