Freedom Fighter STABBED – Active Bounty on Head
(FeaturedNews.com) – A 24-year-old man is in custody after allegedly trying to kill author Salman Rushdie, the famous writer who drew the ire of many in the extremist Muslim world in the 1980s. Hadi Matar of Fairview, New Jersey, reportedly stabbed the aging author as many as 15 times in front of a live audience in New York. While Rushdie will likely survive the attack, the assailant’s relationship with his own mother may not be so fortunate. She spoke out against her son’s violent aspirations to the Daily Mail, vowing to never have contact with him again.
The Controversy
Rushdie rose to international stardom/infamy in 1988 when one of his books drew the attention of Iran’s former Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khomeini for parallels to the Muslim prophet Muhammed. The artist, a British-Indian writer specializing in science fiction, found himself on the receiving end of an Islamic fatwa, a religious edict calling for his death.
The controversy greatly affected Rushdie’s life. A movie made without his involvement based on his book “The Satanic Verses” sparked immediate outrage among Orthodox Muslims. As the author of the original manuscript, however, it was he who ended up with a $3.3 million bounty on his head.
The threat sent the award-winning novelist into exile for a decade. It wasn’t until 1998, a full 10 years after the book hit the shelves, that Iran pulled support for the fatwa. The nightmare was supposed to be over. The author moved on, penning a memoir about his decade of fear. In 2008 he came out in support of Islam, a move he ultimately retracted.
An Unexpected Affair
The day’s events at the Chautauqua Institute in upstate New York were typical for Rushdie. The venue is a private establishment that promotes well-being through faith, spirituality, and the free exchange of ideas. He was a frequent guest lecturer.
The day would be anything but typical, though. According to Silvana Fardos, Hardi Matar’s 46-year-old mother, her son took a trip to the Middle East and came back a changed person. He became an Iranian sympathizer and someone she hardly recognized.
With obvious malicious intent, Matar managed to get himself onto Institute property and close enough to the famed artist to cause real harm. The vacation that Fardos hoped would motivate her son turned him into a hermit who holed up in her basement and refused to interact with his peers.
Fardos was at work when she received a call that the FBI was raiding her home. “Everyone loved him,” she told the Mail, “I’m not going to bother…he made his own choices.”
A doctor onsite called Rushdie’s wounds “severe but survivable.” At 75, he has a tough recovery ahead.
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