An Iranian foundation said it will reward the man who repeatedly stabbed and seriously injured novelist Salman Rushdie last year during a public speech at an annual festival in western New York with 1,000 square meters of agricultural land. The reward offer by the Foundation to Implement Imam Khomeini’s Fatwas was reported on Tuesday by Iranian state television. The attacker, an American Muslim named Hadi Matar, 24, of New Jersey, has pleaded not guilty to second-degree attempted murder and assault charges and is being held without bail. He has denied being aware of the $3.3 million bounty offered by Iran for Rushdie’s death. Rushdie, 75, lost an eye and the use of one of his hands in the attack, during which he was stabbed at least a dozen times in front of the audience gathered to hear him speak. “We sincerely thank the brave action of the young American who made Muslims happy by blinding one of Rushdie’s eyes and disabling one of his hands,” said Mohammad Esmail Zarei, secretary of the Foundation to Implement Imam Khomeini’s Fatwas, in a statement. “Rushdie is now no more than living dead and to honor this brave action, about 1,000 square meters of agricultural land will be donated to the person or any of his legal representatives.”
Rushdie since 1989 has been under a fatwa, calling for his death, issued by Iran’s Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini over the author’s novel “The Satanic Verses,” inspired by the life of the Prophet Muhammad and which Muslim leaders considered blasphemous. Khomeini died the same year and the fatwa has remained in effect as no one, including Iran’s current supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, has withdrawn the edict. Khamenei, in 2017, said that the fatwa was still in effect. Rushdie went into hiding after the fatwa, but he had dropped much of his security concerns in recent years, and had resumed some public appearances.