Writer Salman Rushdie, Under Iranian Fatwa, Off Ventilator After Stabbing

Controversial British writer Salman Rushdie was taken off of a ventilator on Saturday, a day after he was stabbed eight times moments before he was to deliver a lecture in upstate New York. His attacker, Hadi Matar, 24, was remanded without bail after pleading not guilty to attempted murder and assault charges. Matar is from Fairview, New Jersey, but his parents immigrated from Lebanon; it is not known if he acted alone. Rushdie, 75, was set to speak at the summer lecture series at the Chautauqua Institution, which draws some of the world’s most prominent authors, politicians and scientists. He was stabbed in the liver and in his eye, as well as in his arm, which severed nerves. He reportedly is likely to lose the injured eye. Rushdie since 1989 has been under a fatwa, calling for his death, issued by Iran’s Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini over his novel “The Satanic Verses,” inspired by the life of the Prophet Muhammad and which Muslim leaders considered blasphemous. Khomeini died the same year. The fatwa has remained in effect as no one, including Iran’s current supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, has withdrawn the edict.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 fatwas 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.