Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The next time the wall street journal editorial board speaks the truth will be the first.

Is it negotiation when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage?

If you thought you’d already seen people saying the stupidest things possible on the internet, prepare yourselves.

Dear Washington Post, you are the darkness now.

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

“Jesus paying for the sins of everyone is an insult to those who paid for their own sins.”

Elections aren’t won by handwringing, cowering, and/or bashing your own candidates.

Every day Vance writes another chapter in the book called “Worst VP Pick Ever”.

If you are in line to indict donald trump, stay in line.

Balloon Juice has never been a refuge for the linguistically delicate.

So many bastards, so little time.

The arc of the moral universe doesn’t bend itself. it’s up to us.

I did not have this on my fuck 2024 bingo card.

Narcissists are always shocked to discover other people have agency.

There is no compromise when it comes to body autonomy. You either have it or you don’t.

Let’s finish the job.

Republicans don’t lie to be believed, they lie to be repeated.

This blog will pay for itself.

He imagines himself as The Big Bad, Who Is Universally Feared… instead of The Big Jagoff, Who Is Universally Mocked.

You’re just a puppy masquerading as an old coot.

The revolution will be supervised.

Dear media: perhaps we ought to let Donald Trump speak for himself!

Let’s bury these fuckers at the polls 2 years from now.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Salman Rushdie Attacked

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99Comments

  4. 4.

    Immanentize

    Remember the words of Yusuf Islam (Cat Stevens): “He who blasphemes the Prophet must die.” So much for a peace train in this world.

  5. 5.

    Ken

    The important thing to remember is that, unlike the lone wolf who attacked the FBI offices yesterday for completely unknown reasons, this attacker is undoubtedly part of a world-wide conspiracy involving every <fill in blank>.

  7. 7.

    Hungry Joe

    About 25 years ago I interviewed Rushdie at the annual booksellers convention. It was in L.A. that year. I was instructed to come to his publisher’s booth at 1 p.m. for a brief security check, then return at 2:00 p.m. to be taken to him. I showed up at 1:00, produced some I.D., and was told by two beefy (or were they “hulking”?) security guys, “We’re going NOW.” They hustled me out a side door of the convention hall and into a black SUV. We headed toward downtown, a couple of miles north. After a few blocks they made a fast U-turn and sped to a hotel a few miles to the west. We pulled into an underground parking garage, where two more large-ish gentlemen were waiting at an unmarked side entrance. I was escorted through that door, which led to a first-floor hallway in the hotel. As we walked down the hall a door opened and I was ushered inside. Rushdie was waiting; smiled, shook my hand. Very nice, VERY smart man. Told me a funny, off-the-record story (not salacious) about his visit to the Playboy mansion. Can’t remember a word I wrote about it for my paper — the memory has been swamped by the Spy vs. Spy thrill ride.

    I hope he’s okay.

  8. 8.

    Old Man Shadow

    God does not need your motherfucking help. If your deity can’t defend itself or it’s honor without you, it’s not a motherfucking god.

  9. 9.

    zhena gogolia

    NYT:
    Rita Landman, an endocrinologist who was in the audience, walked on stage to offer assistance after the talk. She said that Mr. Rushdie had multiple stab wounds, including one to the right side of his neck, and that there was a pool of blood under his body. But she said he appeared to be alive and was not receiving CPR.
    “People were saying, ‘He has a pulse, he has a pulse he has a pulse,’” Ms. Landman said.

  10. 10.

    Elizabelle

    Prayers for Salman Rushdie.  “Stabbed in neck” and “transported by helicopter” do not sound promising, but hoping he survives this.

  11. 11.

    cain

    It’s one of the things I dislike is religions that draw a line in the sand and say “cross this, you die” – it destroys the idea of spiritualness. Then again, Abrahamic religions are a weird breed of religion since it comes from a really bloody history filled with conniving clergy. Of course some things doesn’t change. :)

  14. 14.

    MisterDancer

    Goddamn it, this is not what the Islamic community needs, right now.

    Part of the issue: Khomeini  never issued a “proper” fatwa  to begin with. That’s why the 1998 “rescinding” was more of a “well, we won’t enforce this one,” which matches this JSTOR article’s conclusion:

    Al-Azm suggests that in light of this interpretation, it is useless to ask Iran’s clerics to insist that they withdraw the “fatwa.” Instead, “the only practical course of action is to desist from raising the issue any further, to let the dust settle, to consign it to benign neglect.”

    That said, the same article notes this NYTimes article that I can’t read, but seems to indicate there was some 2016 press in Iran that raised the stakes, and actual payout, for harming Rushdie. I’m not clear what the context on that is, so take all of this — and anyone trying to do the “Islam is inherently evil” slapfight — with a Lot’s Wife size of salt, y’all,

    In other words — without knowing the motives and situation, we’re putting a real, marginalized community At Risk by running up the speculation wheel and making assumptions without evidence. For all the fuck we know, it could be a White Supremacist who’s got a mad-on for Islamic folx!

    Can we think thru how we talk about this, please?

    Thanks.

  15. 15.

    Elizabelle

    From the WaPost:

    Audience members said there were no security checks before entering the event.

    People in attendance were told to evacuate the venue after the attack. Sam Peters, 19, saw the incident unfold from the upper level of the amphitheater. Afterward, he said the mood was one of disbelief. Several of the attendees were in tears.

    Peters, who visits the Chautauqua festival every year, was not familiar with Rushdie’s work but had heard about the death threats the author received. “I went to the talk to find out why people would want to kill someone for their writing,” he said. “I don’t know why he wasn’t better protected.”

  16. 16.

    Villago Delenda Est

    I’m interested in knowing more about the attacker.  And my best wishes to Rushdie for a full recovery.

  17. 17.

    Elizabelle

    @MisterDancer:   Reading the FTF NYTimes article now, and will excerpt it for you.

    I have nothing to say about Rushdie’s attacker.  But:  the FBI’s attacker yesterday posted a lot on Truth Social, per the WaPost.  Surprise, surprise.  Truth Social should get an Orwell award for its name.

  18. 18.

    Chief Oshkosh

    @MisterDancer:

    For all the fuck we know, it could be a White Supremacist who’s got a mad-on for Islamic folx!

    Actually, that’s what I thought when it was first reported.

  21. 21.

    Ken

    @MisterDancer: For all the fuck we know, it could be a White Supremacist who’s got a mad-on for Islamic folx!

    In light of this, I qualify my comment 5: :  This may be a lone-wolf who attacked Rushdie for completely unknown reasons, and whose actions in no way reflect on the larger White Supremacist community.

  22. 22.

    Elizabelle

    From the February 22, 2016 NYTimes article: Iran’s Hard-Line Press Adds to Bounty on Salman Rushdie

    TEHRAN — A group of hard-line Iranian news media organizations says it has raised $600,000 to add to a bounty for the killing of the British novelist Salman Rushdie.

    Iran’s former supreme leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, issued a fatwa, or religious edict, in 1989 calling for Mr. Rushdie to be killed because of his book “The Satanic Verses,” which the ayatollah found to be blasphemous and insulting toward Muslims. Mr. Rushdie has since then been living largely out of sight and under the protection of bodyguards.

    The semiofficial Fars news agency, one of the organizations involved, reported that the new reward money was gathered during a trade fair called the Islamic Republic’s Digital Media Exhibition. It quoted the secretary of the exhibition saying that the $600,000 had been announced last week to mark the anniversary of the 1989 fatwa.

    The Iranian government distanced itself from calls for Mr. Rushdie’s death under former President Mohammad Khatami, a reformist who declared in 1998 that the fatwa had ended. But the religious authorities said it could not be withdrawn by anyone other than Ayatollah Khomeini, who died four months after issuing it. [Tough luck there!]. His successor, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said in 2005 that the fatwa remained valid.

    … Iranian hard-line organizations tend to make symbolic gestures involving the Rushdie fatwa every year around its anniversary, Feb. 14. [Easy to remember: a valentine from the late Ayatollah Khomeini.] Whether the [approximately $4 million] bounty really would be paid is unclear. Many news organizations in Iran do not turn a profit, and some are subsidized by state organizations.

    … “This is just to overshadow the elections, because the hard-liners and their media want to dissuade people from voting in large numbers,” said Mojgan Faraji, a reformist journalist. She said the hard-liners drag up issues from the past to confuse people and to “make other issues more important than voting.”

    Ah yes. The hardliners’ culture wars, dialed up to 11 before elections.

  23. 23.

    trollhattan

    The man suspected of stabbing Salman Rushdie also attacked an interviewer at the event, New York State Police have confirmed.
    Police said the interviewer, who they did not name, sustained a minor head injury.
    According to the event’s billing, Rushdie was due to be joined by Henry Reese.
    Reese is co-founder and president of the Pittsburg non-profit City of Asylum, which was founded in 2004 to provide sanctuary in Pittsburgh to writers exiled under threat of persecution.
    Reese had been inspired to start the organisation after hearing a talk by Rushdie in 1997, according to the organisation’s website.
    -BBC

  25. 25.

    Elizabelle

    @insert clever nickname here mistermix:   From the AP updated story:

    Another spectator, Kathleen Jones, said the attacker was dressed in black, with a black mask.

    “We thought perhaps it was part of a stunt to show that there’s still a lot of controversy around this author. But it became evident in a few seconds” that it wasn’t, she said.

    …  The death threats and bounty led Rushdie to go into hiding under a British government protection program, which included a round-the-clock armed guard. Rushdie emerged after nine years of seclusion and cautiously resumed more public appearances, maintaining his outspoken criticism of religious extremism overall.

    He has said he is proud of his fight for freedom of expression, saying in a 2012 talk in New York that terrorism is really the art of fear.

    “The only way you can defeat it is by deciding not to be afraid,” he said.

    Iran’s government has long since distanced itself from Khomeini’s decree, but anti-Rushdie sentiment has lingered. The Index on Censorship, an organization promoting free expression, said money was raised to boost the reward for his killing as recently as 2016, underscoring that the fatwa for his death still stands.

    In 2012, Rushdie published a memoir, “Joseph Anton,” about the fatwa. The title came from the pseudonym Rushdie had used while in hiding.

    Rushdie rose to prominence with his Booker Prize-winning 1981 novel “Midnight’s Children,” but his name became known around the world after “The Satanic Verses.”

    The Chautauqua Institution, about 55 miles southwest of Buffalo in a rural corner of New York, has served for more than a century as a place for reflection and spiritual guidance. Visitors don’t pass through metal detectors or undergo bag checks. Most people leave the doors to their century-old cottages unlocked at night.

    Police said a state trooper was assigned to Rushdie’s lecture.

    The Chautauqua center is known for its summertime lecture series, where Rushdie has spoken before. Speakers address a different topic each week. Rushdie and moderator Henry Reese were set to discuss “the United States as asylum for writers and other artists in exile and as a home for freedom of creative expression.”

  26. 26.

    Roger Moore

    @Ken: ​
     
    You have it all wrong. We can safely assume this is part of a global conspiracy until proven otherwise. If it turns out it was a lone wolf attacker, we were right to speculate, so much so we were wiser than the people who said to wait until more information was available before drawing conclusions.

  29. 29.

    Chetan Murthy

    I bought and read The Satanic Verses around when it came out.  Good book, but nothing spectacular.  And certainly nothing to issue a death threat for, FFS.  His earlier books — Shame, Midnight’s Children, even Grimus, were much, much better.  I just couldn’t understand the ruckus.  I mean, yeah, I understood the ruckus: some thin-skinned priests got all bent outta shape over the *disrespect*.  Fuck ’em.

  31. 31.

    Another Scott

    A reply in an APNews thread said he apparently was able to walk off the stage on his own power.  A report at DW.com says that Gov. Hochul says that he’s alive and being treated at a local hospital.

    It sounds like he’ll be Ok, but it’s early.

    Fingers crossed for him.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  32. 32.

    lurker

    @Cervantes:

    @Immanentize:

    It would be great to see substantiation of a retraction by Yusuf Islam of his specific remarks about Salman Rushdie.

    I did some significant research into this topic a few years back, and while his original quote seemed to be pretty well documented, the only interviews or statements I could find which were cited as retractions were wishy-washy at best, and he seemed to say that ultimately he could not go against the fatwa.  When I was looking, I was hoping to see a solid retraction and could not find anything solid.  So, if anyone has some good documentation on a retraction, it would be great to see a working link.

    Growing up, Cat Stevens songs were a significant influence and comfort at times, during times when I was unaware he was transitioning to his current identity as Yusuf Islam.  As Yusuf Islam, he seems to be a bit of a mixed bag, doing some pretty amazing work for his community while also engaging in occasional public displays of fundamentalist zealotry.  When I was younger and enjoying the music, the only real fundamentalist zealotry I was personally familiar with was the Christian variety, and that was disturbing enough.  When Iran stepped up to be a bogeyman and we collectively said thank you, we starting piling on more publicly against Islam/Muslims and never really looked back.

    He (Yusuf Islam) is also an example to me of “never meet your idols.”  They are all human, and will never live up to the idolatry we develop from afar.  The corollary is to not idolize anyone, to maintain some perspective even when you experience amazement at someone’s accomplishments.

    Anyway, my two cents plus a few ellipses… Again, if anyone has a solid link with a retraction by Yusuf Islam about the Rushdie comments, I would be glad to see it.

  33. 33.

    MisterDancer

    @Elizabelle: Thanks! And as I noted above, at least one scholar doesn’t think even Khomeini could rescind it, because of how he announced it.

    …look, I’m not actually a credentialed Scholar on Islamic Law, esp. Shīʿa. What I know, it’s because I have studied on it as a layperson, and just happen to be in the middle of doing some reading on (for lack of a a better cross-cultural term) Medieval Islamic Jurisprudence for a project.

    All this to say — y’all, this stuff is a somewhat different world than how we in the West think about law, and not just because this law is deeply entwined with religion. Just unpacking all the current Schools of Islamic thought and jurisprudence — which drives a lot of these decisions, for better or worse — is a process I’ve only dipped a toe into. There’s more here than we in the West usually get properly exposed to/educated on.

    That’s to say please keep a stink-eye on any reporting that tips into this situation from the POV of the backstory on the fatwa and potential motivations, er this horrific incident be related. We just saw a post on how crap the media is about reporting stuff we all should know; imagine how shit it’ll be about things that actually require you to call up someone who might (gasp!) speak a different language.

    Esp. given how so-called “scholars” are already under carrot-and-stick to sell out their academic bona-fides, ala Benard Lewis (once called “perhaps the most significant intellectual influence behind the invasion of Iraq”), to feed the maw of the endless Conservative Hate Train.

  35. 35.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    Breaking on WSJ: FBI removed 11 sets of classified documents, including some marked as Top Secret, as well as information about the President of France, binders of photos, a handwritten note and an executive grant of clemency for Roger Stone.— Hugo Lowell (@hugolowell) August 12, 2022

  36. 36.

    Bupalos

    @Elizabelle: Fuck, at Chautauqua! My kids spent a week there and I remember seeing he was on the schedule!

    Ugh I don’t even want them to find out this happened!

  38. 38.

    Another Scott

    @lurker: I was at the Stewart/Colbert Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear. Islam and Ozzy did a kind of duet of Peace Train/Crazy Train. It was fun – probably the highlight of the event (which was cringey in many places).

    Today (from 2012):

    Even more tricky territory came from Stewart’s inclusion of Yusuf Islam (who changed his name from Cat Stevens) in the “Rally to Restore Sanity” in 2010. Stewart, Ozzy Osbourne, the O’Jays and Colbert joined Islam in a train-themed song parody (Islam/Stevens famously recorded “Peace Train”). But afterward, Stewart heard from author Salman Rushdie, who was disappointed to see Islam included, believing he had supported the 1989 fatwa leveled against Rushdie after the publication of “The Satanic Verses.”

    Stewart relayed that he got a call from Rushdie, and assured him he hadn’t known of Islam’s support of the fatwa. “So I’m like, I’m sure he doesn’t believe that people should be put to death for apostasy,” said Stewart, who promised to call Islam and get it smoothed over.

    His chat with Islam later didn’t go as he’d hoped. “We get into a whole conversation, and it becomes very clear to me that he is straddling two worlds in a very difficult way,” said Stewart. “It broke my heart a little bit. I wish I had known that. I wouldn’t have done (the routine), I don’t think … Because that to me is a deal-breaker. Death for free speech is a deal breaker.”

    FWIW.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  40. 40.

    lurker

    @Chetan Murthy: I bought and read Satanic Verses around then as well, to the dismay of my roommate and his Islamic faith.  To his (roommate) credit, he did not make a big deal about it beyond his initial yelp when he first saw the book.

    Frankly I was unimpressed with the book, and I suspect Khomeini made a lot of money for Rushdie, even as life got miserable for the author.  I doubt I would have picked it up without the publicity of the fatwa, as the book was not something that appealed to my reading tastes.  It seems like the Catholic church finally turned a corner somewhere in the course of dealing with Dan Brown and his Da Vinci Code/Angels and Demons books, as they went from criticizing the first book to eventually responding to the second movie with an approach of saying people should come listen to the “true” stories told in church instead of the entertainment of a movie.

    Hope Rushdie is ok.

  42. 42.

    Chetan Murthy

    @trollhattan: Well, that mentality, plus “my female relations’ reproductive equipment is *my* property, and I’ll destroy it before I let it out of my control,” sure.

  43. 43.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Chetan Murthy: “Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest.”   Attributed to Denis Diderot (my italics)

  44. 44.

    lurker

    @Another Scott: yeah, I remember coming across Stewart’s remarks.  Fits with the rest of my recollections as well.  If you are a true believer in anything, it gets tough at times to deal with the shades of grey in real life as contrasted with the bright lines we get in abstractions.

  47. 47.

    Old School

    @lurker:

    It would be great to see substantiation of a retraction by Yusuf Islam of his specific remarks about Salman Rushdie.

    Per Wikipedia (the mentioned website doesn’t appear to exist anymore):

    On his personal spiritual website he wrote:

    I never called for the death of Salman Rushdie; nor backed the Fatwa issued by the Ayatollah Khomeini—and still don’t. The book itself destroyed the harmony between peoples and created an unnecessary international crisis. When asked about my opinion regarding blasphemy, I could not tell a lie and confirmed that – like both the Torah and the Gospel – the Qur’an considers it, without repentance, as a capital offense. The Bible is full of similar harsh laws if you’re looking for them. However, the application of such Biblical and Qur’anic injunctions is not to be outside of due process of law, in a place or land where such law is accepted and applied by the society as a whole…

  48. 48.

    Fake Irishman

    @Elizabelle: I remember talking with a few paramedics about this in my journalism days. One told me that calling in a helicopter for you was kind of paradoxically a good thing for your prognosis. On the bad side, it meant you had a serious problem that needed help RIGHT NOW or you were going to die, but at the same time going through the drastic step  of calling in that chopper (vs. using an ambulance) meant you had a good chance of making it if you got that help.

  49. 49.

    Tony G

    @cain: Yeah, the “Abrahamic religions”.  Abraham himself, was, of course, ordered by his sadistic God to murder his son, and he was about to do it when the sadistic God told him “Stop.  I was just kidding.”.  What’s repulsive about that foundational fairy tale is not so much the sadism of God as the fact that Abraham, the founder of three religious traditions, obeyed God rather than telling God to go fuck himself.  A tradition, for more than 2000 years, of sadism and cowardly obedience to authority.

  53. 53.

    J R in WV

    My dad grew up in a  newspaper office, and was proud to have worked one summer while enrolled at WVU at the local paper in Chautauqua, where he got to interview a ton of cultural icons. This would have been in the late 1930s or early ’40s, pre WW II. Mostly classical music or operatic stars, which was right up his sweet spot as a lover of classical music. Chautauqua was much more important back in the pre TV days…

    Sad that a well known author could be attacked like that! What a shitty world the fundys of all stripes have made for us all.

  54. 54.

    SiubhanDuinne

    OMG. First I’ve heard of this (my internert has been down for a few hours, so no news, no blogs). This is a terrible thing. I do hope he gets the best of care and recovers fully and quickly.

  56. 56.

    The Moar You Know

    Growing up, Cat Stevens songs were a significant influence and comfort at times

    @lurker: I would suggest that anyone who thinks Stevens/Islam was EVER a nice guy read the lyrics to “Wild World”, which is essentially a man threatening a woman who is leaving him.

    Now that I’ve lost everything to you
    You say you want to start something new
    And it’s breaking my heart you’re leaving
    Baby I’m grieving
    But if you want to leave take good care
    Hope you have a lot of nice things to wear
    But then a lot of nice things turn bad out there
    Oh baby baby it’s a wild world
    It’s hard to get by just upon a smile
    Oh baby baby it’s a wild world
    I’ll always remember you like a child girl
    You know I’ve seen a lot of what the world can do
    And it’s breaking my heart in two
    ‘Cause I never want to see you sad girl
    Don’t be a bad girl
    But if you want leave take good care
    Hope you make a lot of nice friends out there
    But just remember there’s a lot of bad everywhere
    Oh baby baby it’s a wild world
    It’s hard to get by just upon a smile
    Oh baby baby it’s a wild world
    And I’ll always remember you like a child girl yeah
    La la la
    La la la
    Baby I love you, but if you want to leave take good care
    Hope you make a lot of nice friends out there
    But just remember there’s a lot of bad everywhere
    Oh baby baby it’s a wild world
    It’s hard to get by just just upon a smile
    Yeah yeah yeah
    Oh baby baby it’s a wild world
    And I’ll always remember you like a child girl oh yeah
    Oh baby baby it’s a wild world
    It’s hard to get by just upon a smile
    Yeah
    Oh baby baby it’s a wild world
    And I’ll always remember you like a child girl

    Got it all:  infantilization of the woman and veiled threats.  Nice fuckin’ guy.

  57. 57.

    Brachiator

    @J R in WV:

    My dad grew up in a  newspaper office, and was proud to have worked one summer while enrolled at WVU at the local paper in Chautauqua, where he got to interview a ton of cultural icons.

    That sounds like so much fun. Did you ever interview your dad about his life and adventures, or did he ever write a memoir?

  58. 58.

    Another Scott

    @Old School: The Wayback Machine can be very slow at times in calling up old pages.  There’s a h u g e amount of stuff there!  :-)

    Thanks for posting the Wikipedia link.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  59. 59.

    Chetan Murthy

    @raven: I remember really liking The Moor’s Last Sigh.  Lambajan Chandiwala!  Ha!  Also though, an interesting rumination on the sectarian strife that was brewing, and has since then become such a giant force in India.  To be clear: nearly all perpetrated by nutjobs in the Hindu majority.

  61. 61.

    Elizabelle

    @Fake Irishman:   That’s encouraging.  I am hearing that he is in surgery.

    I guess the trooper couldn’t or didn’t do much about the guy with the black mask and hat (maybe it was a covid face mask??, and so passed less noticed), but at least he or she could call in a heli ASAP.

    All wishes for a full recovery and lots more writing to Salman Rushdie.  Who was busy earlier today advocating for assistance for endangered writers in Ukraine.

    Suzanne Nossel, the chief executive officer of PEN America, which promotes free expression, said that “we can think of no comparable incident of a public attack on a literary writer on American soil.”

    “Just hours before the attack, on Friday morning, Salman had emailed me to help with placements for Ukrainian writers in need of safe refuge from the grave perils they face,” she said in a statement. “Salman Rushdie has been targeted for his words for decades but has never flinched nor faltered.”

  62. 62.

    Anyway

    Hope Rushdie makes a complete recovery.

    I never read “Satanic Verses” – the hype put me off — but enjoyed Midnight’s Children and Imaginary Homelands. I used to be a regular -Granta- reader and he would often have pretty good essays in it.

  63. 63.

    Brachiator

    @The Moar You Know:

    I would suggest that anyone who thinks Stevens/Islam was EVER a nice guy read the lyrics to “Wild World”, which is essentially a man threatening a woman who is leaving him.

    I don’t know. What if we judge him by the life he has led? Or better yet, not judge him at all?

    The lyrics of a huge pile of songs of all genres are appalling on many levels.

    Or maybe you are just being snarky and I missed it.

  64. 64.

    Roger Moore

    @Tony G:

    I’ve heard an interesting twist on the Abraham/Isaac story, which is that as much as God was supposedly testing Abraham, Abraham was really testing God.  He never intended to go through with sacrificing his only* son, but was seeing if God would really demand he go through with it.  So while God found that Abraham would follow his commands, Abraham found that God wouldn’t demand of him what he wasn’t willing to do.  I’m not sure this is properly supported by the Biblical text, but at least it’s an interesting take on the story.

    *Isaac wasn’t actually his only son, since he already had Ishmael, but Isaac was his legitimate son and the one he doted on.

  65. 65.

    SiubhanDuinne

    I wonder how the attack is being reported in India, Rushdie’s birth country. I hope we hear something from Schrödinger’s Cat once she’s up and functioning (I think it’s the middle of the night right now).

  66. 66.

    Betty Cracker

    @Hungry Joe: That was a memorable encounter — thank you for sharing it! Rushdie is a brilliant writer, and it’s good to hear he’s a nice and interesting man on a personal level. I hope he’s okay.

  68. 68.

    trollhattan

    Republican book-banners now paralyzed over whether “Satanic Versus” needs banning or handed out free at conventions.

  69. 69.

    lurker

    @Old School: that is comforting to hear, and much more straightforward than anything I ever uncovered.  Pretty sure the wikipedia page in question did not have that bit when I looked into it, but I might have missed it, and I did not find the statement on his personal website (not sure I found his personal website at the time).

    While I think he might be engaging in a bit of revisionist history here, I think you at least have to take him at his word that he does not currently support the fatwa, regardless of his past comments.

    I find the bit about being unprepared for what the press would do a little disingenuous.  The guy had been involved in popular culture and related press coverage for a long time, and should at least have had some idea of how other artists had been savaged before then.  So, he likely could have been either more circumspect in public comments or more aggressive in working to combat them at the time.

    Also, from a few experiences and from knowing people in the entertainment industry and other people in politics (e.g. consultants), I tend to be skeptical of thinking I can really evaluate the private thoughts of almost any public figure – if you are successful enough to get regular press, you can likely hide your actual opinions effectively.

  70. 70.

    Immanentize

    @lurker: Thank you. Your read is the same as mine. It was a joke, I didn’t say what is recorded O said, I was just describing the Islamic faith. There is no retraction or apology and the early statements and transcripts are very clear and no joke. It is like reading republican retractions or apologies — slippery at best.

    Meanwhile, just to be up to date in your files, he has now dropped “Islam” and simply goes by the name “Yusuf.”

  71. 71.

    lurker

    @The Moar You Know: not my favorite song by him even when I was much younger and listening to his stuff.  He is not really someone I have listened to in any number of years.  At the time, I enjoyed a few things in particular, but my reaction to wild world was similar to my reaction to Every Breath You Take.  That being said, some artists also come up with songs that are meant to comment on something rather than endorse it.  Not sure of how that might relate to this situation.

    This also relates to my comment here: lurker:

    Also, from a few experiences and from knowing people in the entertainment industry and other people in politics (e.g. consultants), I tend to be skeptical of thinking I can really evaluate the private thoughts of almost any public figure – if you are successful enough to get regular press, you can likely hide your actual opinions effectively.

    I have no idea of whether Islam/Stevens was ever a nice guy.  I used to like Elvis Costello even though I wondered about some of his stuff, until some comments caused me to look more closely at his past.  Van Morrison can likely sing an amazing lullaby with his talented voice, but I would never let him near someone I cared about (of any age) as he seems to have lost any ability to maintain a nice public image and exposed himself as someone seemingly despicable.

     

    I tend to focus on lyrics in a song in part because I lack musical talent.  So picking up on Every Breath You Take when other people were using it at weddings was not hard, but also confusing due to its reception.  I missed the boat on a few notable ones, but had great fun discovering The Who and some of their lyrics at a time of greater censorship.

    Have rambled enough – much more than I had time for, so getting back to reality…

  73. 73.

    Lyrebird

    @Brachiator: I might disagree on the general point of judging character by lyrics.  But here, I agree with you on not judging him at all, if that means not judging an entire religion based on one not typical convert.

    If we weren’t still in a big Islamophobia wave I might see it differently.  Sadly, there are murderers of every stripe.

  74. 74.

    lurker

    @Immanentize: Also, the other interesting thing to come out of this are the allegations that Rushdie satirized Yusuf himself.  I remember running into a hint of that years ago, but not really seeing much about it or getting the sense it was a well thought out interpretation.  The idea that Yusuf might have a more personal angle to this seems more clear to me after reading the wikipedia page (which is still getting some active editing as of June?!), and that adds a dimension for me.

    Ok, I think I have hit my comment quota for the year now, gotta deal with other fires…

  75. 75.

    Immanentize

    @Tony G: During Bob Dylan’s gospel period*, we used to joke after singing Jesus songs, at night, in his hotel room, Bob would lock himself in a closet and whisper: “God said to Abraham, kill me a son…” (Which is one of the funniest stanzas he ever wrote “you can do what you want And but, the next time you see me you better run….”)

    *I saw him twice during this period. One of them was at this fabulous renovated old theater in Syracuse New York. His voice was in top notch shape, the gospel singles were amazing and the musicians were tight. Maybe the best Dylan concert I ever saw (and I’ve seen many, large and small). At one point, Bob reached down — there a podium (pulpit?) thing near by — and he picked up a Bible. “Only book I read.” He said.

  76. 76.

    Immanentize

    @lurker: those were excellent comments. My advice is just keep commenting when the spirit moves you. It’s nice to engage with new voices.

  78. 78.

    Immanentize

    @lurker: OK, one last response before I go do a bit more work — I actually am a strong believer in what some call “the dead author theory” which is that I try to treat all works as if the author were dead or never existed as a being. In other words, I try not to let biographies get in the way of my enjoyment of whatever was produced. But it is near impossible if you read widely (like a news paper?) Still, some of my favorite works are by less than perfect humans. I remember really developing this theory when a good friend in college said, “Aristotle was such a sexist asshole!” Yes, yes he was.

    But I am not upset about the music Yusuf produced (his art) as a reflection of his person. In the Rushdie case, the guy was just a shit human.

  79. 79.

    Bupalos

    @Old School: That’s very equivocal. It kinda sounds like he supports Rushdie being put to death, but only if it happens in Iran under the color of law.

  80. 80.

    lurker

    @Immanentize: thanks for the kind thoughts…

    however, if I commented when the spirit moves me, a lot of stuff that needs to get dealt with would not get done … ok, less stuff that needs to get dealt with would get done, as a lot of it still does not get done…

    I tend to comment late at night on those rare occasions when I can, due to daytime obligations of various sorts, but I have been commenting here for more than a few years, just very sporadically, and often about mustard.  And despite my hopes, watergirl seems to be restoring many of those old comments (as she should).

     

    Gah! must stop typing on this site… ; – )

  81. 81.

    Mr. Bemused Senior

    @HinTN: ​
    @HinTN: ​

    True story: in second grade the teacher asked the class for their favorite authors and my daughter replied “Salman Rushdie.” When we went to the parent/teacher conference we received the news that she makes things up. Of course, Haroun was a favorite in our family and we had read it aloud multiple times.

    As for songs and Abrahamic tradition, I suggest Judy Collins’ Story of Isaac

  82. 82.

    lurker

    @Immanentize: yeah, understood

    never went as far as the dead author approach, which I have heard of in some form, but without any kind of title to it…

    I tend to forgive most people a lot of their faults, including authors and other artists.  Then someone gets to a tripping point, and I stop listening to Oliver’s Army for a long time, for example.  I still listen to Boston on occasion, even thought people I know tell me that Tom Scholz was such a lousy person to deal with that only Brad Delp could eventually put up with him.  And I still consider MIT a potential destination for a kid even though I know of a bunch of people who came out of there with impressive capability for evil.

    Ultimately, we all have to draw a line somewhere to determine what we will or will not tolerate, and being humans that line tends to wander like Paul Klee was taking it out for a walk.

  83. 83.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    Fucken eh, that’s what, over 40 years to “take vengeance”. Most people alive now don’t even know what the hell this is about. These god bothering dimwits need to get a life.

    And I guess the murder plot against Bolton was real, even if it leaves me conflicted.

  84. 84.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Elizabelle: TEHRAN — A group of hard-line Iranian news media organizations says it has raised $600,000 to add to a bounty for the killing of the British novelist Salman Rushdie.

    Lovely, inflation on murder for hire. What is Iran’s role in the world show there everyone there is an even lower level of stupid things can go?

    The US “Trump stole nuklear’ sekrets’ so he could show off too his friend. ”

    Iran “Were going to take 45 years to murder some writter who wrote a book that upset our fee fees.”

  86. 86.

    topclimber

    Doesn’t Hillary live in Chattaqua? In the 19th century it was the center of a national movement of intellectual symposia much beloved by educated Americans of the day. So, the anti fundamentalist movement of the day.

    Sorry, but no link gonna happen. Doing this on my cellphone and greatly appreciating the typing slowdown compared to a keyboard (not really, for those who need a snark tag). It seems I am not a robot, much less an android.

  89. 89.

    J R in WV

    @Brachiator: ​
     

    My dad wrote a nearly daily column in his newspaper over some 30 years, and still left a lot out. My cousins and I spent a couple of hours on a computer enabled phone call recently talking about our parents and grandparents touring Europe for several months in 1938. One in Hawaii, one in Brazil, me in WV where we all grew up, and one in New Mexico where she runs a horse rescue group. One cousin has the passport with stamps from nations that haven’t existed for 70 years now. The whole family was interesting and somewhat eccentric, as are my cousins and I.

  91. 91.

    Ric Drywall

    70 miles southwest of Buffalo? That would be Erie PA, I think.

    Edit: I guess Erie is a little further away.

  92. 92.

    Amir Khalid

    This thread is long dead, but I should say something here.

    I’m Muslim in a Muslim-majority country. Unlike the vast majority of Malaysian Muslims, I have read The Satanic Verses. (It was banned here and still is. I borrowed a copy from someone who had been gifted it from abroad.)

    It’s still a mainstream view among Muslims that Salman Rushdie committed capital blasphemy against Prophet Muhammad, and deserves to die for it. I think Rushdie did in fact commit a blasphemy. (Although I don’t agree that blasphemy should be a capital crime — nothing should be a capital crime — or indeed a crime at all.)

    Yusuf Islam was expressing that mainstream Muslim view. To expect him to repudiate that view would have been asking a lot of someone still fairly new to the faith, as he was then. I was disappointed that he seemed to acquiesce to the death penalty for Rushdie, but I don’t fault him for stating Islamic law as he had been taught it.

    What disappoints me about the Jackaltariat is that any discussion here of Islam or Muslims, even the most tangential, has a way of drawing out a certain low-key Islamophobia that some Jackals carry. If you have that, you probably don’t see it — our biases are by definition not consciously held — but I definitely can.

  93. 93.

    Rick Taylor

    @Amir Khalid:

    I appreciate your honesty and your openness. You’re saying that it’s a mainstream view among muslims that Rushdie deserves to die for writing a book. You agree Rushdie committed blasphemy. Yusuf Islam was just expressing a mainstream Muslim view. And it would be a lot to expect of a Muslim new to the faith to repudiate the call fo the death of someone for writing a book.

    Ok. I’m honestly not sure what to say. That is frightening.

  94. 94.

    Geminid

    @Rick Taylor: I think what the commenter is saying about Stevens is that new converts typically are less critical of a faith’s tenets than people raised in the faith can be. That’s a widespread phenomenon, in religion, and other types of belief systems.

  96. 96.

    WaterGirl

    @Amir Khalid: Amir, if you would like to do a guest post on this, I would happily publish it.

    Or I could put your comment in a front page post and open things up for discussion.

    Would you be good with either of those things?

  98. 98.

    Rick Taylor

    @Amir Khalid:

    And of course you took no notice of my observation about low-key Islamophobia among jackals.

    You did not point out any specific examples of what you meant by low-key Islamophobia, which makes it difficult for me to respond. I do accept that I may not be able to see such examples because of my conditioning, but beyond that, without something specific to reply to, I don’t know what to say.

    I have been very disturbed that after having a fatwa put upon him for writing a book, Salmon Rushdie was stabbed in the throat and will probably lose an eye, and is lucky to be alive. I’m disturbed when you state it is a mainstream view among muslims that Rushdie deserved to die. I am disturbed when I read comments on youtube videos, where multiple people celebrate the assault on Rushie, saying it was the greatest thing that happened in 2022, and Alu Akhbar. Am I being Islamaphobic in having these reactions, in the wake of such a brutal senseless assault?

    Of course I have also seen muslims condemning what happened without equivocation. I like to think that such views are in the majority. Although you are the one, not me, that said it was a mainstream view among muslims that Rushdie should die.

  99. 99.

    Rick Taylor

    @Geminid:

    I think what the commenter is saying about Stevens is that new converts typically are less critical of a faith’s tenets than people raised in the faith can be. That’s a widespread phenomenon, in religion, and other types of belief systems.

    I think that’s reasonable, and it wasn’t my purpose to criticize him. But I do find it disturbing that there is a form of Islam that evidently makes it very difficult for people to deny it was appropriate for Salman Rushdie to be killed because of a book he wrote.

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