Attack on Salman Rushdie and its reflection in Iran

On August 12, 2022, Salman Rushdie, the author of the book "The Satanic Verses," was attacked with a knife during a speech in New York, losing the sight of one eye and the use of his hand.

The attacker, Hadi Matar, a 24-year-old man of Lebanese-American descent, later stated in court that he respects Ayatollah Khomeini and was inspired by his fatwa. In Iranian media, this attack was widely reflected as a "symbolic execution of Khomeini's fatwa," and in some reports, it was directly linked to August 12 as a day on which the boundary between law, power, and ideology was once again challenged.

This event, although it occurred on American soil, was interpreted in Iran's political atmosphere as a sign of the continuation of the logic of fatwa and religious ruling in the international arena; a logic that is also repeated within the country in other forms, including security rulings, ideological restrictions, and the definition of political-cultural crimes.