Salman Rushdie attacked

Currently on a ventilator, expected to lose an eye. I am so fed up with these barbarians.

sigma said:
Crazy, let's hope he pulls through.

If I'm understanding it correctly, the fatwa was issued because of how a character was modelled? No reference to any religious books (even if there was, killing someone for it is ridiculous)? Madness.
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It was a whole bunch of issues, none of which justified a fatwah.

jsmoke said:
The Fatwa is still active then . Talk about holding a grudge.
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Even if it wasn't still active, there's no shortage of Muslims willing and eager to kill Rushdie.
 
If paradise is a concrete box with not too many virgins, he will go there.

I hope that Salman Rushdie recovers to write another dozen books at least.
 
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Looks like he's going to make it, albeit with lasting injuries.

Think I might order a copy of The Satanic Verses later.
 
ianh said:
Even after 40 years have passed it still seems that simply writing a fictional book is enough to rile up some religious idiot (not confirmed yet but more than likely) enough for them to attempt to murder the author. It's a shame so many religions are so full of intolerant people.
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Absolutely this. Religion should be something you believe in and follow yourself, it should not involve any other person.

There needs to be more extreme sentences for people like this.
 
A reasonable mind wouldn't have taken personal offense to the book.

Though this mind set seems to be spreading more across the world.
 
NickK said:
In the UK I thought you can't commercially benefit from your crimes, for example if you murder someone you can't write a book etc so the funds of a fatwa would be seized.

Personally I think assets from the attack should be seized - that includes after. Iran won't give a damn about the US so there would always be a hero's welcome should he decide to relocate to Iran and collect the bounty. I suspect there will be a lot of hardline muslims that would be willing to help defend him to reduce his sentence.
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It's abhorrent. Religion divides people, it always will.
 
sigma said:
This is the irony of the whole situation, it actually brings focus the book/topics.
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Quite. From @Sankari's link:

Although British bookseller W.H. Smith sold "a mere hundred copies a week of the book in mid-January 1989", it "flew off the shelves" following the fatwa. In America it sold an "unprecedented" five times more copies than the number two book, Star by Danielle Steel, selling more than 750,000 copies of the book by May 1989. B. Dalton, a bookstore chain that decided not to stock the book for security reasons, changed its mind when it found the book "was selling so fast that even as we tried to stop it, it was flying off the shelves". Rushdie earned about $2 million within the first year of the book's publication, and the book is Viking's all-time best seller.​

It'd be nice if it made it back into the bestseller lists as a result of this.
 
Semple said:
Very true, although I would say most of those in a Western society do not result in murder/attempted murder.
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Really? There are surely good arguments to suggest otherwise. How else do you explain the disproportionate numbers of deaths during arrest/in custody of black Americans? What about those woman killed by their partners or ex partners? Do homophobic attacks not happen? While obviously these things are more common than they ought to be, they are not main stream.

This is a disgusting attack by a man who it seems has a particular interpretation of a religion, it is perhaps unfair to the millions of law abiding, charitable and kindly Muslims around the world to suggest that this man's understanding of their religion is the interpretation held by most of all. I can't help but feel it would be like looking at the Westbro Baptist Church an d coming to the belief that all Christians share their views, or to assume all Christian clergy are paedophiles based on the behaviour of some Catholic clergy.

Personally I have an issue with religious extremism of any kind but to brand an entire religion based is to lose perspective I feel. This issue here isn't this man's religion , it's his extremism.
 
Mr Jack said:
Quite. From @Sankari's link:

Although British bookseller W.H. Smith sold "a mere hundred copies a week of the book in mid-January 1989", it "flew off the shelves" following the fatwa. In America it sold an "unprecedented" five times more copies than the number two book, Star by Danielle Steel, selling more than 750,000 copies of the book by May 1989. B. Dalton, a bookstore chain that decided not to stock the book for security reasons, changed its mind when it found the book "was selling so fast that even as we tried to stop it, it was flying off the shelves". Rushdie earned about $2 million within the first year of the book's publication, and the book is Viking's all-time best seller.​

It'd be nice if it made it back into the bestseller lists as a result of this.
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With those figures he probably welcomed the fatwa!
 
Religion truly amazes me. So many people willing to throw their one chance at life away just because some guy wrote a book they didn't like. Incredible.
 
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