Rushdie’s knighthood stirs Muslim anger

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The knighting of novelist Salman Rushdie has triggered outrage in the Muslim world, with a leader in Pakistan going so far as to claim that it justifies suicide attacks, the Guardian, the BBC and other news sources reported this morning.

Rushdie’s knighthood, for his services to literature, was announced Saturday on an honors list presented on the occasion of Queen Elizabeth’s birthday.

Iran immediately condemned the honor given to the novelist, who went into hiding in 1989 after the late Iranian leader Ayatollah Khomeini called for Rushdie’s death after the publishing of ‘The Satanic Verses.’ ‘Giving a medal to someone who is among the most detested figures in the Islamic community is...a blatant example of the anti-Islamism of senior British officials,’ Iran Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini declared at a news conference.

In Pakistan, a cabinet minister told parliament members that attempts to kill Rushdie, including suicide attacks, are justified ‘unless the British government apologizes and withdraws the ‘sir’ title.’ ‘This is an occasion for the [world’s] 1.5 billion Muslims to look at the seriousness of this decision,’ Mohammed Ijaz ul-Haq, religious affairs minister, said in parliament. ‘The West is accusing Muslims of extremism and terrorism. If someone exploded a bomb on [Rushdie’s] body, he would be right to do so. . . .’

Nick Owchar

(Photo: The Associated Press)