Iran Hasn’t Forgotten Rushdie

Novelist Salman Rushdie marked the start of his second year in hiding from the death sentence pronounced upon him by Iran’s late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini with a request, through intermediaries, for a dialogue with British Muslims to work things out. The answer came back quickly. The deputy director of London’s Muslim Institute, noting that he spoke for “the whole community here,” said the only acceptable resolution would be for Rushdie to be extradited to a Muslim country to face trial on an accusation of blasphemy.

What could Rushdie expect in such a case? “According to Islamic law, the punishment is death.” The speaker of Iran’s Parliament reaffirmed the authenticity of this view by announcing that the edict against Rushdie “remains in full force.”

And so Rushdie, born in India, now a British citizen and author of the novel “The Satanic Verses,” which many Muslims consider insulting, must go on living his strange underground life, protected by armed policeman but isolated from every aspect of normal existence. The $1-million reward promised by Iran to anyone who kills him still stands. Rushdie’s protest that he could not be guilty of blasphemy since he long ago gave up being a believing Muslim has been brushed aside. He is learning what victims of religious persecution have learned throughout history: What counts is not how he defines himself but how his tormentors define him.

The world has witnessed much strange and odious behavior from Iran in the 11 years since its Islamic Revolution. The open avowal of a right to terrorize a person for exercising free thought and free speech in a free society is only one notably bizarre example. Within Iran itself, of course, thousands have suffered barbaric torture and execution because clerical authorities accused them of heresy or insufficient piety. It is small consolation, but unlike these victims, Rushdie at least has some place where he can hide.