How a knighthood inflamed the world

LIFE must have seemed wonderful to Salman Rushdie as he prepared for his 60th birthday this week. His long and glittering literary career had made him a star guest at fashionable events in his adopted New York, where his beautiful wife Padma Lakshmi was a darling of the paparazzi.

The late Ayatollah Khomeini's death fatwa - issued in 1989 - and the nightmarish decade spent in hiding under armed police guard were long past.

Yet his knighthood in the Queen's Birthday Honours could be a poisoned chalice.

Yesterday, at the end of a week that saw hardliners in Pakistan and Iran baying for his blood, British and Indian Muslims joined global protests against the decision to honour Sir Salman, whose 1988 novel, The Satanic Verses, was seen to have blasphemed against Islam.

Did he, like the committee that recommended the honour, have no idea it would ignite outrage in parts of the Muslim world and bring renewed bloodcurdling threats against his life?

"Cut off his head," chanted traders in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, this week as they announced an 80,000 reward for anyone who beheaded the Indian-born novelist. In Iran, the female head of a foundation offered 750,000 to anyone who executed the "apostate Rushdie".

Yet it is said the writers' organisation in Britain that lobbied for the knighthood had hoped it would lead to better relations between Britain and Asia.

"There is an impression they really didn't consider the potential reaction," said Dr Rosemary Hollis, of London's Chatham House think tank.

But she added: "The Foreign Office has some input and surely pointed out this would be received badly in some quarters."

Dr Hollis said the fall-out had the potential to be as damaging as the Danish cartoon furore last year when western embassies were attacked and set alight.

The speaker of the Egyptian parliament, Dr Ahmad Fathi Surur, believed the honour was even more insulting than the Danish caricatures lampooning the Prophet Muhammad.

Yet so far the outrage has expressed itself only in rhetoric, street protests and diplomatic representations.

Across Pakistan yesterday, some 2,000 protesters called for Sir Salman to be killed and for a trade boycott with Britain. "Awarding Rushdie is starting a fight with Islam," a banner said.

In Iran, a hardline cleric, Ahmad Khatami, insisted the fatwa was "still alive and cannot be changed".

Hardline Iranian newspapers vilified the Queen as if the decision to honour Sir Salman had been solely hers. Jumhuri Islami wondered why the "English hag" had bestowed a knighthood that would only "shorten his miserable life".

It continued: "This act can be seen as a cover-up to distract the public's attention from the sexual scandals of royal prince and princesses who are infamous and detested even among the English population."

In London, Anjem Choudray, the organiser of a protest outside Regent's Park Mosque, declared: "Rushdie is a hate figure across the Muslim world because of his insults to Islam."

About two dozen protesters, some wearing face scarves, called for the Queen to "Go to Hell" as they burnt the flag of St George.

One shouted: "Salman Rushdie is a devil. He should be attacked. We as Muslims should never forget how he insulted the Prophet. We have a responsibility to hold the Queen accountable for standing with the people who insult Islam."

Scottish Muslims entered the row yesterday, condemning the knighthood in a resolution put to worshippers across Scotland, but in moderate terms.

Bashir Maan, the Scottish representative for the Muslim Council of Britain, said the honour was "very unwise" and risked alienating Britain's Muslims.

In the world at large, there are indications that the knighthood row will not have the impact of the Danish cartoons.

Arab News, a liberal English daily in Saudi Arabia, argued there was no point in getting agitated about the knighthood. "We Muslims are wasting our time protesting about what happens in other countries when the whole Islamic world has far bigger problems to face within its own borders," an opinion writer said.

Gerald Butt, editor of the authoritative Middle East Economic Survey, told The Scotsman: "The Arabs see this as an affair that involves Iran. There is this distrust of the Iranians, so the Arabs have decided not to take it as an insult against Islam as a whole."

FIRES, RIOTS AND DEATH - THE VERSES THAT SPLIT TWO CULTURES

THE Satanic Verses was published in September 1988 and copies were publicly torched in Bradford in January 1989 and riots, in which several people died, followed a month later in Pakistan.

Within days, Ayatollah Khomeini, founder of Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution, took up the baton and issued his infamous fatwa.

"I would like to inform all intrepid Muslims in the world that the author of the book Satanic Verses, which has been compiled, printed, and published in opposition to Islam, the Prophet, and the Qor'an, and those publishers who were aware of its contents, are sentenced to death," he declared.

Ayatollah Khomeini's motives are unlikely to have been straightforward. A translation into Farsi of Shame, an earlier novel by the writer, had won a literary prize from the Iranian government and sold well.

By issuing the fatwa, the Ayatollah was attempting to underline his bid for Islamic world leadership.

With great bitterness he had previously accepted a ceasefire in the devastating eight-year war with Iraq. The fatwa was a morale-booster for his supporters.

Iran broke off relations with Britain over the affair and Sir Salman was forced into hiding, costing the British taxpayer 10 million over the next decade for his protection.

In 1998, Iran officially distanced itself from the fatwa during the presidency of Mohammad Khatami, a moderate who championed a dialogue of civilisations. His government pledged it would never send assassins to kill the writer and ties with Britain were renewed.

However, Tehran made clear it could not revoke the fatwa. Only Ayatollah Khomeini could do this and he had died in June 1989.

Hardliners kept endorsing the fatwa every year on its anniversary and, in some cases, increasing the cash bounty.

Fear remained that a freelance assassin would attempt to kill the novelist.

In 1991, the Japanese translator of the Satanic Verses was stabbed to death. An Italian translator was attacked and the Norwegian publisher of the book was hurt in a gun attack.

But in 1999, Sir Salman began making public appearances again.