“There could be a number of reasonable, plausible explanations as to what he was thinking.”
The Iranian Fatwa targeting Salman Rushdie over his book was one of the early tests of Islamization in the West. And Western intellectuals failed badly, attacking Rushdie, who had come from a Muslim family, for offending Islam, rather than defending free speech.
Rushdie famously spent much of his life in hiding or under heavy security, appeared at an event in New York and was promptly stabbed by Hadi Matar, a Lebanese Muslim born in California, who federal investigators said, supported Iran and its Shiite Islamic terrorist network.
Apart from shouting, “Free Palestine” (Rushdie, a leftist, had supported that Islamic cause, though he has more recently expressed some skepticism about it), Matar refused to testify at his own trial and his lawyers are reduced to arguing that we can’t know what his real motives might have been.
Matar started researching Rushdie’s whereabouts in 2020, eventually writing in private notes that “we need to kill him ASAP” and “become a warrior and just get it over with,” prosecutors have said.
Matar didn’t testify at his 2025 state court trial, either. His lawyer has said federal prosecutors are making implications but don’t have proof about the man’s intentions.
“There’s no facts. There’s no hard evidence,” Barone said in an interview outside the courthouse last week. “There could be a number of reasonable, plausible explanations as to what he was thinking.”
Yes, maybe he just really hated Salman Rushdie’s haircut.
It’s a real mystery. Probably mental illness. The kind that seems commonplace following Allahu Akbar stabbings and car rammings.
England Invaded says
Rushdie is one them. Always was, seemingly even more so now. The hell this one has caused.
࿗Infidel࿘ says
Yeah. While I never wished him murdered, neither did I even like, much less endorse him. He’s mocked other faiths in the past as well, like Hinduism, and once equated Thatcher’s Britain to Nazi Germany
At this point though, I think it’s safe to assume that the islamic republic can’t pay anybody the promised bounty money for executing on any of their fatwas. Even Hadi Matar found out that he’d have had to have moved to the islamic republic to get a plot of farmland in lieu of the cash, which I don’t think he was looking forward to doing. Anyway, at this point, even if he skates, I doubt that that offer can still be executed, in a manner of speaking 😈
Bean🫘 says
During the so called ceasefire, Iran shipped out 32 billion dollars in energy, enough to comfortably fight this war out.
Great move.
gravenimage says
People of faiths *do not* threaten to murder critics of their religions–fair or unfair. Not the case with Islam.
Troybeam says
Proof of his intent to kill Rushdie, lets see was there a fatwa issued for his death? Did he write about Islam in an offensive manner or simply wrote the truth about Islam?
Either way the it was that fatwa issued that served the culprit in the attack so his motive is clear to whom ever reads between the lines.
David Grisez says
It is so crazy that various people such as the lawyer for Hadi Matar saying that we may never know the motive for Hadi Matar attacking Salmon Rushdie. The motive of this person is so obvious that it is ridiculous and crazy to say that we may never know the motive. We know that Salman Rushdie wrote the book The Satanic Verses which the late Ayatollah Khomeini considered to be blasphemy and pronounced a Death Fatwa on Salman Rushdie which ordered faithful Muslims to locate and murder Salman Rushdie. This Death Fatwa was never rescinded, it is still in force to this very day. Basically Hadi Matar considered it to be his duty as a faithful Muslim who was following the teaching of Islam to murder Salman Rushdie. So the teachings of Islam and the Death Fatwa were the clear motives of Hadi Matar.
tgusa says
“Rushdie Stabber’s Lawyer Says We May Never Know His Motive”
Tell the truth lawyer. We know his motive but will never speak of it. The lawyer actually believes thinking people will buy that. Lawyers are getting dumber and dumber by the day.
Westman says
It was the knife with the intentions, posessed by a Jinn. Matar just couldn’t control it. Sounds as reasonable as claiming, “We may never know”.
gravenimage says
Rushdie Stabber’s Lawyer Says We May Never Know His Motive
…………………………………………………….
Just risible bullsh*t. Salman Rushdie has been under a death Fatwa for decades–and one of his translators and pubishers have also been murdered. The idea that no one knows the motive here is even more absurd than usual.
DM 67 says
The motive was the fatwa piut out by the Ayatolla. Is the lawyer a complete moron?