Iranians revive, boost fatwa for Salman Rushdie

British writer Salman Rushdie, author of "The Satanic Verses." / Getty Images

(AP) TEHRAN, Iran - A semi-official religious foundation in Iran has increased a reward it had offered for the killing of British author Salman Rushdie to $3.3 million from $2.8 million, a newspaper reported, days after protests coursed through the Muslim world over alleged insults to the Prophet Muhammad.

Hardline Jomhoori Eslami daily and other newspapers reported on Sunday that the move appeared to be linked to protests over an amateurish anti-Islam film, which crowds in some 20 countries said drove them to defend their faith — in some cases by attacking American embassies.

The report said the 15 Khordad Foundation will pay the higher reward to whoever acts on the 1989 fatwa, or religious edict, issued by Iran's late leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, which called for the death of the author "The Satanic Verses" because the novel was considered blasphemous.

The paper said the decision to boost the original reward, offered in the 1990s, came from foundation head Ayatollah Hassan Saneii.

"As long as the exalted Imam Khomeini's historical fatwa against apostate Rushdie is not carried out, it won't be the last insult. If the fatwa had been carried out, later insults in the form of caricature, articles and films that have continued would have not happened," the paper quoted Saneii as saying.

Iran's hardliners say Khomeini's fatwa is "irrevocable."

In 1998, the Iranian government declared it would not support the fatwa, but at the same time the government said it could not rescind the edict, since under Islamic law, that could be done only by the person who issued it. Khomeini died in June 1989.

Khomeini's fatwa sent Rushdie into hiding under police protection, but that didn't stop him from writing more novels. In 1990, he published an apology and reiterated his respect for Islam.

Also on Sunday, thousands of clerics gathered in seminaries across Iran to protest the anti-Islamic movie, state TV reported.

Ahmad Khatami, an ally of the country's top leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, told a gathering in In the holy city of Qom, 130 kilometers south of the capital Tehran, that the United States and Israel were the "main suspects" in the case.

His remarks prompted "death to Israel and "down with the U.S." chants by demonstrators.

[bread58]

No father delights in his children hating and killing one another.

How much more so a Heavenly Father?

[Filmguy870]

Total Word!!!

[waynenipper]

Talk about the a$$hole of the world ... a bunch of neanderthals with nuclear technology ... scary sh++.

[Bush-cheney-R-Terrorists]

I am also issuing a fatwhat for brain dead church leaders who advocate violence and hatred in the name of their goofy religion.

[askagain]

The writers of our Constitution must have foreseen people like you. Fortunately, they made provisions to protect us from people with your ideas about religion. Without religion, we would be living in the stone Ages. What, besides religion, provided people with the guidance and framework for a civilized world? If you think things are bad with religion, imagine what things would be like without religion.

[waynenipper]

Askagain ... get real ... take a pill ...

Some of the most dangerous concoctions of the human mind are the concept of God and organized religion. Over the millennia, and to this very day, religion, in its many and diverse forms, has been the principle 'cause' for the elimination of humanity through death and destruction.

Organized religion is clearly a monumental fraud perpetrated on those seemingly devoid of clear, rationale, intelligent, and independent thought. It would appear having others do your thinking is the norm, and is, apparently, quite acceptable to the gullible, weak-minded multitudes.

The survival of various religions over the centuries has continued through the exploitation of human frailties, fear, and the promise of eternal salvation for those whose ignorance and/or innocence is such as to blind them to such deceit. Those souls, who espouse 'faith' as their answer, are at the pinnacle of self deception. As the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche once stated "Faith: not wanting to know what is true." Albert Einstein writes "The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish."

Quite simply ... God did not make man ... man made God.

See also ... PAT CONDELL - 'THE FAITH OF IDIOTS' and 'Godless and Free' ... on YouTube:

[walkthetalk]

Yeah! the difference we got over. These peolple are just getting started.

[lucifersshadow]

British intelligence should fake his death, collect the reward, then let Iran know that they have been chumped.

[brsinai]

It is quite funny to watch liberals criticize christianity, but cower when it comes to doing the same for islam!

[technocoffee]

...Stupid!! I'm as LIBERAL as they come, and I slam Islamists on the website almost EVERY day!! I've been called "racist" "islamaphobe" "blasphemer" etc etc...Conservative chickenhawks are LOSERS in wars against the Islamists! Thanks to you and Dumbya Bush for starting two losing wars there to help bankrupt us!!

[sdcazares1980]

@technocoffee

"I slam Islam." Tee hee hee hee! ;)

[doubleecho-2009]

This guy wrote a book.
If it offends you, throw it out, burn it, whatever. Tell your religious following not to read it (if you are really THAT into censorship).
But calling for the author to be KILLED is barbarous! That is NOT something done in the modern world!

[jaykay3141]

Judaism survived the Holocaust. Christianity survived the Crusades. But Muslim fanatics believe their religion can be destroyed by a single book ???

[BigBlivefromny]

They have never lived in the modern world and that is the problem. No book written hundreds or thousands of years in the past, Christian, muslim, or otherwise can give us all the answers, though churches and temples would have you believe otherwise,(and donate your $$$ accordingly!).

[ParadoxisOK]

I guess for a Muslim a human head in the basket is more fun than a bag of candy! Sheesh...I am sick of these folks!

[Repubs_R_Fiscal_Liberals]

The problem is the culture. Same religion, different century.

Christianity has the SAME violence as Islam. Ignore your own history at your own peril.

Just forget about the Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, and the Salem witch trials (but burning at the stake is just fun, right?)

Just forget about Hitler saying he was killing Jews to protect the honor of Jesus, and that he was doing the Lord's work.

Just forget about GWB entering Iraq because "God told me to".

[ParadoxisOK]

I agree, IMO, all religions should be dumped. They only cause murder and discord. They served their purpose eons ago, helping to form some sort of law, usually by fear, so that people could get along with one another, but as always, the religions were always taken over by zealots with agendas of world domination. Such dangerous people they were and still are.

[technocoffee]

Islam-"A day without killing or death threats is like a day without sunshine!"

[charmainedenise]

So now you're speaking on Islam's behalf?
More like Technocoffee: "A day without killing or death threats is like a day without sunshine!" Great ideology you have going on there, you stupid neanderthal.

[ParadoxisOK]

To bad there isn't a bounty on the entire population of idiots that consider themselves Muslims. Their arrogance in using their silly religious beliefs to justify doing murder makes them very unwelcome on my planet. This religious occult needs to be either removed from the planet or it's leaders put in prison, for ever...all of them, the mullahs, their dictators, all of them! They serve no purpose other than selling lies and doing murder.