MAYVILLE, New York –
Salman Rushdie remained hospitalized on Saturday after suffering serious injuries in a stabbing attack while being praised from the West, but was scorned in Iran.
Rushdie, 75, suffered liver damage, severed nerves in his arm and eye, and was on a ventilator, his agent Andrew Wylie said Friday night. Rushdie would likely lose the injured eye.
Police identified the suspect as 24-year-old Hadi Matar. He was arrested after the attack at the Chautauqua Institution, a nonprofit educational and retirement center where Rushdie was scheduled to speak.
Matar, of Fairview, New Jersey, was born in the United States to Lebanese parents who immigrated from Yaroun, a border town in southern Lebanon, Mayor Ali Tehfe told The Associated Press.
Rushdie’s novel “The Satanic Verses” received death threats after its publication in 1988. It was considered blasphemous by many Muslims who saw the character as an insult to the Prophet Muhammad, among other objections. The book was banned in Iran, where the late leader Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a fatwa, or edict, in 1989 calling for Rushdie’s death.
Police said the motive for Friday’s attack was unclear. Matar was born a decade after the first publication of “The Satanic Verses”. Investigators were working to determine if the assailant acted alone.
Iran’s theocratic government and its state media did not give any justification for the attack. In Tehran, some Iranians interviewed by the AP praised the attack on a perpetrator they believe tarnishes the Islamic faith, while others worry it further isolates the country from him.
An AP reporter watched as the attacker confronted Rushdie onstage and stabbed or punched him 10 to 15 times while introducing himself to the perpetrator. Dr. Martin Haskell, a doctor who was among those rushing to help, described Rushdie’s injuries as “serious but recoverable”.
The event’s moderator, Henry Reese, 73, co-founder of an organization that provides residencies for writers facing persecution, was also attacked. Reese suffered a facial injury and was treated and released from a hospital, police said. He and Rushdie had planned to talk about the United States as a refuge for writers and other artists in exile.
A state trooper and a county sheriff’s deputy were assigned to Rushdie’s conference, and state police said the trooper made the arrest. But after the attack, some longtime visitors to the center questioned why there wasn’t tighter security for the event, given decades of threats against Rushdie and a bounty on his head that offered more than $3 million to anyone who will kill him
Matar, like other visitors, had obtained a pass to enter the 750-acre grounds of the Chautauqua Institution, said Michael Hill, the institution’s president.
The suspect’s attorney, public defender Nathaniel Barone, said he was still gathering information and declined to comment. Matar’s house was blocked by the authorities.
Rabbi Charles Savenor was among the approximately 2,500 people in the audience for Rushdie’s appearance.
The assailant ran onto the platform “and started hitting Mr. Rushdie. At first you think, ‘What’s going on?’ And then it became very clear within a few seconds that he was being hit,” Savenor said. He said the attack lasted about 20 seconds.
Another bystander, Kathleen James, said the attacker was dressed in black, wearing a black mask.
Amid gasps, the spectators were ushered out of the open-air amphitheater.
The stabbing reverberated from the quiet town of Chautauqua to the United Nations, which issued a statement expressing the horror of UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres and stressing that freedom of expression and opinion should not be met with violence.
Iran’s mission to the United Nations did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Friday’s attack, which headlined an evening news bulletin on Iranian state television.
From the White House, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan called the attack “reprehensible” and said the Biden administration wishes Rushdie a speedy recovery.
Rushdie has been a leading spokesman for free speech and liberal causes, and the literary world recoiled from what Rushdie’s friend and novelist Ian McEwan described as “an assault on freedom of thought and expression.”
“Salman has been an inspiring advocate for persecuted writers and journalists around the world,” McEwan said in a statement. “He is a fiery and generous spirit, a man of immense talent and courage and he will not be intimidated.”
After the publication of “The Satanic Verses”, often violent protests broke out throughout the Muslim world against Rushdie, who was born in India into a Muslim family.
At least 45 people were killed in riots over the book, including 12 people in Rushdie’s hometown of Mumbai. In 1991, a Japanese translator of the book was stabbed to death and an Italian translator survived a knife attack. In 1993, the book’s Norwegian publisher was shot three times and survived.
Khomeini died the same year he issued the fatwa calling for Rushdie’s death. Iran’s current supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, never issued a fatwa of his own withdrawing the edict, though Iran in recent years has not targeted the writer.
The death threats and reward drove Rushdie into hiding under a British government protection program, which included a 24-hour armed guard. Rushdie emerged from nine years in seclusion and cautiously resumed more public appearances, keeping his open criticism of religious extremism in general.
In 2012 Rushdie published a memoir, “Joseph Anton”, about the fatwa. The title comes from the pseudonym Rushdie used while he was in hiding. He said during a talk in New York the same year the memoir was published that terrorism was really the art of fear.
“The only way you can beat him is by deciding not to be afraid,” he said.
Rushdie rose to fame with his Booker Prize-winning 1981 novel “Midnight’s Children,” but his name became known around the world after “The Satanic Verses.”
The Chautauqua Institution, about 55 miles southwest of Buffalo in a rural corner of New York, has served for more than a century as a place of reflection and spiritual guidance. Visitors do not pass through metal detectors or undergo baggage checks. Most people leave the doors of their centuries-old cabins open at night.
The center is known for its summer conference series, where Rushdie has spoken before.
At an evening vigil, a few hundred residents and visitors gathered to pray, listen to music and observe a long moment of silence.
“Hate cannot win,” one man yelled.
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Italy reported from New York.