Iranian foundation offers land to Salman Rushdie's attacker - state media

An Iranian foundation has praised the man who attacked novelist Salman Rushdie last year, leaving him severely injured, and said it will reward him with 1,000 square meters of agricultural land, state TV reported on Tuesday through its Telegram channel.

Rushdie, 75, lost an eye and the use of one hand following the assault by Hadi Matar, a 24-year-old Shi'ite Muslim American from New Jersey, on the stage of a literary event held near Lake Erie in western New York in August.

"We sincerely thank the brave action of the young American who made Muslims happy by blinding one of Rushdie's eyes and disabling one of his hands," said Mohammad Esmail Zarei, secretary of the Foundation to Implement Imam Khomeini's Fatwas.

"Rushdie is now no more than living dead and to honor this brave action, about 1,000 square meters of agricultural land will be donated to the person or any of his legal representatives," Zarei added.

Former Iranian ayatollah issued bounty on Rushdie

The attack came 33 years after Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, then Iran's supreme leader called on Muslims to assassinate Rushdie a few months after The Satanic Verses was published. Some Muslims saw passages in the novel about the Prophet Muhammad as blasphemous.

The Jerusalem Post first reported on the pro-Iranian regime professor at Oberlin College in Ohio, Mohammad Jafar Mahallati, who endorsed the edict to kill Rushdie at the time.

Lawdan Bazargan, an Iranian-American activist seeking to secure Mahallati's dismissal, told the Post that "I consider Mahallati and US universities such as Oberlin College, Princeton, and Columbia responsible for the stabbing of Salman Rushdie. These elite universities hire the Islamic Regime of Iran's Ambassadors, call them scholars, and give them access to American students to brainwash them and spread radical Shi'a Islamic values. Mahallati had defended the bounty against Salman Rushdie as a non-disputable fact among Muslims."

She added that "In the past 30 years, Mahallati has shared the same ideas with his students in the classrooms, and they shared them with their circle of friends and colleagues, spreading hate and intolerance all over the US. Besides, Mahallati is closely connected with Islamic Centers and mosques in the US, spreading his hateful message through those platforms, radicalizing young people such as Hadi Matar. US universities such as Oberlin are responsible for this terrorist attack because they created a platform for the ideologues such as Mahallati to do the dirty work of Iran's Islamic regime. How many more people must be injured or killed until Oberlin college fire Mahallati and Princeton fire Mousavian?"

Sheina Vojoudi, an associate fellow for the Gold Institute for International Strategy, told the Post that "It’s not surprising that the top state-sponsor of terrorism, which has hijacked an ancient civilization and turned it to the source of funding for terrorism, rewards a terrorist."

The US State Department has classified the Iranian regime as the worst international state-sponsor of terrorism.

Vojoud added that "The Islamic Republic has been rewarding terror entities like Fatemiyoun, Al-Hashd Al-Shaabi, Hamas and Hezbollah since Khomeini’s Islamic revolution. The members of these terror organizations, especially Fatemiyoun, are rewarded with houses and monthly salaries in dollars, not in the Iranian rial. I’ve tried to draw the world’s attention to Fatemiyoun, Hezbollah and Al-Hashd Al-Shaabi’s role in killing the Iranian protesters for the economic benefits."

"It’s time for the European Union to take this matter in consideration and finally list Iranäs Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organization."

Rushdie, who was born in India to a Muslim Kashmiri family, has lived with a bounty on his head and spent nine years in hiding under British police protection.

Although Iran's pro-reform government of President Mohammad Khatami distanced itself from the edict in the late 1990s, the multimillion-dollar bounty hanging over Rushdie's head kept growing and was never lifted.

The man accused of attacking the novelist has pleaded not guilty to second-degree attempted murder and assault charges.