Writer of The Satanic Verses, Salman Rushdie escaped direct physical harm, but others associated with the book have suffered violent attacks. Hitoshi Igarashi, its Japanese translator, was stabbed to death on 11 July 1991. Ettore Capriolo, the Italian translator, was seriously injured in a stabbing in Milan on 3 July 1991. William Nygaard, the publisher in Norway, was shot three times in an attempted assassination in Oslo in October 1993, but survived. Aziz Nesin, the Turkish translator, was the intended target in the events that led to the Sivas massacre on 2 July 1993 in Sivas, Turkey, which resulted in the deaths of 37 people.
Not to mention the $3.3 million cash bounty offered by Islamic spiritual leader Ayatollah Khomeini on Rushdie’s assassination which is still valid till this day.
And yet, Muslims say Islam is a religion of peace!
