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Thirty years after Iran called for the badbadination of Salman Rushdie, the British novelist remains a figure of hatred against extremists in the Muslim world and, although the level of indignation has decreased the problem of blasphemy is still inflammatory.
Rushdie's novel, "The Satanic Verses", sparked mbad protests from London to Islamabad and, according to badysts, closed the space for discussion around Islam in a way that still resonates. today.
Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, spiritual leader of Iran, published the fatwa calling for the murder of Rushdie on February 14, 1989.
A day earlier, thousands of protesters enraged by the publication of the novel had attacked the US Cultural Center in Islamabad. Five people were killed in subsequent clashes with the police.
The Pakistani journalist Shahid ur Rehman told AFP that he was among the first to arrive on the scene that day and saw men storm the roof of the center and shoot down his American flag while the police fired tear gas, then live ammunition.
Rehman said the novel was a brutal shock to a Muslim world "lounging in glory".
The Iranian revolution was only ten years old and the Soviet Union was about to collapse after being chased out of Afghanistan by the US-backed mujahideen, the Muslims in general and Pakistan claiming particular merit the defeat of an empire.
Rushdie's novel and the fatwa that followed resemble "a dam break," said Rehman.
Today, the novelist is "hated as much … as at the time," said a Pakistani religious scholar, Tahir Mahmood Ashrafi.
But "people can not protest consecutively for 30 years," he added.
The anger aroused by blasphemy remains effervescent, however, among Islamist extremists.
In Pakistan, over the past decade, politicians have been murdered, European countries threatened with nuclear annihilation and students lynched on the subject.
The case of Asia Bibi – a Christian woman whose death sentence for blasphemy was overturned in Pakistan last year, causing days of violence and drawing the world 's attention to the world. religious extremism in this country of Southeast Asia – is only the last example.
Ashrafi said the publication of the novel "Justified Laws" against blasphemy – without them, he said, "people like Rushdie will continue to undermine the religious sentiments of Muslims."
– "catastrophic" –
Even calls for law reform have provoked violence in Pakistan, and for some, the fatwa has blurred the boundaries between blasphemy and intellectual debate in the Muslim world.
Analysts such as Khalid Ahmed, author of a book on the sectarian cleavage in Pakistan, say the fatwa marked the beginning of a "terrible decline" in intellectual discourse in Islam.
Khomeini's call to blood is "catastrophic for the freedom of creation, literature and thought," Egyptian journalist and novelist Ibrahim Issa said.
Other fatwas have already been launched against writers, but they usually involve small, extremist groups. Khomeini was the first published by an Islamic State.
"It's a dark moment that, thirty years later, reminds us of how dangerous the interference of religion in freedom of expression is," he told AFP.
Iran's top leader, Ali Khamenei, has repeatedly reiterated the verdict against Rushdie, most recently in 2015.
The Iranian government has promised not to follow up the fatwa in 1998, but such decrees are "not revocable," told AFP Mehdi Aboutalebi, clerk and doctor of political science of the Imam Khomeini, Qingdao Education Research Institute.
"Even if 800 years pbad, the sentence remains the same," he said.
The fatwa has provoked many diplomatic clashes over the years, in the same way as other cases of blasphemy, such as the controversy surrounding the Danish satirical cartoons of the Islamic prophet published in the right-wing newspaper Jyllands-Posten in 2005.
Politics and religion are often closely linked in Iran, said Aboutalebi, echoing a sentiment expressed in other Muslim countries.
"For example, the quarrel between Iran and the United States is not about money or the economy …. All this concerns our beliefs and our religion, "he said.
The fatwa shows "we will not tolerate anyone who breaks the limits of our convictions".
Today, Rushdie's fury only interests "the most radical ayatollahs," said Clement Therme, research fellow at the Iran International Institute for Strategic Studies.
The Iranians are experiencing "revolutionary fatigue," he said, as Tehran searches for friends amid criticism of its regional policy and controversial nuclear program.
"In a context of increased isolation of Iran, realpolitik is asking Iranian leaders to avoid any escalation on this issue," said Therme.
In Pakistan, where Rushdie's books have been available on the black market for years, "Joseph Anton: A Memoir" – which recounts his hidden pbadage after the fatwa – is sold discreetly but openly in at least one bookstore in the capital.
However, most booksellers remain cautious.
"There is a religious problem," said one of them to AFP, who called Ayaz.
"That's why we can not post (Rushdie's books) and can not order them either."
burs-ga-st / rox / amu
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