An Iranian foundation has praised the American who attacked writer Salman Rushdie last year, causing serious injuries, and said it would reward him with 1,000 square meters of farmland, Reuters and Agerpres reported.

Salman Rushdie, 75, lost the sight in one eye and the use of one hand after being attacked by a 24-year-old Shiite Muslim man from New Jersey at a literary festival held near Lake Erie in western New York in August 2022.

“We are deeply grateful for the brave act of a young American who made Muslims happy by blinding Rushdie in one eye and leaving him without the use of one hand,” said Mohammad Esmail Zara’i, secretary of the Imam Khomeini Fatwa Implementation Fund.

“Rushdi is now nothing more than a living martyr, and in honor of this brave act, approximately 1,000 square meters of agricultural land will be given to this man or any of his legal representatives,” Zarai added.

The attack came 33 years after Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, then Iran’s supreme leader, issued a fatwa (religious edict) calling on Muslims to kill Rushdie, months after the publication of The Satanic Verses.

Some Muslims believed that some passages in this novel, partly inspired by the life of the Prophet Muhammad, were blasphemous.

Iran has never issued a fatwa against Salman Rushdie

Salman Rushdie, who was born in India to a Kashmiri Muslim family, lived on a bounty for his murder and spent nine years under British police protection.

Although the pro-reform government of Iranian President Mohammad Khatami distanced itself from the fatwa in the late 1990s, the multimillion-dollar bounty on Rushdie’s head continued to rise and the fatwa was never lifted.

Khomeini’s successor, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was banned from Twitter in 2019 for saying the fatwa against Rushdie was “irrevocable”.

The person accused of attacking the writer pleaded not guilty to attempted murder and assault.