The deadly knife attack on Indian-born novelist Salman Rushdie on Friday comes after more than 33 years the fatwa was issued against him by Iran's former supreme leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Khomeini issued a fatwa in 1989 for writing The Satanic Verses, which the cleric said insulted Islam.
Know why fatwa was issued
In a fatwa, or religious decree, Khomeini urged, "Muslims of the world rapidly to execute the author and the publishers of the book" so that "no one will any longer dare to offend the sacred values of Islam". A semi-official religious organisation, 15 Khordad Foundation, in Iran raised the bounty for Rushdie from an initial $2.8 million to $3.3 million, a report by The Guardian stated.
The 89-year-old religious leader who had four months to live had then said that anyone who was killed trying to carry out the death sentence should be considered a "martyr" who would go to paradise.
In 2016, Iranian state-run media outlets add $600,000 to a bounty for the killing of Rushdie.
How Rushdie's life changed after the fatwa?
Soon, Rushdie was granted police protection by the British government. The author kept shifting houses under the pseudonym of Joseph Anton for almost 13 years and changing base 56 times in the first six months. "I am gagged and imprisoned," he recalled writing in his diary in his 2012 memoir, "Joseph Anton". "I can't even speak. I want to kick a football in a park with my son. Ordinary, banal life: my impossible dream."
Controversy over The Satanic Verses for being 'Blasphemous'
Viking Penguin published "The Satanic Verses" in September 1988 to critical acclaim. The book, which depicts the London of Conservative British prime minister Margaret Thatcher, is also set in the ancient Mecca, Islam's holiest site. The book explores the adventures of two Indian actors, Gibreel and Saladin, whose hijacked plane explodes over the English Channel.
Both come alive on an English beach and mix with immigrants in London, the story delineates surreal sequences reflecting Rushdie's magic realism style.
The book was deemed blasphemous and sacrilegious by many Muslims including over references to verses alleged by some scholars to have been an early version of the Koran and later removed, as stated in the AFP report. These verses allow for prayers to be made to three pagan goddesses, contrary to Islam's strict belief that there is only one God. Controversially, Rushdie writes of the involvement of a prophet resembling the founder of Islam, Mohammed.
Series of violence
There were several violent attacks that followed after the incident. Even as Rushdie gradually emerged from underground life in 1991, his Japanese translator was killed in July that year. His Italian translator was stabbed a few days later and a Norwegian publisher shot two years later. However, it was never clear if these attacks were in response to Khomeini's call.
In 1993, Islamist protesters torched a hotel in Sivas in central Turkey, some of whom were angered by the presence of writer Aziz Nesin, who sought to translate the novel into Turkish. He escaped but 37 people were killed.
In 1998, the government of Iran's reformist president Mohammad Khatami assured Britain that Iran would not implement the fatwa.
But Khomeini's successor, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said in 2005 he still believed Rushdie was an apostate whose killing would be authorised by Islam.
Khomeini and others insist he had depicted the prophet irreverently.
Protest erupted across Western world
Accusing Britain of "Islamophobia", Iran said its fatwa still stood. There were widespread Muslim protests, especially in Pakistan.
In January 1989, Muslims in Britain's northern city of Bradford burned copies in public. A month later, thousands of Pakistanis attacked the US Information Center in Islamabad, shouting "American dogs" and "hang Salman Rushdie", stated the AFP report. The attack ended up killing five after police opened fire.
Khomeini's fatwa triggered violent protests around the Western world. There were protests in Europe, and London and Tehran broke diplomatic relations for nearly two years.
Many Muslims were furious when Rushdie was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 2007 for his services to literature.
(With inputs from AFP)