Salman Rushdie/Michael Servetus

400+ years ago and yesterday: killing a man for his books

Salman Rushdie was stabbed for his writing on August 12, 2022, by Hadi Matar who is of Iranian heritage.¹ At this writing Rushdie is on a ventilator unable to speak. will likely lose one eye; the nerves in his arm were severed; his liver was stabbed and damaged.’

For more than 30 years Rushdie has lived under an execution order. On 14 February 1989, Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa against him and anyone involved in publishing his The Satanic Verses. Muslims accused Rushdie of blasphemy and mocking their faith.²

Rushdie went into hiding for nine years. The book’s Japanese translator was stabbed to death in 1991. Its Turkish translator narrowly escaped an Islamist arson attack in 1993, which claimed the lives of 37 others.³ In Norway, William Nygaard, head of the Norwegian publishing company Aschehoug, which published The Satanic Verses, was shot three times by Lebanese man, Khaled Moussawi and an unnamed former Iranian diplomat.⁴

Michael Servetus was burnt Oct. 27, 1553 on a pyre of his own books.

"It is an invention of the devil, an infernal falsity for the destruction of all Christianity." -Servetus on infant baptism.

Michael Servetus, anti-Trinitarian thinker, was burnt on Oct. 27, 1553, on a pyre of his own books.⁵ He was the first European to correctly describe the function of pulmonary circulation and was a polymath versed in many sciences: mathematics, astronomy and meteorology, geography, human anatomy, medicine and pharmacology.

Michael Servetus was denounced by Calvin. At his trial, Servetus was condemned on two counts for spreading and preaching Nontrinitarianism, and anti-paedobaptism (anti-infant baptism).⁶

1. Tom Slater. (August 13, 2022. The attack on Salman Rushdie is an attack on us all: We must stop giving in to this evil. Time to fight for freedom of speech. Spiked.

2. Christopher Hitchens. Assassins of the Mind. Vanity Fair, February 2009.

3. Joseph Anton: A Memoir is an autobiographical book Salman Rushdie . It was published in September 2012 by Random House. Rushdie used "Joseph Anton" as a pseudonym while in hiding following the fatwa that had been issued by Ayatollah Khomeini, the spiritual and political leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, in the midst of criticism by some Muslims and a widespread controversy over Rushdie's novel The Satanic Verses (1988).

4. Pryser Libell, Henrik and Richard Martyn-Hemphill (10 October 2018). "25 Years Later, Norway Files Charges in Shooting of 'Satanic Verses' Publisher". New York Times.

5. John McCafferty on Twitter: "13 Aug 1553: Arrest of Michael Servetus anti-Trinitarian thinker at #Geneva #otd He was burnt on 27 Oct on a pyre of his own books (McGovern) https://t.co/6j9Xi9u7Tb" / Twitter

6. Roland Herbert Bainton (1953). Hunted Heretic: The Life and Death of Michael Servetus, 1511-1553. The Beacon Press.