Salman Rushdie never made these comments about Muslims; They were falsely attributed to him

In the context of recent attack on Novelist Salman Rushdie, a post attributing to him is being widely shared on social media. The post claims that Salman Rushdie has made these damaging comments about Muslims all over the world. Let’s fact-check the claim made in the post.

Claim: Author Salman Rushdie made these damaging comments on Muslims – “𝑴𝒖𝒔𝒍𝒊𝒎𝒔, 𝒘𝒉𝒆𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒓 𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒚 𝒍𝒊𝒗𝒆 𝒊𝒏 𝑷𝒂𝒌𝒊𝒔𝒕𝒂𝒏 𝒐𝒓 𝑰𝒏𝒅𝒊𝒂, 𝑵𝒊𝒈𝒆𝒓𝒊𝒂 𝒐𝒓 𝑺𝒚𝒓𝒊𝒂, 𝒘𝒉𝒆𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒓 𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒚 𝒂𝒓𝒆 𝒑𝒐𝒐𝒓 𝒐𝒓 𝒓𝒊𝒄𝒉, 𝒊𝒍𝒍𝒊𝒕𝒆𝒓𝒂𝒕𝒆 𝒐𝒓 𝒆𝒅𝒖𝒄𝒂𝒕𝒆𝒅, 𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒊𝒓 𝒐𝒏𝒍𝒚 𝒈𝒐𝒂𝒍 𝒊𝒔 𝒕𝒐 𝒅𝒆𝒔𝒕𝒓𝒐𝒚 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒘𝒉𝒐𝒍𝒆 𝒏𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏 𝒃𝒚 𝒕𝒆𝒓𝒓𝒐𝒓𝒊𝒔𝒎, 𝒃𝒐𝒎𝒃 𝒃𝒍𝒂𝒔𝒕𝒔, 𝒑𝒐𝒑𝒖𝒍𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏 𝒆𝒙𝒑𝒍𝒐𝒔𝒊𝒐𝒏, 𝒓𝒊𝒐𝒕𝒔 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒋𝒊𝒉𝒂𝒅 𝒊𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒏𝒂𝒎𝒆 𝒐𝒇 𝑰𝒔𝒍𝒂𝒎.”

Fact: Salman Rushdie, through a tweet, clarified that he never made any such comments about Muslims. Moreover, there is no mention of any such comments in his books, interviews, and speeches regarding this. Hence, the claim made in the post is FALSE

Upon searching the web with relevant keywords, we found a tweet by Salman Rushdie in which he clarified that he never made any such comments on Muslims. He also urged Twitter to take down the post which is being falsely attributed to him.

Moreover, we searched his books, speeches and interviews and couldn’t find any such statement by him anywhere. However, according to media reports, Rushdie’s book ‘The Satanic Verses’ has been banned in Iran since 1988, as many Muslims consider it to be blasphemous. A year later, Iran’s late leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a fatwa, or edict, calling for Rushdie’s death. A bounty of over $3 million was also offered for anyone who kills Rushdie.

In an interview with Sekhar Gupta in 2013, when asked about the future of Islamic world, Salman Rushdie replied, “Here’s a simple fact. The world of Islam has to enter the modern world. It has to learn how to live in the modern world. This world in which information is free, in which people do not live according to, let’s say, the cultural codes of Arabia in the 7th century. And you can see that there’s a great desire among the young people. At some point, in order to thrive, those countries have to modernise their ideas, their thinking, their institutions and they have to offer their people more liberty”

To sum it up, though Salman Rushdie is critical about Islamic fundamentalism, he never made such comments about Muslims as in the viral post.