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Salman Rushdie’s agent says the author has lost sight in one eye and the use of a hand as he recovers from an attack from a man who rushed the stage at an August literary event in western New York, according to a published report. Literary agent Andrew Wylie told the Spanish language newspaper El Pais in an article published Saturday that Rushdie suffered three serious wounds to his neck and 15 more wounds to his chest and torso in the attack that took away sight in an eye and left a hand incapacitated. Rushdie, 75, spent years in hiding...

Author Salman Rushdie was stabbed during a speech in western New York on Friday morning and rushed to a hospital for treatment. Governor Kathy Hochul said at an afternoon event that he is alive and credited a state trooper with saving him. Rushdie was about to give a lecture at the Chautauqua Institution in Chautauqua when a man rushed the stage and attacked him, the Associated Press reports. The assailant, who has not been identified, was subdued and detained by police. Rushdie was airlifted to a nearby hospital, according to a statement by state police that said the author had...

Novelist Salman Rushdie was reportedly stabbed before giving a speech in Chautauqua, New York. An Associated Press reporter witnessed a man storm the stage at the Chautauqua Institution and begin punching or stabbing Rushdie as he was being introduced. The author was taken or fell to the floor, and the man was restrained.

I explore Surah 53 of the Koran, which poses problems for Muslims who continue to insist that Islam is a monotheistic, Abrahamic faith.

Saudi Arabia has summoned the Czech ambassador over a coming translation of Salman Rushdie’s “The Satanic Verses.” A Saudi Foreign Ministry official said the ambassador was asked Friday to censor the coming Czech translation because the book “distorts the true religion of Islam.” The official spoke on condition of anonymity as he wasn’t authorized to speak to journalists. …

Still pursuing al-Lat after all these years. “The statue was dedicated to the pre-Islamic Arabian goddess Al-Lat, who was one of the three chief goddesses of Mecca along with Manat and al-Uzza.” The Qur’an says: “So have you considered al-Lat and al-Uzza? And Manat, the third, the other one? Is the male for you and for Him the female? That, then, is an unjust division.” (53:19-22) This passage is ridiculing the idea that these three goddesses are the daughters of Allah, for that would mean that the deity only had daughters while human being have sons, who were assumed to...

The Iranian clergy has revived Salman Rushdie’s death fatwa 25 years after it was issued over his “blasphemous” Satanic Verses. On February 14, 1989, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini called on all Muslims to murder the award-winning author and anyone involved in the publication of his work. This Friday, senior cleric Ahmad Khatami reminded worshipers at the Tehran Friday prayer that the “historical fatwa” is “as fresh as ever”. He added that even if Rushdie repents, it will not affect the sentence. …

Salman Rushdie can joke these days about the fatwa that put him into hiding for nigh on a decade. “It wasn’t the first time they didn’t like what I’d written; just the first time they’d tried to kill me. But I wasn’t writing for the mullahs. I didn’t think they were my target audience,” he quipped at the Telegraph Hay Festival. “The only thing worse than a bad review from the Ayatollah Khomeini would be a good review from the Ayatollah Khomeini.” The author was keen to stress that a lot of people rather liked The Satanic Verses. … Rushdie’s...

Choudary: Refuses to discuss his dissolute youth At 39, Anjem Choudary should be a symbol of success for his peers. Born into the working-class family of a market trader in Welling on the outskirts of London, he has risen - thanks to the opportunities offered by the British education system - to become a qualified lawyer. But it is unlikely his old school will be inviting him to be guest speaker on prize-giving day. Their former pupil is not famous for his elegant oratory in court. Instead, the articulate Mr Choudary preaches hatred and murder in the streets of Britain...

(MEMRI)- Following are excerpts from an interview with Walid Muhammad Hajj a Sudanese released from Guantanamo Prison, which aired on Al-Jazeera TV on December 12, 2010: Walid Muhammad Hajj: Yes. The most common method to wear down the brothers was witchcraft. Interviewer: How did they do this? Walid Muhammad Hajj: There were, of course, Jews among the [staff of] the Guantanamo Base, and they would set traps for the guys. Interviewer: Give me an example of witchcraft. Walid Muhammad Hajj: Witchcraft was used on most of the guys. Interviewer: They would cast a spell on them? Walid Muhammad Hajj: Yes,...

Yesterday, I called on Christian politicians who had opposed, on the grounds of “sensitivity,” the Islamic community center in Lower Manhattan to denounce the insensitivity of the pastor provocateur Terry Jones, who is planning to burn Qurans at his Gainesville, Florida, church on September 11. I also called out Sarah Palin and Newt Gingrich by name. Today, Sarah Palin, at least, weighed in. On Twitter, she wrote, “Koran Burning Is Insensitive, Unnecessary; Pastor Jones, Please Stand Down.” On Facebook, she spelled out her position in more detail: Book burning is antithetical to American ideals. People have a constitutional right to...

With a naked photoshoot coming up Indian model Padma Lakshmi could have been forgiven for putting herself on a strict diet. But the 38-year-old, who is author Salman Rushdie's ex, had no such concerns. 'I think I look better when I have a little bit of weight on - my breasts are fuller, and I’m curvier than when I’m at my thinnest,' she tells this month's edition of U.S. magazine Allure.

Khomeini figured: Why import the false ideologies of a failing civilization? Doesn't it make more sense to export Islamism to the dying West? And, for a guy dismissed by most of us as crazy, Khomeini made a lot of sense. The Rushdie fatwa established the ground rules: The side that means it gets away with it. Mobs marched through Britain calling for the murder of a British subject – and, as a matter of policy on the grounds of multicultural sensitivity, the British police shrugged and looked the other way. One reader in England recalled one demonstration at which he...

Lores Rizkalla hosts a debate between Dinesh D'Souza, author of The Enemy at Home and Robert Spencer of Jihad Watch. Listen this Sunday evening, January 28th at 7pm PST (that's 10pm EST). Listen to the Lores Rizkalla show LIVE on-line here - http://www2.krla870.com/listen/ --- ---

Lores Rizkalla talks with Robert Spencer, author of " The Truth About Mohammed", this Sunday, January 14th LIVE at 7pm Pacific on KRLA 870am. (link to listen on-line below) Book Description In this startling new book, New York Times bestselling author Robert Spencer, provides a warts-and-all portrait of the Prophet of Islam and draws out what his life implies for reforming Islam and repulsing Islamic terrorists. Spencer relies solely on primary sources considered reliable by Muslims and evaluates modern biographies to show how Muhammad has been changed for Western audiences, lulling them into consoling but false conclusions. From the Inside...

Novelist Salman Rushdie will join the faculty of Emory University and donate his archive to the institution, marking the writer's first extended relationship with a university, Emory officials said Friday. Rushdie will join the school in the spring of 2007 and lead a graduate seminar, participate in undergraduate courses and deliver lectures during his five-year appointment. "We'll have one of modern literature's giants on our faculty," said Emory President James Wagner. "And students will have access to his records - and the man himself. We're very, very pleased." Rushdie, the author of "The Satanic Verses," was forced into hiding for...

Muslims have little integrity demanding respect for our faith if we don't show it for others. When have we demonstrated against Saudi Arabia's policy to prevent Christians and Jews from stepping on the soil of Mecca? They may come for rare business trips, but nothing more. As long as Rome welcomes non-Christians and Jerusalem embraces non-Jews, we Muslims have more to protest against than cartoons. Fine, many Muslims will retort, but we're talking about the prophet Muhammad - Allah's final and therefore perfect messenger. However, Islamic tradition holds that the prophet was a human being who made mistakes. It's precisely...

The subscription site, STRATFOR or Strategic Forecasting, Inc. - issues almost daily a TERRORISM INTELLIGENCE REPORT with a self described "track record on accurate, insightful global intelligence and analysis earning itself a reputation as the world’s most respected private intelligence company". Strafor's Fred Burton updates the ongoing cartoon controversy (02.21.2006)as follows : "Fatwas and Rewards: An Inflection Point in the Cartoon Controversy" (I have highlighted key points received today via e-mail). "Two minor Shariah courts in India's Uttar Pradesh state have issued fatwas calling for the death of a Danish cartoonist who drew caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed. The fatwas,...

Three-and-a-half years after 9/11, you would think that we Americans would get it: Muslims take their religion very, very seriously. Now 17 people are dead, Afghanistan is on edge, and there are protests in Pakistan, our most vulnerable and valuable ally among Muslim states — in part, it seems, because of six words in a brief item in Newsweek magazine. The offending passage, a small but colorful detail in a story on the investigation of abuses at the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay, reads in full: "Among the previously unreported cases, sources tell Newsweek: interrogators, in an attempt to...

Mohammedans don't like to be called Mohammedans — that smacks too much of terms such as Christians. As everybody knows, Christians worship Christ as a god. Mohammedans don't want people to think they worship Mohammed (Arabic, Muhammad A - 'Praiseworthy'), and so dislike referring to their religion as Mohammedanism. However, Confucians don't worship Confucius (Chinese, K'ung Fu-tsu — 'K'ung [a family name] the Grand Master'), even though their system is called Confucianism and often is considered to be a religion. Even so, Mohammedans don't want Mohammed to be viewed as a parallel of the Christ of the Christians. Mohammed was...