How I Hid Salman Rushdie During the Fatwa

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Ron Edmonds / AP Photo Twenty years ago this week, the Ayatollah issued a fatwa against the author of The Satanic Verses. Then I brought him into my house to hide from the assassins.

It was twenty years ago, on St Valentine’s Day, that the Ayatollah Khomeini launched the mother of all prosecutions against Salman Rushdie, author of The Satanic Verses, and his publisher Penguin Books. Like the Red Queen in Alice in Wonderland, the Ayatollah chose to sentence first and try later—through a fatwa proclaiming the death sentence for blasphemy on all connected with publishing the book. One of its translators was in consequence murdered (“executed” as Iran preferred to say); the book was burnt at demonstrations throughout the world (twenty-two protesters were killed by police in Pakistan); and a $3 million bounty was offered for the author’s capture—alive or (preferably) dead. Soon afterwards, Salman came to stay for a short time.

Our bedrooms, the security service explained, offered them a clear view of the approach of any would-be assassin.

We made him welcome. I am his lawyer, and something of an expert on the arcane law of blasphemy, which had been revived shortly before in Britain to prosecute my client Gay News for a poem imagining that Christ was gay. My wife, the author Kathy Lette, is a good friend. More important, as it turned out, was our house in North London, which overlooked a church: our bedrooms, the security service explained, offered them a clear view of the approach of any would-be assassin. Having Salman as a visitor had compensations, and brought many of his left-wing friends into a closer and warmer contact with officers of the Special Branch than they ever thought likely or even healthy. The goodwill flowed both ways: the police enjoyed the literary company rather more than that of the politicians they were normally detailed to protect, and radical writers came to see the point of secret-state surveillance of suspected terrorists. My wife was quick to point out, when we went away with Salman and other friends for country weekends, that while Guardian-reading male feminists put their feet up by the fire, it was always the police who volunteered to wash up. (On the other hand, one of them developed a close friendship with our nanny, excited, we suspected, by the occasional glint of gun metal).

For Salman, this period of hiding in his own city must have become tiresome. In those days, when Osama Bin Laden was a CIA-backed hero fighting for freedom against the Soviets, and Al Qaeda was yet to form, we did not know the murderous extremes of fanatical Islam. What made this experience nerve-wracking was the fact that the fatwa was an exercise in state terrorism: nobody knew what loyalty Khomeini might command among Muslims in England; or whether the Iranians would send a hit squad, hire local gangsters, or just remain content to let the threat of terrorism make us terrified. After a few months of edgy precautions, Rushdie’s coterie of supporters became more relaxed. When Salman came to dinner, however, we kept our curtains drawn.

Everyone was forced to take the fatwa seriously, because the book-burnings (by Muslims who had not read the book) continued up and down the country, as did attacks in other countries on his publishers and translators. We tried to arrange a holiday for him, but the cowards running British Airways refused to fly him–even from London to Edinburgh. (Other airlines, of Arab countries, were all too willing.)

It was not long before certain Muslims decided to flush him out of hiding, by using the one device to which he would have no option but to surrender. Not a gun, but a summons. They began a private prosecution against Rushdie himself and Penguin Books, for the ancient crime of blasphemous libel. The magistrate refused to issue their summons, on the curious but correct grounds that it was only a crime to blaspheme against Christianity. The Muslim lawyers appealed and I duly prepared to represent the author in court. The police helpfully informed me that I was now classified as a “potential target – grade 3.” This grade was not high enough to qualify for protection but sufficient to receive some security tips, like how to tie a mirror to a broomstick and look underneath my car for bombs. (We actually tried this and my wife wailed, “but it all looks like a bomb under there”.)

One tip that did stick in my mind was that grade 3-ers should under no circumstances draw attention to the fact that they were potential targets, because then they might become real ones. It might not occur to the Times–reading Iranian terrorist that the barrister representing Rushdie would be a satisfactory substitute for his client, unless some further news item put the idea into his head. The same advice was given to the judges: while this case lasts, don’t advertise yourselves as potential targets.